Airing of workplace grievances

Some of us chose retirement, and others were squeezed out or forced out of jobs earlier than they had hoped. Or maybe it got so bad you just said, screw it, I’m out of here.

If you’re still sad or angry about what happened to you at work, perhaps it’s time to accept and forgive. Here’s my spin on it. Almost like a variation of Festivus with the airing of workplace grievances. It helps to laugh.

Even though I made it to the finish line relatively unscathed, I had one awful job toward the end of my career that left me feeling quite bitter.

I try not to think about it much, but last week I was digging through files on my computer looking for an old picture of me with adorable hair, because you, know, the struggle is real, when I found a folder marked MFR.

What was this? I double-clicked, and there it was. A detailed chronicle of the one job I’ve tried to forget. A Memorandum for Record is what I called it – a long and painful documentation of bad behaviors and harassment that pretty much left me crying every day for a year.

As I read through my notes with fresh eyes, I finally realized it wasn’t all about me. I was caught in a web of complex corporate norms and cut-throat politics.

There were bad actors in high places, weak lieutenants and one low-level sociopath who lived on the blood of destruction. Everyone else operated under the theory that only the whale that surfaces gets harpooned.

In the end, I came out whole, better than whole, so I decided to accept and forgive. I just said, this is it, no more. Bitterness is not an emotion I want to live with. And I’ll say this, something about letting go just makes you feel better in every way. I feel lighter. A weight has been lifted.

True, there’s no forgiveness in my heart for the sociopath or the person who provided top cover, so acceptance will have to suffice. I decided to just accept that what happened happened and release myself from the internal drama … almost like being an observer, watching the whole thing from afar. As a result, they no longer live rent-free in my head. That seems like a fair trade.

Anyway, that’s my perspective, and I guess it applies to just about any negative emotions we can’t quite dump. Maybe we can move on if we keep trying.

Enchilada Sauce

As promised, I’m sharing Dale’s recipe for enchilada sauce. We freeze it in small tubs and use it for enchiladas … hence the name. But we also use it as a sauce for huevos rancheros or combine it with chunks of browned chicken to make a filling for various tortilla dishes.

We buy our dried chili peppers from Pendery’s.

Dale’s Enchilada Sauce

Print Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 10 Dried Ancho Chili Peppers
  • 2 Dried Aji Amarillo Chili Peppers Optional, but they add nice flavor and heat
  • 2 Canned Chipotle Chili Peppers in Adobo
  • 1 tsp Adobo Sauce From the canned chipotles
  • 3 Cloves of Garlic
  • 1/4 cup Diced Onion
  • 1 tsp Cumin
  • 3 cups Chicken Stock
  • 1 tblsp Lard

Instructions
 

  • Seed and stem the dried chili peppers. Put the peppers in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and let them sit for 10 minutes. Drain.
  • In a blender, combine the peppers, adobo sauce, garlic, onion, cumin and one cup of the chicken stock.
  • In a saucepan, melt the lard and add the blended sauce. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, slowing adding the remaining two cups of chicken stock.
  • Cool, and refrigerate or freeze.

WOYP: Kabocha Squash Red Curry

Kabocha Squash Red Curry

The Widow Badass and Retirement Reflections are hosting a virtual dinner party and What’s on Your Plate Challenge for the month of April. I feel like I’m getting something wrong, but here goes.

First, I hope the acronym WOYP is OK. It’s not like WordPress charges me by the character. More like a holdover from my days in the aerospace industry. They never met an acronym they didn’t like.

Dale and I enjoyed this Kabocha Squash Red Curry from Food Network’s Geoffrey Zakarian. This is the second time I’ve made it, and I love it more than ever.

The curry is basically chunks of Kabocha squash stewed in spicy coconut milk and topped with cilantro, peanuts and pomegranate seeds. This delicious concoction is served over rice.

We like spice and heat, so I was quite generous with the garlic and added a chopped serrano pepper along with the carrot, onion and ginger. Geoffrey says 45 minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce, but I think 20 or 30 is plenty. I like my squash with a little bite to it.

I also went ahead and squeezed the lime juice ahead of time and added it to the curry until I got the balance right. Oh, and may I say pomegranate seeds in the little tub from the produce section are a gift from heaven?

Finally, I just made regular long-grain rice. It was great, but I might not even make rice next time. The coconut milk broth is so divine all by itself. I hate anything but my mouth soaking up that succulence.

The curry freezes well, although the squash does get a little mushy. Trust me, it doesn’t matter.

The case for retirement

Homemade sourdough toast and scrambled eggs made with extra egg yolks leftover from another recipe.

It seems like most of the advice about retirement is to keep working. Experts cite financial and health benefits, as well as the ongoing need for people to live with purpose. Apparently, only a job provides such purpose?

Of course, I disagree work is the solution for most of life’s woes, and I’ve been toying with the idea of penning an op-ed about the case for retirement. I’m still fleshing it out, but my basic premise is that we add layers and layers of accommodations and behaviors to earn a living, and we start to believe that’s who we really are.

Or perhaps we just accept who we’ve become. The workplace is a powerful force, but everything changes if you have the financial resources to exit.

Retirement can be the opportunity to discover or re-discover who you are when nobody is watching. I’ve been searching for a metaphor. The first one that came to mind is of a snake shedding its skin. Snakes shed their skins because they are growing, and the old skin no longer fits. That sort of applies to how we evolve in retirement, but I think it misses one key point.

If it’s true we add layers to survive, then shedding them over time returns us to our natural state. That’s not how it works with snakes, so I’ve been trying to think of another metaphor. Perhaps we are more like furniture being stripped of multiple layers of paint to ultimately reveal the lush original wood.

I’m several layers away from exposing bare wood, but I’ve been blowing some dust and cleaning up a lot of paint chips. I want to see what’s underneath.

Are you morphing in retirement? How would you describe it?  

Extra gluten, please

Bread porn.

I love, love, love making sourdough bread. I believe Gollum, my starter, has grown stronger with time. The bread has a tangy sourdough taste, and it rose higher this time. More kneading reduced the size of the holes, and I’m learning to score the bread with crisp lines.

Bread baking started out as a pandemic hobby, but I’m in for the long haul. Now that I kind of have the process for basic sourdough locked in, I’d like to experiment with variations. Thank goodness neither one of us has gluten issues. That would be a bummer.

Awhile back I suggested I might try making croissants. I studied the Cook’s Illustrated recipe and video, but it just seemed a bridge too far. I finally did subscribe to the NY Times cooking section, and they just posted a different recipe for croissants.

The Cook’s Illustrated recipe makes 22, which seems rather ridiculous. The NY Times makes eight. That sounds more manageable to me, so I might give it a go.

The secret to better cuticles

I’m getting a pedicure today. I’m as immune as I’ll ever be, and everyone will be masked up. I honestly don’t know why I care so much about my toes, when my hands and fingernails look absolutely horrible.

My cuticles are the worst in the world. But I have discovered the secret to better cuticles. It involves a soapy water and a sink full of dishes.

Dale made macaroni and cheese this week, and the mess was horrendous. Lots of extra stuff that wouldn’t go in the dishwasher, so I washed a lot by hand. My cuticles softened up, and the dry stuff came right off.

And no, this does not mean I’m signing up to clean Dale’s messes. However, his mac & cheese might be worth it. Not gooey like some – lots of extra sharp cheddar cheese but still firm.

By the way, I still owe you a recipe for Dale’s enchilada sauce. Coming soon to a blog near you.

Are you a multipotentialite?

Dale, my husband and wine tasting steward, at our first outing in more than a year.

Prior to my 1999 cancer diagnosis, I did not have many creative hobbies outside of work. My interests were mostly physical. We were avid scuba divers, and I was a competitive racewalker. Oh, and golf, the crack cocaine of hobbies.

Cancer and therapy helped me realize there was more to life than work, and I vowed to broaden my horizons. I saw Martha Stewart’s beautiful cookies decorated with royal icing and sanding sugars, and I thought, I could do that! Two large bins of cookie paraphernalia later, and dozens of cookies cutters organized by season or theme, I still love making decorated cookies.

Then I started an online business selling golf shirts with embroidered logos designed by me. After a couple of years, I broke even. One smart thing I did was trademark my business name. Somebody else with deeper pockets wanted the name, and I ended up assigning the trademark to them for $50,000!

Next, I started a blog – Rock the Silver – about embracing gray hair. And because I couldn’t help myself, I sold t-shirts with the logo! I did that for about six years, until my job became increasingly demanding, and I just couldn’t do both.

Work sucked my creative juices dry, and I didn’t take up much of anything new until I retired. First the blog – Retirement Confidential. I figured this would be a journey worth writing about. Then I started playing around with ceramic coasters. Then woodburning. And my food fixation has never abated. We are both avid cooks and love experimenting in the kitchen.

Since I retired, I’ve learned to grow cannabis and make cannabis tincture, cannabis balm, naan, English muffins, scones, baguettes, no-knead rye bread, a variety of savory pies and sourdough bread. The next thing on my list might be melt-and-pour soap. For Christmas, my sister-in-law gave me a bar of soap made by a friend of hers who is an organic dairy farmer. I can’t believe what a difference it makes on my skin, especially since we’re all washing our hands so much. I thought, well, maybe I should just make some?

I have a book from the library, and I’m studying soapmaking for now without making any purchases. Although it’s a relatively low-cost hobby, I sent plenty of shirts to the landfill, so I’m now careful to approach all activities with caution – not just about the costs, but how much specialized equipment is involved? Do I have room for it? Or is this just a passing fancy? I only go all-in on hobbies I think will stick.

And that’s the thing. I’ve always tried to put a name on whatever affliction this is. On this very blog, we have discussed renaissance woman, dabbler, polymath and dilettante. I’ve also seen serial hobbyist.

Yet another word I just discovered is multipotentialite … pronounced multi – potential – ite (rhymes with bite). The term was coined by Emilie Wapnick, who hosts an entire website for multipotentialites, sometimes referred to as multipods.

The word multipotentialite is a mouthful. But I sort of like it.

Much of the website is how to earn a living when you are distracted by so many interests. It has made me wonder if that’s why my jobs were mostly disappointing – it just isn’t my nature to do one thing. As I look back, my father was a super-creative multipotentialite, but he struggled with actual work. Perhaps it was his example that helped me find the strength to tough it out.

I’m somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, which might also explain why I was able to hang in there job-wise. I like variety, but too much of it can be overwhelming.

For many of us, becoming overwhelmed by too many interests is the biggest threat to having balance in retired life. Sometimes I’m like a ball of frenetic energy, but if I take on too much, something slides through the cracks, usually household chores, and that unsettles me. I also need idle time with absolutely nothing on the schedule to just hang around and let my brain wander.  

While much of the content about multipotentialites is about finding a way to focus your talents and earn a living, those of us who made it to retirement have different challenges. If you are driven by varied interests, chances are you are plenty busy, but are you doing what matters most? What matters most to you?

As a multipotentialite retiree, you’re probably going to go down a rabbit hole or two or three, and that’s part of the joy in being who we are. While you may not need the laser focus of someone in their earning years, I think it’s important to periodically hit pause and re-balance your fun portfolio. As Dale says, you can make work out of anything.

I’ve decided to cut back on golf, postpone soapmaking, write more and plan lots of pandemic-safe outings with Dale. That still leaves me plenty of time for art, cooking, walking, swimming, reading and tending to my cannabis plant.

And chores, but I don’t consider them fun.  

Scratch-made or store-bought?

Swimming again

I started swimming again now that I’m fully vaccinated. A little stiff in my behind, but I take that as a sign it’s good exercise, so I’m glad I’ve resumed. I still don’t use the locker room, instead sliding off my wet swimsuit from under the canopy of a swim poncho. I’m sure the whole thing looks pretty weird to someone who might be observing.

By the way, those are swim shorts drying on the rack. Best invention ever.

This is a busy week on the tour, as Dale calls my golf schedule. I’m playing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday! I usually don’t do that, but the weather is getting nice, and that makes the game so much more fun.

I’m still only playing courses I can easily walk. I prefer to walk anyway, but the cart policies aren’t consistent. Sometimes they have one person per cart, but other times they run out and hang a piece of plastic between the seats. No, thank you.

Most of my playing partners are also older and fully vaccinated, so I’m more comfortable chatting a bit during the game. And there might even be a beer outside afterward!

Scratch-made or store-bought?

When I start to goof off more, there’s a direct hit to our food supply. We routinely make a lot of “staples” from scratch, and all that takes time. Some foods are what I call situational. Depending on the day, the dish or whatever – we might make them from scratch, but we might use store-bought as well.

The situational list … sometimes scratch-made and sometimes store-bought … is long. The list includes chicken stock, beef stock, tortillas, bread, English muffins, naan, pasta, salad dressing, mayonnaise and barbeque sauce. Additionally, Dale makes pizza from scratch nearly every Friday, but occasionally we will order out.

I was rather surprised by the list of so-called staples we always make at home and never purchase from a store. We don’t do it to save money. It’s mostly about the purity of ingredients and taste. We pretty much ate this way pre-retirement, but it’s a whole lot easier to manage the cooking schedule without that pesky job getting in the way of progress.

And there’s always the art of compromise. I used to make my own yogurt, but my failure rate was high, and I was wasting ingredients. I buy yogurt now, but I select plain to avoid the added sugar. We always use dried beans for refried beans and most other dishes, but we sometimes use canned beans for quick-cooking soups, stews or casseroles.

In the spirit of sharing, here’s the never store-bought list:

Cookies

I’m sure someone is saying, oh, really? You never buy cookies? We don’t. We really don’t. Waste o’ calories, in my opinion. I have three go-to cookie recipes, and I keep a rotation of them in the freezer.

Salsa

Dale makes three kinds of salsa – green chile, jalapeño and scorpion pepper. As you might guess, store-bought isn’t zingy enough for us.

Spaghetti Sauce

We do buy canned tomatoes, but they are used to make sauces from scratch. A simple sauté of carrots, onions, garlic and tomatoes makes a wonderful pasta sauce.

Enchilada Sauce

Dale makes chile sauce from dried Ancho peppers, garlic, onion, etc. We freeze it in small tubs and use it mostly for huevos rancheros and enchiladas.

Breakfast Cereal

Although I love the taste of packaged cereal, it’s mostly packaged junk. I refuse to eat it and make my own granola instead.

Soup

I always have several pint containers of homemade soup in the freezer.  

Pie Crust

Mine is not always perfect, but it’s always delicious, and I can’t imagine buying it pre-made from the store. This includes pastry crust, as well as graham cracker crust.

Guacamole

Easiest thing ever to make. I only learned this year to put a just-ripe-enough avocado in the refrigerator, where it hangs on way longer than you could imagine.

Hummus

I like to cook a pound of dried chickpeas and freeze them in small containers (in their liquid) to use in dishes like hummus and chana masala. I’ve eaten and enjoyed store-bought hummus, but I have never purchased it myself.

Pesto

Another easy pasta sauce. All you need is a bunch of fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, parmesan cheese and olive oil. Whiz in the food processor.

Croutons

We keep leftover French bread in the freezer. Defrost, cut in cubes, toss with butter or olive oil, season with salt and bake in the oven until crisp. I make them on demand when we have Caesar salads, so I’ve never tried re-freezing them or storing them long-term.

Scones

I always have homemade scones in the freezer. Current supply includes cranberry and raspberry.

Rotisserie Chicken

I don’t recall ever buying one. Dale roasts a whole chicken in the oven. I prefer it to fried chicken. I also love the leftovers. I just froze four servings of chicken enchiladas made from leftover roast chicken, homemade tortillas and homemade enchilada sauce.

Shopping for toasters

I’m starting to see some limitations to this new haircut. I mean, it’s cute, and I’m not ready to blow my brains out or anything like that, but this isn’t quite what I want for the long-term. Of course, one only learns such things after buying a plethora of hair products and tools one probably won’t use.  

Actually, I may use them until my hair grows back a little. With a little work, I can sort of fix it the way it looked when I left the salon, but I don’t like putting forth the effort. What I do like is the shorter length, but now I can envision it just slightly longer minus the layers. It will be easy to grow out. It’s not like I had anything else to do.

It would seem one can only evaluate a haircut through magic of the rearview mirror.

toast shouldn’t be this hard

If you have a toaster you like, keep it as long as you can. Ours was on the fritz, and I spent the better part of last week researching options and reading reviews. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is totally happy with anything currently for sale.

Oh, sure, there’s my friend, Carole, who has a fancy dancy Dualit handmade in England, but even they get terrible reviews these days. And Dale said he would not pay that kind of money for a toaster that doesn’t pop up. The heat cycle turns off, but the toast rests quietly in place until you pop it up yourself.

Carole said she doesn’t need a toaster to think for her. Well, yippee for you, Carole. We of fewer brain cells absolutely need a toaster to think for us. While I believe other Dualit styles have a pop-up feature, some are made in China, and they get even worse reviews.

If it were simply a matter of planned obsolescence, I’d be fine. Just get a cheap one and replace as needed. If it were just a matter of money, I’d drop a wad if that’s all it takes to get good toast. But regardless of price, my in-depth research indicates toasters just don’t toast like they used to. One side only, burned edges, bread actually flying out of the toaster (the opposite of Dualit).

We sent one back that scorched one side and left the other side virtually untouched.

Even the venerable Cook’s Illustrated is “reviewing” their recommendation for the Breville long-slot toaster after so many readers wrote to complain that it’s awful.  

We ended up with the Elite Gourmet long-slot toaster for $29.99. We had to turn it up to “dark” to get golden brown, and the edges are a wee bit toastier than we’d like, but overall, it’s fine. Wonder of wonders, you can toast a whole piece of oversized bread.

In our old toaster, I would toast it vertically by putting half down, toasting it, flipping it and then toasting the other half. Toward the end, depending on the bread, the toast shrinks enough to put it in horizontally for a photo finish.

This is more than I ever wanted to know about toasters. And it’s probably more than you want to know about toasters. Just keep whatever you have if it works. By the way, the classic Sunbeam toasters go for big bucks on eBay.

Apparently, back in the day, they knew how to make appliances that evenly brown and crisp bread. It is not advanced technology. Sadly, it would appear that time is gone. I could be convinced the Dualit Classic for a mere $240 might be good, despite the ridiculous price and negative reviews. Did I mention it’s handmade in England?

But there’s that pesky pop-up issue. For $29.99, our friendly little kitchen helper thinks for us. It’s a lifestyle choice.

A real haircut!

As promised, here’s a picture of my new hair … my first professional cut in more than a year!

My stylist says this is collarbone length. My hair is fine, so we always go blunt, but this time she added just a few long blunt layers for shape and movement.

Although this style is a good bit shorter than usual, it’s still quite versatile. I can wear it up, air dry or blow dry as the mood strikes me. It looks good under a hat. Everything can be tucked behind the ears if desired. And if the pandemic gets worse, and I can’t get to a salon, it’s easy to grow out.

Being shampooed was the most divine feeling ever. I should train Dale to do that.

Anyway, I like it a lot! Because it has been such a long terrible year, she missed out on a lot of business and yet responded enthusiastically to every crazy text I sent her with questions about my hair, I did not add the typical 20 percent gratuity.

Instead, I handed her a $100 bill. I thought she was going to cry. I did.

Vaxed to the max

We passed our post-vaccination 10-day waiting period and are now vaxed to the max. My first foray into the “fully vaccinated” zone was quite lovely, although my next attempt fell short. Here’s what happened.

Although I’ve played golf throughout the pandemic, I’ve been quite cautious and have avoided certain events where it was assumed we would get together afterward. I was not comfortable getting too close to people, indoors or outdoors.

One group I play with is particularly social, and I have avoided them for the past year. But I found myself missing the fun and signed up to play in an event now that I’m somewhat immune. It was cold in the morning, but by the time we finished, it was sunny and delightfully warm.

The course had an outdoor patio, where everyone gathered. Some were socially distant, some were not. I purchased a beer and sat down near the hub of activity but far enough away to feel at ease. I took off my mask, and there in the soothing sun I sat, sipping and chatting and feeling pretty damned happy.  

I think this was the first face-to-face conversation I’ve had with anyone other than Dale in over a year. Such a simple pleasure!

On the way home, the radio played in order:

  • The End (The Doors)
  • Truckin’ (Grateful Dead)
  • White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)  

Great music kind of put me in the mood to party. We’ll have to wait and see how that unfolds. I’m not sure I remember how to party. But I do feel optimistic that Dale and I can enjoy a wider variety of activities without putting ourselves at undue risk. However, I’ll go out on a limb and share my prediction.

By and large, Americans are done with lockdowns, and they’ve told themselves this is over. Many are going to behave with wild abandon and COVID, in some form or fashion, will be persistent for another year. And yet there’s a chance enough people have either had the virus or the vaccine, and we’ll turn this ship around. We can only hope.

My next thought was a return to swimming. My three-year-old swimsuits are a bit saggy from wear and tear, so I thought it would be fun to go to Target and see what they have. I masked up and headed out. I have been to Target only once during the pandemic, and that was to buy kitty litter, which I later learned could be delivered to my door.

I collected a handful of cute suits and made a beeline for the fitting room. It looked like a crime scene, as in all taped up and not open for business. I stood there for a few minutes, just staring at the empty space, kind of in shock. The possibility of the fitting rooms being closed had never occurred to me. I turned around and drove home.

As it turns out, my sister-in-law had the same experience, and she said even if you buy a swimsuit to try on at home, you can’t return it. So, I’m back to Amazon. Free shipping both ways.

Next in the queue are haircut, dentist and dermatologist. We have some home improvements on the list, but we’re going to wait a bit and see how the virus behaves before we commit to having anyone in our home.

Oh, and last week marked 22 years since I was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer. I’m in a small club of lucky long-term survivors, and no matter what happens, pandemic or no pandemic, I will be forever grateful for my good fortune.

You can read more about my experience in this post from a couple of years ago.

Bread camp in my future?

My second loaf of sourdough bread.

I baked my second loaf of sourdough bread today, and it looks delicious! We’ll eat it tonight with grilled sausages, cheese and a spinach salad. Perhaps some red wine? We’ve been tough on the wine rack over the past year. Our local wineries are fantastic, and many are open for socially distanced outdoor tastings. High on our list of post-vaccine activities.

There is hope if you are curious about sourdough but still rather intimidated. Sourdough seemed so formidable to me when I first got the itch to experiment, but even after only two tries, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

The idea of creating starter scared me the most, but now that little blob of batter is done and sits in the refrigerator until I need him again. This time, I took him out before I went to bed and fed him in the morning. He was good and bubbly when I made the dough later that afternoon.

While there’s not a lot of hands-on labor, making sourdough bread does take at least a couple of days … at least the way I’m doing it. I mapped out sample schedules so I could determine when I needed to be home for a few hours and when the dough could sit there unsupervised while I played golf or otherwise goofed off.  The schedules set my mind at ease.

I also tweaked the cooking process. Last time, I used a cold oven and a cold bread pan. This time around I pre-heated both the oven and the pan. I like the color better with the pre-heated pan, but that might just be timing. This loaf was baked at 450 F for 30 minutes with the lid on and 20 minutes with the lid off.

Scoring the bread just before it goes in the oven helps it rise. You can use a razor blade or a little wooden thing with a razor blade on the end called a lame. My technique needs some work, but overall, I am pleased with the appearance.

I finished the book I mentioned in an earlier post – Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning by Tom Vanderbilt. Although his journey to learn new things such as chess, singing, surfing and drawing seemed overly indulgent to me, he told a good story about the benefits of pushing yourself into new territory.

I’m kind of a loner, and when I want to learn something, I tend to get books and check out various websites and then figure it out myself. That’s what I did with sourdough. I rarely take classes, but after reading that book, I’ve been thinking it might be good to explore online educational resources.

As you might guess, I’m thinking about cooking classes.

He also makes a strong case for group learning and the social benefits of connecting with other like-minded beginners. When the pandemic is under control, I could see attending some sort of cooking or baking experience in person. There actually is such a thing as “bread camp.”  

In Slovak, Pekar means baker. And I’m married to a Miller, so how perfect is that?

The chapter on drawing was especially interesting. I’ve always said the reason I burn abstract doodles on my rescued wood art is because I can’t draw representations of real things. Apparently, I am not alone. Most children, he reports, discover how hard it is to draw what they see and give up. But there are tricks such as trying to draw it upside down so you’re not looking at the whole but instead a collection of lines and shadows.

Although I was a little tough on the author when I mentioned the book earlier, I ended up liking it, and the book motivated me to think about what I want to learn as I age and how I want to approach lifelong learning. I have a bias toward going it alone, but he opened my eyes to the value of accomplished teachers as well as the atmosphere of people struggling through the experience together.

In the meantime, I will continue to dabble in the comfort of my virus-free home. But I’m still kind of excited thinking about what experiences might be just around the corner.

There must be a zillion types of camps and learning vacations for adults. The author and his family even went on a vacation where they learned to swim in the open water. I might need to make a spreadsheet of all the possibilities.

What kind of camp or learning vacation would pique your interest?

COVID-19 vaccination: Part II

We received our second doses of the two Pfizer vaccines, and it was a bit underwhelming. Having been through round one, you sort of know what to expect.

Although we faced the possibility of weather delays impacting our doses, everything went down without a hitch. We drove to the same indoor mass vaccination site, and the only difference was double masking.

Prior to entering the building, we were provided with a surgical mask to wear over or under our cloth masks.

Neither of us had any side effects. My arm was a little tender to the touch, but that’s it.

Still, it feels great to be fully vaccinated. I know it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but as I understand it, of all the participants in all the vaccine trials, no one went to the hospital for COVID or died of COVID. That includes the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which gets a bad rap because it’s not quite as effective in preventing mild illness.

But if there’s a 100 percent chance you won’t go to the hospital for COVID and a 100 percent chance you won’t die of COVID, then I’d say the vaccines work. All of them.

I’m not a medical professional, so please feel free to correct me. I’m sensitive to percentages, and numbers aren’t always what they seem, but I do know 100 percent is good. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer years after my ovaries were removed during a routine hysterectomy.

According to what I’ve read, there was a 99 percent chance I would not get ovarian cancer with no ovaries. I drew the unlucky number. However, the statistics indicated I had a 25-30 percent chance of living five years, and I’m about to celebrate my 22-year cancer anniversary.

If only they had a cancer vaccine that prevented hospitalization and death.

I’ve been reading about people cheating to get the vaccine ahead of schedule, and I can’t believe someone with musical talent hasn’t already done a parody of Harry Belafonte’s old song, Jump in the Line. I think one of the refreshed lyrics could read:

Don’t Jump in di line, jab your body in time

(Okay, I believe you)

In absence of said parody, feel free to sing it around the house.

One week closer to a haircut

While I thank you very much for your most helpful comments about my hair, I hate looking at that picture, and I hate thinking about my hair. I’m no closer to a solution, other than to just get the trim next week as scheduled. As one wise reader said, the hair in my profile picture is probably the right length.

Barbara, a long-time reader from when I used to write about gray hair on my blog Rock the Silver, has suggested in the comments section on my last post a hairstyle she calls Fuchsschwanz. It sounds great, so I’m going to do a search for that and then see what happens.

I was happy with my hair for years, so I don’t know why I’m all of the sudden riddled with doubt, other than pandemic wear and tear. Is it possible there’s an end in sight and perhaps we shall be released from captivity?

In terms of re-entering the world, I’m ready to look good for a change. Even if it takes a little more effort.

Travel bragging

My foursome in golf yesterday included a woman I shall describe as a “travel bragger.” I don’t know the exact roots of this affliction, but I’ve seen it before, and I think it’s about fulfilling life’s dreams, and I certainly shouldn’t be critical of that, but …

She cannot stop name-dropping all the exotic places she’s been and where she’s going next. I could see having that conversation afterward, perhaps in a post-pandemic world with clubhouses and cocktails, but I prefer a quiet game regardless. About the only words I want to exchange during golf are, “Great drive” or “good putt.”  

After hearing about the holy land, Bratislava and wine tasting in Portugal, she said, “Do you travel much?” I said no. I wish I had just stopped there. I find one-word responses minimize the flow of chatter. But always the pleaser, I added, “We traveled a lot when we were younger and lived overseas for quite a few years.”

It’s like I opened the floodgates. Where? Oh, what was it like? To me, it was a complete distraction. I guess it’s not travel bragging when it’s your passion. I do recognize golf is a social game, so I will continue to work on conversation management. Once the clubhouse opens again, I might say, I’d love to talk about it – are you staying for a drink afterward?

Might work.