abroad 3

 Third of three posts about our 25th anniversary trip to England/Scotland/Ireland/Wales:

Later on April 22, we went to the Glyndwr Vineyard in Wales. The vineyard was neat, but the real attraction was the owner and host, who was this absolutely bonkers upper-class Brit fellow. I hope I'm descended from the same stock as this guy.

Of course he has llamas on his vineyard. Why not?

Sheep, too.

He's who I want to be when I grow up.

April 23, last day of the tour. To Bath:

Before we left, Laura OLPH asked me to try to bring her back some Mint Imperials, a kind of candy apparently sold in Britain. I had looked throughout the trip, and not found any... but in Bath was a candy vendor who specialized in the old-style stuff. He had them! So I have a small supply to deliver to Laura, when next I see her.

Then to Stonehenge. 

We would never have made a special trip just to go to Stonehenge. But I found it moving (and still do); I'm glad we went. I'm about as un-spiritual as they come these days, but there was something I can't explain away about Stonehenge.

We had one more night in the hotel, and the plane was leaving late the next day, and the Tate Britain was an easy walk away. So:

John Singer Sargent. 

Edward Burne-Jones. I'd never heard of him, and wanted to remember him.

There was a special exhibition of fairy paintings.The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke is perhaps the most famous:

And now we're back, dealing with real life. And now I've got these posts out of the way, and can go back to normal anxiety and unrealistic self-expectation.

more retirement

This post turned out longer than I thought it would. I was going to type in some kind of permission to skip it (HAH! As if you needed that!), but I think I'd like any feedback you can provide, so I'd be grateful if you read through it. 

Are bitmoji's still a thing?

Today, December 1, is the first day I'm actually jobless in retirement (I stopped working on November 18, and the remainder of the month was paid leave: mostly various days that had to be taken or I would lose them, and yesterday as a vacation day, because some obscure Rutgers or UBHC rule forbids taking any of those types of leave as your last day of work). I haven't been sleeping well. The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I are both persuaded that the insomnia has something to do with the retirement process, but I have not been kept awake by wrenching, physically-painful anxiety as I have in the past; I just wake up, and it's clear I'm not going back to sleep for a while. So, rather than disturb the slumbers of TEW, I get up and do stuff on the computer, or read, or something. I can usually get back to sleep after an hour, or maybe 90 minutes.

The one thing I thought was going to be a major source of anxiety has not proven so (although I'm not completely free from concern about it). I expect a paycheck for two more days... and then I'm dependent on my savings, my retirement plan (also mostly savings, although I have two tiny pensions from the old world), and Social Security. I have the promise from Social Security that yes, the money will be coming... but not until the second Tuesday in January (there's a wonderfully Byzantine rule about when the payments from Social Security come to you, having to do with the date during the month on which you were born). But since it hasn't come yet, there's the nagging fear that it's not going to. (I've just now checked, and the two pension payments, due today, are, indeed, in the appropriate account. They appear with reassuring regularity.)

Three other things are floating around in the retirement-anxiety ether. The first is fear of the onset of dementia. When my father died almost a decade ago, my mother gave up all the friends and connections she had in Asheville (to where they had moved after my father's retirement, and which she loved), and moved into a senior-living home in Buffalo, to be near my sister (I was completely left out of these discussions, as I had been on a number of other family decisions, but that is a rant for another, also undoubtedly long and verbose, post). Although mother engaged in a few of the activities offered by the facility, as time went on, the offerings diminished, and my mother did not seek others (or even attend the few that were available). It's clear to me that she gave up on her life and was (and is) waiting to die. She has asked several times, "Why am I still alive?" Neither of her parents, nor her older sister, lived to anything like the age she is now.

Her memory has gone. She suffers from dementia. I'm convinced it's because she disconnected herself from life... and that has become a lesson to me: it is my intention to keep engaged, to meet new people and remain connected to current friends, to learn new things. There is good research showing that,, along with a physically healthy lifestyle (including nutrition and activity), engagement and intellectual challenge are protective factors against dementia. Well, I'm gonna do my best.

Which brings me to the second anxiety-related issue. As part of keeping engaged, I decided to look for a job at a bike shop, and I appear to have an opportunity at Sourland Cycles. I had hoped to be a mechanic, but, while it's true I've built my bikes from parts, and I'm a good meatball mechanic to get you home should something untoward happen on a ride, my skills are not at the point where I can do that at this store. It's been humbling to meditate on this over the past several days: after 36 years in the substance-abuse field, including obtaining a masters degree and a license; after experience in treatment, training, and prevention in that field; after having the respect of coworkers and colleagues... I'm starting off at the bottom of a new field again. I'm not an authority; I'm a tyro.

The third thought that intrudes: I'm not working now. I'm living off a "handout", Social Security (although I paid into the system for over four decades -- I worked for seven years in the insurance industry prior to the career change to substance abuse) and my savings. Am I a drain on society? Am I still contributing to the greater good? I've been rushing to keep promises I made to address things after I retire, whether commitments to friends, or "honey do" chores at home (there are painting supplies in the other room for a bathroom I'll probably address later today). Who am I? Who are my people? Am I doing enough for them that they aren't going to cast me out?

So there we are. I'm not going to be able to button this post up with a neat ending (as I think I like to do), because I'm still in the middle of these thoughts. There will be more to come, I'm sure.

phone contacts

 Among my phone contacts, I have:

• At least two who are deceased,;
• The estranged boyfriend of a coworker; 
• Several contacts from a volunteer service I haven't done in four or five years;
• Coworkers from previous jobs, whom I have not seen or heard from since;
• Staff who have since departed from my condo management company;
• A dentist I went to once, who I think I read has since lost his license to practice;
• A housekeeper who fired us;
• The guy who did my mother's taxes. He has since retired;
• The guy who moved my mother into her assisted-living facility, like, four years ago;
• The Philadelphia Parking Commissioner, who offered me a parking space for a day in Philadelphia three or four years ago. Is he still in office?
• Two old bosses, who, together, fired me from my previous job;
• A guy I haven't ridden bikes with in maybe ten years. He had a child, who's probably in fourth or fifth grade now;
• A contact that's simply a number I don't recognize.

I can't bring myself to delete any of them.

seein' mom, and cape may

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I took off this week; so went up to Buffalo to see my mother. Her memory's unreliable these days; she doesn't always remember that she's got a brother Jim AND a son Jim; while she usually remembers that I'm married, she hasn't remembered Regina's name in months; she keeps complaining that my sister is angry and won't call, despite the sister's daily phone contact.

My relationship with my parents was complicated, We went, I'll admit, because TEW felt sorry for my mother (more so than I felt). TEW brought an album from our wedding, and they had a happy time going through it.

We also dropped in on my sister and her husband (or, more properly, met them at dinner, along with my brother-in-law's brother and his wife, and another couple who are friends of theirs). We were invited to a birthday party for the other couple the next night. TEW couldn't think of a graceful way to get out, so we went... but that was weird. (On the other hand, they really were most welcoming.)

That was Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, we drove back home, stopped for a few minutes to swap bags (we had pre-packed separate bags for this part of the trip) and loaded up the bikes, and headed for Cape May.

We rode bikes every day, using a route adapted from Tom H's Road Biking NJ book. You can see the route I set up here, and our rides for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. (We added miles - some not reported here - and shortened, as we needed).

 TEW wanted to buy a pair of gloves, so we stopped in at a shop that had this wall screen made of bike parts built into wheels. I love it.

TEW loves being at the water anywhere, and I like Cape May particularly; it attracts geezers (as opposed to the youngsters at Seaside or the families at Point Pleasant, although there are some of both), and I love the Victoriana; there's a Renaissance-fair feeling to it - not authentic, but fun, nonetheless.

WE stayed at an AirBNB.

We also walked through the Nature Conservancy bird sanctuary on Sunset Boulevard.

And, of course, we ate good seafood, and almost enough Ben & Jerry's. And I finally got some Cape May fudge. I'm glad I did, but I won't have to do that again.

off facebook

 I'm done with Facebook. See this post.

I can't justify using the platform, just for the sake of the internet traffic. More info at the post.

and on currying favor

 The good opinion of a fool is not worth having.

gotta stop doin' that

 I have got to stop looking at Facebook.

accretion and attrition ride, a personal statement with limited meaning, and some other news

When you have a picture like that, you pretty much have to lead off with it.

I got some complaints from my Usual Suspects who ride in to my ride starts that the Claremont School, where I've been starting, is just not convenient to ride to. But I'm reluctant to start at Blackwells Mills/Six Mile, where I used to start, because it's packed with people going on the multi-terrain trail. It's hard to find parking there.

I came up with a possible solution: I'd still start at Claremond School... but I knew I'd either be passing Blackwells Mills/Six Mile (if we were going in that direction) or the Griggstown Firehouse on Canal Road (in the other direction), and we could pick up riders-in at one of those spots.

It worked well. Bill B and Lynne W drove to Claremont School, as did Madhu A, and Bob N rode there.

Dave H and Laura OLPH rode to the Griggstown Firehouse... but got there early, and met us on the road  between there and the school. But it would have worked.

And then, taking it further than I intended, Eddie H met us in Kingston, even further along the route.

With the relaxation of the sign-in rules, there was not a bit of bump of interruption as we proceeded. I like this. This can work.

Because of the heat (and the fact that this was my third ride in as many days), the pace was a bit low, but I got no complaints about the pace from my riders. (Laura complained of back pain, and rolled off home when we got to Princeton, but that's a different issue.) We went down to Princeton, across the hills of Pretty Brook, up Bayberry and then Moores Mill/Mount Rose, and to the Boro Bean... where we met Judy M's ride.

Bike pics! (It's been a while since I posted any of these...)

The excellent Martin G got this pic of me...

...and I asked Dave H to get some of me in this jersey:

And there's a story in that, for this Independence Day, COVID-19, Black-Lives-Matter weekend (in a very small way). I bought the frame for the bike I rode today, the Krakow Monster, from Kim's in New Brunswick. At the time I was buying there frequently, and they gave me good discounts; I bought their jersey (shown above) to support 'em. A person, best described as one of the "basket of deplorables" that Hilary Clinton spoke about in 2016, asked me if I wanted to wear this jersey after all the sexual assaults (he used a different term) that were going on in New Brunswick. I asked what that had to do with my purchase, and he just repeated his remarks. I've had little to do with him since... and I've decided that if that kind of problem was going on (or is), all the more reason to spend money at that shop and in that neighborhood. I'm proud to wear this jersey.

</rant>

After the Bean, Dave H left for home, and then Eddie H did.

But there are two pieces of important news: the first is that the Boro Bean is open for take out, AND will let you use the toilet.

The second is this: Lynne W tells me that she and Bill B are getting married. Hooray!

And, except for linking to the ride page, I think that's where I want to end this post.