Retirement Confidential

Move over, tuna

Ever since I wrote a post about sardines and decided they don’t scare me anymore, I’ve been on a quest to sample what’s available. They’re super-good for you, they’re sustainable and I was surprised to discover I like them!

We love anchovies, especially Ortiz, and we’ve always had a can or two of Beach Cliff sardines in the pantry. Those were my starter sardines. Don, a reader, commented that he liked King Oscar. I hunted those down – found them at Safeway – and they were indeed delicious.

Then I bought a cookbook, The Magic of Tinned Fish by Chris McDade. What a fantastic book! Many of us view tinned fish as snack food, but Chris makes the case for using premium products mostly from Spain and Portugal in a wide variety of dishes home cooks will appreciate.

The book includes a page with recommended brands, as well as websites where you can purchase these specialty items, but I wanted to see what I could find at my neighborhood grocery stores. I had to shop around, but I found Matiz wild-caught sardines in olive oil, as well at Cole’s wild mackerel in olive oil.

The Matiz sardines are absolutely fantastic. My new favorite brand. Sometimes the other brands look almost beat up, but these are plump and pristine. The taste is perfect. I ate them plain, right out of the can, but I can’t wait to try some of his pasta recipes.

Next, I wanted to try the mackerel. The author makes the case for abandoning tuna, which is over-fished and not sustainable. Dale, who grew up in Maine, was skeptical. He said mackerel is oily and fishy, and I was not going to like it.

Chris, the author, says you can use mackerel interchangeably with tuna fish, and he also features it in recipes, including pasta, salads and soups. I made simple mackerel salad today. Just some mayo and diced pickle, and it was delicious. It tasted pretty much like tuna. Dale was shocked at how good it was.

Prices vary, but the better stuff costs more. At my store, a 5-ounce can of Bumble Bee solid white albacore in water was about $2.99, while a 4.4-ounce can of Cole’s mackerel in olive oil was $3.99. A 3.75-ounce can of King Oscar sardines was $2.59, while the 4.2 ounce can of Matiz sardines was $3.95.

I’m not banning tuna from our household, but I can see myself substituting with mackerel on a regular basis. I would definitely buy the King Oscar sardines again, but those Matiz sardines are quite special.

The cost seemed reasonable to me, but some tinned fish can get pricey. Fresh, in some cases, is cheaper. Still, I like the idea of having fish in the pantry, and over time, I would like to try the premium brands of smoked trout, smoked oysters, squid, mussels, whole clams and octopus.

In other snobby food news, this article from the Washington Post says there’s a champagne shortage. If you have a favorite for the holidays, start looking for it now.

Would you do it for love?

For most, a job forces us to be competitive, whether we like it or not. We crawl our way to the top of the pile to make more money, validate our self-worth and provide for our families.

Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between competition against others and competition against ourselves. When all is said and done, there might not be much of a difference – a standard of being better than someone else or better than you can ever hope to be?

And then you retire, and you still have this competitive drive all dressed up and nowhere to go. We may channel that energy into sports, hobbies, side gigs or travel, and like so many others, we often compete for attention on social media. We want to be good at something. We want to be seen.

I’m beginning to think the holy grail of retirement – or maybe just aging in general – is choosing to become less competitive and more mindful. While competition can be motivating, it’s all too easy to judge yourself harshly. I’ve always been way too hard on myself, and at this point in my life, I’m trying to focus on enjoying the experience more than the outcome.

For example, golf is one of my passions. I play in a women’s league at a local club. The rules are quite persnickety and the prizes are meager, yet competition is fierce. Bragging rights, I guess. I took pride in suggesting I didn’t care about winning, although I freely admitted I didn’t want to be DFL – dead fucking last.

What a surprise to wake up and realize if you care about losing, you care about winning. Even striving to be in the middle of the pack is its own little contest.

All that said, I’m not suggesting people abandon competition completely. It’s not about giving up. I still like the idea of challenging ourselves to do exceptional things. But I definitely think retirement is the right time to moderate our expectations and find new ways to feel rewarded.

Try to forget about winning or losing. Be kind to yourself no matter where you rank in the hierarchy of achievements. Focus on the pleasures of the game itself, your interactions with people, sharing your work with others or the creative process of making art or putting a business project together.

At the end of the day, whatever drives you, ask yourself this: would you do it for love?

We’re from the government, and we’re here to help

Ralph, my indoor cannabis plant, complete with cat-proof fencing.

I turned 66 in September, and my Full Retirement Age for Social Security is 66 and two months. After much great discussion right here on this very blog, I decided to file for benefits.

It was easy to do online, however, I wasn’t sure how they calculated the month of November. I didn’t want to mess this up, so I adjusted the timing to be sure I was absolutely positively Full Retirement Age and opted to receive my first payment in January.

Imagine my surprise when the phone rang, and it was a most pleasant woman from the Social Security Administration. She asked why I chose January. I explained my paranoia and said I figured January would ensure I didn’t have money deducted because I filed too soon.

She laughed and said this happens all the time, and that’s why she was calling. If I reach Full Retirement Age anytime in November, I could get my first check in December. Deal! She made the adjustment, and now I’m good to go.

I have to admit, I was reminded of my working days when suited-up people arrived in the hinterlands and said, “Hi, we’re from Corporate, and we’re here to help.”

But this time it was the government, and it appears to be true.

Thanksgiving

I’m not sure what Thanksgiving is going to look like this year. We’re getting new cabinet faces in the kitchen and a new countertop, and then all new flooring downstairs. Our contractor was supposed to start in September, but now he’s scheduled to start next week. I figure this could run into November or even later.

Oh, well. We can always celebrate on a different day. Even with just the two of us, celebration means cooking. We do a big turkey and eventually eat every last bite of it. Some gets made into delicious leftovers and a whole breast goes into the freezer.

Dessert is the big question. Last year I made a command decision and went with pumpkin cheesecake. We both loved it, but Dale likes apple pie, and I figure it’s his turn to choose. I could probably tell the story of my life through apple pie – moderate success, excruciating failures. Bad crust, ill temper.

All my recipes have notes about what worked, what didn’t. It would seem I could get this right. This year, I’m going to gather my recipes and create a new one. Danger, danger, Will Robinson.

You may recall I bought a steel pie pan recently. One might trot that out for apple pie, however, the pan sucked. I thought the corrugated bottom would increase crispiness, but I found it did quite the opposite. Some parts didn’t connect with the steel, and they remained soggy.

One pie made me so mad, I just threw the whole thing away, pan and all. Now, it’s just me and my Pyrex. As it was meant to be.

The year of the osis

For me, this has been the year of the osis. Osteoporosis, spinal stenosis. While I do have some lower back pain, it’s not really in my back, more like in my buttocks. And it’s actually quite manageable. I still swim, walk, play golf and do weights. Sitting is the worst.

I did visit a pain management specialist upon the recommendation of my primary care physician, and it was pretty much a waste of time. She showed me the MRI results and basically guessed spinal stenosis is causing my pain. Because there has to be some explanation, right?

Steroid injections are an option, but I declined. It’s just not that bad, and she said it might not work and even if it does, the benefits don’t last all that long. A little short of sales skills. She was amazed I do all I do with the degree of stenosis she saw on the MRI. Which tells me maybe that’s not the cause.

Presumably, the human back hasn’t changed much in at least 500 years. And we didn’t always have MRIs to point the finger. People didn’t know what they didn’t know, and somehow, they managed to plod on, osis notwithstanding.

Cat-proofing cannabis

Finally, in the continuing adventures of a gentlewoman cannabis farmer, our cat, Riley, discovered the joys of destruction and killed my last seedling. There’s no THC in it at that point, so it’s not like he’s a kitty stoner. He just liked digging up the young plant and chomping on it.

Many thanks to Dale, who built me a cat-proof fence. Now, Riley sits there and stares at it. Weeping, one kitty tear at a time. How. Could. This. Happen.

We actually have two plants. Our outdoor plant, Steve, didn’t get enough sun and barely grew. However, there are a couple of nice buds, which are about ready for harvest. Next year, I will grow my outdoor plant in a container and put it where there’s lots of sun.

My indoor plant, Ralph, is coming along nicely with his new protective barrier. His power comes from a south-facing window and a 450-watt LED grow light.

I actually don’t use much cannabis, except for my homemade balm, but I enjoy the challenge of growing it. It’s a harmless (and in many places legal) retirement hobby for those of us who aren’t much into travel. You can always stay home with your plant and your Pyrex.

If you’re at all interested, I got started with a kit from A Pot for Pot. Easy and cost-effective. My best indoor plant yielded 30 grams, which is a nice little stash of weed, if one is so inclined.

Happy feet

One of the greatest things about retirement, especially for women, is we no longer have to wear uncomfortable shoes. Or worry about a golf tan.

I tried hard to find work-appropriate footwear that didn’t torture my feet but mostly came up short. No stilettos for me. For some, those thin tapering towers are considered “power” shoes, but they just seemed ridiculous.

Not that I didn’t like expensive shoes. I threw a lot of money at fancy footwear. Ballet flats were chic but never supportive enough for me. Designer “comfort” heels were marginally better, but oh, they sure did look nice. I did that for a couple of years when I was trying to compete with the big girls before I said no more and switched to shoes with thick platform soles and fat rubber-like heels.

Toward the end, when I figured no one was looking anymore, I took to wearing my Birkenstock London’s with black tights and pleated skirts. Somehow, it worked. Or at least I thought it did!

These days I wear Hoka One One for sports and Birkenstock for pretty much everything else. I do have some beautiful low-heeled boots and will wear them with skinny jeans tucked in for winter wine tasting, as that seems to be the outfit of choice for such endeavors. Seriously, it’s like a uniform.

Birkies last practically forever, so it’s not like I needed new shoes, but dag, I saw the Kyoto and was smitten. I kept putting it off, and they’d be out of stock by the time I was ready to buy. When I found black in my size, I went for it.

I love this shoe. As it gets cooler, I think the new Birkies will look great with leggings or my favorite Headlands Hybrid Cargo Tight from Atheta. My winter staple. I have three pairs and now consider jeans dress attire.

It seems the Kyoto is a popular style. It comes in cool colors, but a lot of sizes are out of stock no matter where you shop – Birkenstock, Zappos, Amazon – all of the above. If I ever see Ochre in my size, resistance is futile.

May happy feet be with you.

I coulda been somebody!

While I don’t miss work, I confess early into my retirement I missed feeling important. Being a director for a large corporation was demanding. Once you got to that level, the company wanted everything you had but taunted us with money and perks to keep people like me crawling back for more.

After a while, you start to think you’re somebody.

Then you join the long list of retirees who used to have big jobs, and you realize no one cares about your glory days. I needed a new mindset, and as I was looking for answers, I stumbled upon this quote in an online forum:

“We were never the somebody we thought. And we are never the nobody we fear.”

For me, that kind of says it all.

Double shot

Yesterday, I got my flu shot and COVID booster at the same time – one in each arm. I didn’t have any problems with the COVID vaccines first time around, but I have a history of fever and chills after getting the flu shot. I used to pre-medicate with Tylenol several days in advance, and that put an end to the chilly willies.

However, I’ve since read you’re not supposed to do that, since they don’t really know how it affects the vaccines. So, I toughed it out, and sure enough, I got fever and chills. Quite the miserable night, but it passed pretty quickly. Both arms are still sore, but I managed to play a little golf today.

COVID has completely stressed me out. I know – take a number, but I believe I’ve been unnecessarily paranoid. Now that I’m boosted and the case rates are going down here in California, I’m going to try hard to lighten up. We still haven’t been to a restaurant, even for outside dining.

Part of the problem is we’re kind of spoiled by our own home cooking, and most restaurants just aren’t that good. Still, a diversion would be nice. The weather is lovely, so maybe we can get our butts out the door and try someone else’s food.

Great British Baking Show

Speaking of food, I am finally getting into the Great British Baking Show. I can’t imagine what took me so long, but I love it. The baking is fantastic, of course, but as a Britophile, I also like the cast of characters.

I’m still watching the first season, so I have lots of shows in the queue. One of the first things I want to try is Mary Berry’s treacle tart.

A fluted tart pan with a removable bottom has been on my wish list for quite some time, and mine arrived today. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? However, I don’t want to get in the trap of making sweets all the time, so I want to try a savory tart first. Or even a quiche. I’ve always made quiche in a regular pie pan, but the tart version just looks so inviting.

Cucko for coconut

We are still raving about the coconut layer cake I made for my birthday. Individual pieces are stowed safely in the freezer, but it seems someone has been eating them.

Dale said it is the best cake he’s ever had, and I have to agree. I called it the Thrilla in Manila. I mean, I know that’s a famous boxing match, but I just think it’s fun to say. And it could describe cake, right?

He said, no. It’s the Thrilla with Vanilla!

Sometimes it takes very little to amuse us.

Cooking with pumpkin

There’s a hint of fall in the air, and my thoughts turn to pumpkin. I’m not into pumpkin-flavored coffee or candles that smell like pumpkin pie, but I like both sweet and savory dishes made with this versatile winter squash.

I bought a magazine with pumpkin recipes at the grocery store and found another pumpkin cookbook at the library. So many tasty dishes to choose from! Some of the recipes call for canned pumpkin and some for fresh. I really hadn’t thought about using canned pumpkin for savory dishes, but it’s used commonly in soup, stew and pasta.

After careful study, I narrowed my list to the following:

Pumpkin and Italian Sausage Soup
Pumpkin and Beef Stew
Kale and Pumpkin Soup
Lentil Pumpkin Soup with Spinach and Smoked Sausage

I bought a cooking pumpkin at the farmer’s market, so that was sort of my turning point. I wanted to make something with big chunks of fresh pumpkin and went with Pumpkin and Beef Stew.

The recipe is also an opportunity to use the Instant Pot as a slow cooker, something I’ve been eager to try.

Anyway, the stew is cooking now. I started it early so if the slow cooker doesn’t work to my satisfaction, I have time to finish it on the cooktop. I made a fresh loaf of sourdough to go with.

I had some leftover beef but not enough to save for anything special, so I decided to cut it in chunks, brown it and then freeze it for stock later. It’s in the pan cooling now, and Dale walked upstairs and said he’ll just have that. I asked if he had a bite and he said, “Oh yes. Several.”

Nothing like little nibbles of hard-seared meat.

I like the recipes in the cookbook from the library, but I refuse to buy another cookbook! I think I’ll photocopy those that appeal to me the most.

Other recipes I want to try include Pumpkin Fudge, Wild Mushroom Pumpkin Risotto, Cheddar-Pumpkin Tart and White Bean, Chicken and Pumpkin Chili. I suppose we run the risk of getting pumpkined-out, but I’m willing to take a chance.

Yesterday, I was talking with my golf buddies about what we’ve been cooking. It seems like a happy and politically neutral topic to me. They’re both men who don’t cook, so I probably need to find new material. One guy said, “I can’t believe you’re not as big as a house.”

I said, well, some of it is genetics, I guess, but a lot of it boils down to the choices we make. We both exercise and are careful with portion control. We haven’t eaten fast food in 15 years or so. Haven’t had a soda for at least that long. We eat almost exclusively at home and make most things from scratch. I can’t remember the last time I had a store-bought cookie.

They both looked at me like I was nuts. And so it goes. Another feeble attempt at being social. I believe I’ll go back to, “Nice putt.”

Your retirement elevator speech

Unlike some people, I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t have a singular talent or focus. My best subject was English, and I was decent writer, so I went with the only thing I was any good at and majored in journalism. That led to a surprisingly lucrative career in corporate communications.

But like so many others, I tried to define myself through work. And even in retirement, I’ve struggled with it. Perhaps it’s like this for everyone. Maybe you were a nurse or an engineer, you think, well, that’s what I did. That’s who I am. But if I’m not doing it anymore, who am I now?

I didn’t think of myself as a writer. I was a communications professional by trade, and writing was one of my competencies. My skills served me well, but it didn’t seem like enough. Part of me always thought or hoped there was a brilliant writer in there somewhere waiting to be released from the tyranny of having to earn a living.

It has been four years now since I retired, and my secret genius is nowhere to be found. At first, I was like, bitch, show your face! But I don’t know. Lately, I’ve been thinking, good riddance. Why should I hang onto a dream I fabricated as a child because it’s the only thing I could come up with at the time?

Retirement is different for everyone, but it can be a journey toward freeing ourselves from expectations and accepting we don’t have to be more than we are. Shedding layers and perhaps defining our self-image.

When I was working, we were supposed to have an elevator speech – a quick but memorable sound bite to introduce ourselves and convince someone we were all that and a bag of chips.

I never came up with a good elevator speech, but I’ve been working on the new and improved retirement version. Here goes:

Most days I’m a decent human being with a multitude of interests who enjoys life and sometimes writes.

What’s yours?

Doomscrolling to foodscrolling

My birthday came and went. In my continuing efforts to stay sane during these unprecedented times, I’ve successfully transitioned from doomscrolling horrible news to foodscrolling delicious recipes.

The cake was/is absolutely incredible. My husband started calling me Cake Boss.

Dale and I each had a piece, and I froze the rest, but I’ve already pulled one out to thaw. As they say when you go winetasting, I’d like to revisit that one, please.

The cake was a wee bit dense. Next time, I would be sure to beat the batter a little longer at a higher speed. Oh, about the buttercream roses. I couldn’t quite pull it off. They look more like tiny piles of fettuccine, which is fine with me. It’s a new thing. Fettuccini flowers. They are delicious.

I have a thing for coconut in all its forms, especially spicy food made with unsweetened coconut milk. Dale likes them well enough, but I’ve improvised a couple of dishes that turned out great, and I believe he is converted.

Yesterday, I started with this basic recipe for Coconut Shrimp Curry with Mushrooms. I got the recipe from the NY Times cooking section, which is behind a firewall. But the link above is the same recipe at a site that didn’t have restrictions.

As I browsed the recipe, it seemed to me I could make it more Thai or more Indian, depending on seasonings and vegetables. I went with Thai and added chopped spinach, fish sauce and lime. Served it in a bowl with white rice and cilantro and toasted peanuts on top.

The broth was thick but reminiscent of Tom Kha Gai. You could add more coconut milk and/or stock to achieve a more soup-like consistency.

If I had gone Indian, I would have added garam masala and maybe some cauliflower.

My passion for cooking surprises me. Sometimes I wish I had gone to culinary school, but I grew up thinking cooking was a girly thing, and I wanted to break free from stereotypes. I suppose that’s why I joined the Army. Then 50 years later, you don’t care if it’s girly or manly or gender-neutral. You know what you like, and if you’re lucky, you get to do it.

While I might take a class here and there, my achy breaky parts are not likely to withstand the demands of culinary school. So, I’ll continue to poke around in the kitchen in my primitive fashion.

I’ve mentioned before we have years and years of Gourmet magazines. Some time ago, we ordered special binders to keep the years together with an annual index. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the heavy bulky binders are unwieldly, and the individual issues don’t exactly stay put.

I didn’t mind all that until my back started bothering me. Sitting for long periods is about the only thing that makes my pain worse, so much of my foodscrolling has gone low-tech. I still spend plenty of time at the computer, but I try to take little breaks throughout the day and lay flat for at least 15 minutes or so.

What a perfect opportunity to browse real cookbooks or actual Gourmet magazines! I remember back in the day when we subscribed, way before computers, I’d save the new issue to read in the bathtub. That, and National Lampoon. I miss that one.

The thing about Gourmet is that I’m eager to try some ambitious cooking projects, and it seems like a good place to start. But you can’t really rest comfortably with a 5-inch binder full of magazines.

We finally decided the binders were worthless at this point, possibly from having been moved across the country multiple times. On a bad air quality day with nothing better to do, I pulled all the magazines out of the binders and tossed the binders.

Then I lined up the issues on a bookshelf from oldest to newest, left to right. I had annual indexes for some but not all. If there was no annual index, I photocopied the index page of each magazine. Then I put all the indexes together in a magazine holder like you see at the library.

The idea is you grab the pile of indexes and browse those until something piques your interest. Then you go pull an individual magazine, lying upon the 43-year-old corduroy comfy couch to squander the afternoon daydreaming about food and what you’ll try next.

Just another way to scoll …

When rain is rain

Interpreting art

I took a little detour with my latest pallet scrap. I mostly draw squiggles and such because I’m not skilled at representational art. If you handed me a salt shaker and said, draw this, I probably couldn’t.

This piece includes a few attempts to capture something real, as well as a loose interpretation of something real. On the real side might be the beer mug and the slice of pizza.

As for loose interpretation, pink cats perhaps? Also, on the right, I was going for a cracked egg with a runny yolk. I didn’t quite pull it off. Dale thought it looked more like a cheeseburger! I think of it as a distressed white orb with yellow oozing out of it. You may think of it as you like, and that is the beauty of art.

Outsourcing for retirees

It’s a pre-Christmas miracle, but it appears Dale’s life will be spared. Instead of madly throwing poisonous darts at him for sticking me with the seasonal clean-up of our backyard, I threw money at the problem and hired someone to do it for us.

Of course, that’s my job, too, and it isn’t easy. You find someone, you call them, you leave a message and they never call you back. I ended up going with one of the higher-end services, simply because they answer the phone. Hopefully, they will make up for it with speed and proficiency.

Dale and I will still “share” routine maintenance, but it feels good to know someone else will do the heavy lifting for a change.

While I’m not ready just yet, I am also going to hire a monthly housekeeping service. When I first retired, I took great pride in doing all the housework – partly because I hate spending money on something I can do myself, partly because I think there’s honor in doing your own shit work and partly because any kind of movement is good.

All that to say I actually don’t mind some of it, but again, I need help with the heavy lifting.

We’re having work done in the kitchen soon and getting new flooring downstairs. Assuming we live through that and don’t kill each other in the interim, I’ll wait until the work is finished before I start the search. Finding contractors is practically a full-time job.

What tasks do you outsource? Worth it?

Thinning hair

As I approach 66, I’ve noticed my hair thinning around the temples, and I thought it was something new to worry about. Because, you know, I’m always on the lookout. Then I saw pictures of me from several years ago, and it appears my hair started thinning early into the Trump administration.

So far, so good. I wear it longish and parted in the middle, so it’s really only me who sees the thinning. And I looked at click bait pictures of older women’s hairstyles, and even those touted as having great hair had some thinning action going on. It looks fine. It’s normal.

My hair has pretty much grown back from my post-vaccination haircut, and I like it in its as is condition. Sadly, I did not get the extended warranty. However, I’ve decided if my hair eventually goes, it goes. I was bald when I was on chemo, and I looked pretty damned good. Oh, that’s right. I was 43. Oh, to be young with cancer!

Just kidding. I dreamed last night I ran into some guys I used to work with who had thinning hair, and they had all retired and shaved their heads and looked fantastic. I said I was going to do the same thing, and Dale was cool with it. I told Dale about the dream this morning as a way of thanking him in advance for his support.

When Rain is Rain

We had unexpected rain, and I got so excited, convinced it was the Miracle in September – the miracle that would put out California’s raging forest fires. It was midnight, and I opened the front door to stand on the porch and watch it come down, silently saying a prayer for relief from the seemingly incessant burning.

By morning, the media reported it was barely enough rain to register on any meter that matters, and lightning sparked a few new fires. I was devastated, thinking life sure does suck lately.

I mentioned my disappointment about the rain to Dale, my life partner of more than four decades, who has annoyed me more during the past 18 months than all the other years combined. I’m told the feeling is mutual. These are testy times, indeed.

He said he didn’t think of it that way at all. He thought, rain! Rain is nice. I like the sound of it. The air smells pleasantly damp. It was like we got a little hosing off. And even though it didn’t put a dent in the fires, it was good for our yard. Our little piece of the pie.

Sometimes rain is just rain.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I get over being mad at my husband.

Wishful thinking

Full Retirement Age

My birthday is this month, and I will be 66. My full retirement age for Social Security is 66 and two months. I had been planning to start receiving my monthly payments as soon as I reached full retirement age and was excited about the prospect of a paycheck, but now I’m having second thoughts.

Some financial experts suggest it’s smarter to start withdrawing from your IRA and hold off on Social Security until you reach age 70. According to this NY Times article, living on retirement savings in the early years and holding off on collecting benefits is likely to increase monthly income over a lifetime.

There’s also a discussion about marginal tax rates and provisional income if math is your jam, but I’m a journalism major. No can do.

If I wait until I’m 70, my monthly checks would go up by about $800. It sounds nice, but I’m not sure it’s worth waiting for. With my husband’s military pension and our savings, we are not dependent on Social Security, so I’m inclined to skip all the analysis and just go with what feels right.

I suppose I’ll chat with our financial planner before making my final decision. What variables have you considered as you make this choice?

Sugarfest 2021

In other news, I’ve decided to bake my own birthday cake. I’m going to make the three-layer coconut cake from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Everything about it is totally decadent. Even the buttercream roses on the top are insanely me. The more frosting the better.

However, I watched the video for how to make the roses, and I don’t think I can pull it off. I have some Russian piping tips my sister gave me, and those look easier. I will be watching lots of YouTube videos to build my confidence. Here’s a sample.

While we’re on the subject of baking, I spent a lot of time indoors last week due to the air quality, so I decided to make cookies decorated with royal icing. I have quite the collection of cookie cutters and other paraphernalia.

I haven’t made them in a couple of years, mostly because my wrists were sore the last time I made them, and I wondered if I would even try again. However, my wrists have improved, so I went for it. My lack of practice shows. The icing on the chili pepper is too thick and lumped up in places, and the icing was a little sloppy at the bottom of the ladybug.

Imperfect but cute and delicious. Not a bad thing to be. By the way, I made chocolate dough and added a teaspoon of espresso powder. Next time I’d use a little more. You can’t taste the coffee, but somehow it makes the chocolate taste better. We keep them in the freezer, which helps with portion control!

Golf Giveth and Golf Taketh Away

Yesterday I played golf in what is called an alternate shot tournament. I had a partner, and we took turns teeing off. One of us on odd-numbered holes, and the other on even-numbered holes. Then we took alternate shots until the ball was holed.

On number six, my partner teed off. The shot was plenty long enough but in the left rough. We were still 140 yards out, and it was my turn.

I hit a 7-wood, and we watched it fly toward the green. She thought it got stuck in some thick grass in front of the green, and I thought it hit the green and rolled past the hole. When we got up there, she went one way, and I went the other, and we didn’t see it. I jokingly said, maybe it’s in the hole.

And it was!! So, we had an eagle 2 on a par 4. We would go on to completely fall apart on the back nine, but I will remember that shot for a long time.

Wishful Thinking

I’m feeling hopeful that maybe we are turning the corner on COVID. I mean, not everywhere, but maybe some places? I read today 80 percent of eligible Californians are at least partially vaccinated. In my zip code, about 80 percent are fully vaccinated and another 10 percent have one shot.

That said, our numbers are still terrible. Cases per 10,000 people approaching 40 percent in our county. Yet, there are some case rates in the hundreds, so I guess it’s all comparative. I am shocked by how many people go out and about as though the virus doesn’t exist.

I do wonder if the virus will run out of people to infect. Or maybe Delta will run its course and the virus will subside, transitioning to something more like the seasonal flu. I have no basis for these comments. Perhaps nothing more than wishful thinking.

But you know what? There’s something to be said for wishful thinking. I have been on both sides of the attitude spectrum, and nothing good ever happened when I thought the glass was half-empty.

Retirement Confidential

Move over, tuna

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