The purpose of hobbies

I had a beautiful run of good golf, so I’ve been playing a lot, trying to savor the last of the good weather, and as it turns out, my good golf. What a game. It must be there are just a few people who can play consistently well. For the rest of us, it’s mostly bitter disappointment mitigated by tiny spurts of proficiency and eternal hope.

But that’s why I have lots of hobbies. So disappointment is a moving target.

I’m thinking the key is diversity of interests. When you get pissed off at one, move on to the next until you can come back and play nice with the others.

And so, with golf turning out to be such treacherous jerk, I turned to my friend Art and completed Number 40!

For some strange reason, I went with a Christmas theme. You may recall I don’t like Christmas all that much, although I’m into the food part and regularly make decorated cookies and other holiday treats. I think I wanted to see if I could capture some of the iconic images of the season.

As it happens, I actually like Number 40! Maybe it will make a believer out of me. Probably not, but I still like it.

I haven’t decided whether I should hang it on the wall with all the others or box it up with almost nonexistent holiday decorations and trot it out sometime in December. We have a big nutcracker from Germany, and that’s about it for seasonal décor, so I’m leaning toward another brick on the wall.

That reminds me last year I convinced Dale not to get a tree, so I suppose I will have to go along with that mess this year. I’d better start preparing myself now. By the way, I’m doing that with politics, too. Preparing myself for the worst so whatever happens won’t be such a shock. I’ve already rehearsed in my head how I will stay calm if it all goes to hell.

Anyway, I do like the tree in the end, particularly the part where Dale decorates and I drink Single Malt Scotch. But overall, I see Christmas trees as a long run for the short slide.

Aside from bad golf and visions of sugar-plums, I was feeling sad that I finished the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley. I prowled around the internet to see if there was a new one on the horizon. There isn’t, but I found a six-book series by Mosley featuring Leonid McGill. I’m in the library queue for the first one, so I should get that next week.

Current reading is the Longmire series by Craig Johnson. As for the books, I like them but don’t love them. I used to say that about men. With a few exceptions, it mostly still applies.

Free from Amazon Prime was a twister called Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea. It’s about a woman accused of murder and headed for a trial when she is killed on 9/11. An investigative reporter starts unraveling the story 20 years later, and there are surprises everywhere. I enjoyed it.

Have you seen Killers of the Flower Moon? I haven’t read the book, and I was thinking about doing that first, but this might be one time when the movie wins. However, I haven’t been to a theater in years, and I’m not sure I can sit for 3.5 hours. Still, I actually think I might rather sit in a theater for that duration as opposed to my living room …

Fewer distractions and the popcorn is better!

Dinged up and loving it

This week was our golf group’s Halloween tournament. I made cookies and bagged them up so everyone could grab and go. The cookies were a big hit, which is good, because I’m not the most social person on the planet, and maybe I got some good will points.

The cookie biz is a fun hobby if you’ve got a place to off-load them. I started after the first time I had cancer in 1999. As I was recovering, I thought, I need to try something that isn’t golf and isn’t work. I saw Martha Stewart baking and decorating these beautiful cookies, and I said, that’s it!

These days, I have tubs of cookie cutters, sanding sugars, piping bags and other supplies. In some ways, it’s similar to my woodburning hobby. Neither one is hard to do, but they’re both time-consuming. But that’s what I like … gets me out of my own head.

I was on the way to play golf one day last week, when a truck pulled out in front of me presumably because he couldn’t stand being behind another truck for another second. Something about that transaction resulted in the spewing of rocks, which hit the windshield of my brand-new car.

As my mother used to say, I can’t have nice things.

Anyway, the result was two tiny dings. My insurance company paid to repair them – no deductible applied. The dings are sealed and safe and barely noticeable, but I still see them, of course. Honestly, as a recovering perfectionist, they don’t bother me. It’s just a car. I wasn’t injured. We all get dinged up in the end.

I’m surprised and happy I didn’t go all psycho because my pretty car got a boo-boo. I have come a long way. I attribute my progress to retirement. Aging. At some point, you just can’t hang onto that stuff.

Speaking of aging and dings, a close friend of mine is getting her face done. You know, injectables and all that. She has done it before with fantastic results. I was happy for her then, and I’m happy for her now. She’s had her share of life’s unwanted gifts, and a subtle tightening of the face lifted her spirits immeasurably.

But I do wonder if I’m going to be the only one left who looks my age. I squandered some time the other day looking at before and after pictures, and it’s impressive stuff. I even looked pictures of women with gray hair who decided to go back to dying it.

It seems to me if you have the money and the will, you can easily look 10 years younger. It was tempting for a minute or two, but I actually like how I’ve aged – gray hair, dings and all. I care more about keeping my body in reasonably good shape so I can continue to enjoy outdoor activities. I played golf earlier this week with a 92-year-old man who walked the course at a brisk pace.

My role model!

All in all, I’m exceedingly grateful my back is cooperating. A bad back is a big ding. I rarely have pain, but if I do, all I take is Advil or Tylenol. But then I’m quite faithful to my daily stretching regime. One of the women in my golf group has a similar diagnosis as mine (herniated disc, spinal stenosis). She said it never occurred to her to stretch. She said that’s what pain killers are for.

I told her about John Sarno’s book, Healing Back Pain. I’ve written about this before. He believed a lot of pain is the result of repressed anger and other emotions. After reading the book, I worked through some lifelong issues. I believe releasing all that baggage, along with my stretches, helped me recover from what was sometimes debilitating back pain.

For me, the key was forgiveness. But it took me a while to figure out the most important person to forgive was myself.

My golf acquaintance seemed receptive to the concept of the mind-body connection. I saw her yesterday and said, “How’s your back?” She said, fine, I just popped a (insert name of pill here).

I guess everyone has to find their way own through the valley of dings.

Living gently

The reluctant travelers have returned from a two-night stay in Morro Bay, a casual beach town in San Luis Obispo County. We mainly go to smell the ocean and eat seafood. Mission accomplished.

Even though we had a lovely trip, it’s good to be home. Everyone has to find their own retirement rhythm, and my hat’s off to those who are taking this time to see the world, but I can’t imagine being gone for weeks at a time. We enjoy our cozy lifestyle and couldn’t wait to get back in the kitchen. Other than the golf course, I don’t want to go anywhere for a while.

Dale made pizza last night. I’m making bison curry in the Instant Pot tonight. I already made naan in the pizza oven and will just have to heat them up. So delicious! Dale has some beautiful jalapeño peppers from his small garden, so he’s going to make beer batter-fried jalapeños stuffed with cheddar cheese. We’ll have that as an appetizer.

To celebrate our return home, I ordered the pasta attachment for the KitchenAid mixer. I’ve been using a hand-crank pasta machine, and while it works fine, I want to be able to use both hands to guide the pasta.

It should arrive later today, and that means homemade pasta tomorrow! Our basil is looking gorgeous, so I believe it will be pesto.

I also have some homemade lobster stock thawing in the refrigerator. I’ll use that to make miso seafood chowder later this week … probably Tuesday. Monday’s a golf day, so  I can start a no-knead loaf of bread in the evening when I get back from a hard day of sport and bake it the next morning. I prefer bread over oyster crackers.

Certainly, there are more important things in the world than what I’m eating, but for sanity’s sake, I am learning to disengage from politics and global trauma. For lack of a better term, I think of it as living gently. For now, anyway, I’m happy and grateful to enjoy the simple pleasures that define my retirement – golf, cooking, art, walking, swimming, reading and writing.

You had me at croutons

I’m making Caesar salads for dinner tonight, and I wouldn’t even bother if it weren’t for homemade croutons. Such a simple pleasure and so damned good.

Easy, too. I used Italian rolls from the freezer. Thawed them out, cut them in cubes and then tossed the cubes with melted butter and salt. Then you just spread them out on a sheet pan and brown in a 400-degree oven.

For the salad, I start with romaine lettuce and whisk together a dressing made with anchovies mashed with a couple of garlic cloves, olive oil, a one-minute egg and fresh lemon juice. Then toss the whole thing with freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano.  

Top each salad with those amazing croutons.

I was trying to start the second Louise Penny book while the croutons were browning, but I didn’t get very far. You do have to watch them. But I have some time after I’m done here, and I’d like to see how far I can get in the book before dinner. That’s when I do my best reading.

If I go horizontal after I’m fed, it’s all over.

Lupin, one of my favorite Netflix shows has new episodes. I watched two last night! The French mystery follows Assane Diop, the son of an immigrant from Senegal who had come to France to seek a better life for his child. The father gets framed for a theft and hangs himself in prison. Assane is orphaned but grows up to become a professional thief and master of disguise who avenges his father’s death.

Speaking of simple pleasures, I’ve been buying artisan chocolate instead of the drugstore varieties I used to favor. One of my favorites is Dick Taylor, and I just toured the factory in Eureka when I visited my sister last week.

They had bins, yes bins, of samples in very small pieces, which I liked a lot. It doesn’t take much to fully enjoy the experience of chocolate. I bought a few bars of the 72% Belize dark chocolate to take home. With a discount for taking the tour!

Here’s my indulgence. I break the bar into roughly dime-sized pieces and store it in a zipper-lock bag. I pull two pieces out after breakfast and begin with several sips of hot coffee to pre-warm my mouth. Then I slide in one little piece and let that luscious chocolate melt slowly on the tongue, swishing it about the mouth, savoring the complex flavors. No chewing allowed.

And then I do it again.

OK. It’s just two small pieces of chocolate, but it’s almost like meditation.

A little road trip and new art

Unlike many retirees, Dale and I don’t like to travel all that much, but I’m pleased to report our overnighter to Sonoma was great. It’s an easy drive – just under two hours – and the weather was spectacular. You hardly have to pack anything for such a short trip, and there’s no stress. The toughest part was leaving the kitty, but Riley is good by himself for one night (although I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think so).

While we’ve been in and out of Sonoma before, this was our first time staying overnight. We stopped on the way at the Gundlach Bundschu winery for a tasting. I never liked the idea of wine tasting as a hobby until I realized it’s a great way to buy wine. No surprises. We try to keep a hearty stash in the wine rack and seldom buy wine from the market. I do love California!

The wine was quite good, but we only liked two of the six we tried. We bought two bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and two bottles of a Cabernet Sauvignon-Malbec blend. The venue is quite lovely, and although we didn’t eat, we saw some tempting charcuterie plates.

The good news is there are more than 400 wineries in Sonoma County, so I don’t think we’ll run out of options.

We stayed at the El Dorado Hotel on the square in downtown Sonoma. We got there a little early and just walked all around town. There are some nice stores, and it was fun to wander about. We checked in around 4 p.m. and sat out on our balcony people-watching.

There are tons of restaurants, but I wanted to try The Girl and The Fig, which is highly regarded – and directly across the street from the hotel. The only reservation available was 5:30 p.m., which Dale views as the early bird special, but the place was packed.

Dale had steak tartare as an appetizer and duck confit for his entrée. I was lucky enough to get a bite of his steak tartare, which was fabulous. The duck confit was good, but he said he wouldn’t get it again. I tasted it and agreed.

I chose the Bistro Plats du Jour. That would include three courses with wine pairings. The appetizer was crispy chicken livers with an arugula salad. The chicken livers were a bit overcooked, but they were good. The star of the show was my entrée … trout meuniere. The fish was fresh and tender, the skin was shatteringly crisp and the sauce was sublime. The plate included wilted kale, which was excellent, and fingerling potatoes, which I didn’t care for.

However, that trout may be some of the best fish I have ever eaten.

We shared my dessert, which was a pear-hazelnut cake with yummy vanilla anglaise and a cherry reduction. Pretty damned good.

That’s the first time we’ve been out since June, and before that, who knows? We’re almost always disappointed when we dine out, but this time, we were mostly thrilled. A few small things could be improved upon. All in all, we’d go back but skip the duck confit.

And we’d definitely go back to Sonoma. There was sort of a laid back vibe we liked a lot. We’ve been looking for a place that would be sort of our go-to escape when we feel the need, and Sonoma is definitely a contender. There’s a lot to do in the area, and downtown would be a nice homebase.

I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise since I’ve often described us as reluctant travelers, but our habit on the day of departure – even a one-nighter – is to get up and go. We were headed home by 7:30 a.m. with just a cup of coffee to get us out the door.

No lollygagging for us. I said in my outside voice that maybe we should try to change, you know, be better tourists, hang around, see more, do more. However, we quickly agreed that was crazy talk. Let’s just accept who we are and do what we want. Wow, there’s a novel concept.

For some reason, I didn’t work on my art much this summer. Maybe because it’s hot out in the garage? My sister is a quilter, and she said she doesn’t seem to get much done in the summer, either. But I’m back in the saddle and present for your viewing pleasure, Number 39.

This one is kind of weird. I’m continuing to push myself in trying to capture realistic images, as opposed to doodles. I’m not shamed to admit I sometimes trace and transfer images! On this piece, I was inspired by science fiction and monster movies. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I love the monster on the left.

It’s quite the imperfect piece. I keep telling myself, so what? It was just scrap wood. It seems to me that for most of us life is a study in imperfection, but isn’t it interesting how we keep wrestling with it? If anything, creating art has helped me tame my perfectionist nature.

Nothing and everything

Death Valley is a taboo subject at our house, but a couple of you asked what happened to that trip, so here goes.

As you may recall, Dale had been wanting to go in the dead of summer, while I wanted to go in the winter, when normal people visit. I finally caved and said, fine, we’ll go in the summer. We were scheduled to go smack dab in the middle of July. Plenty hot, one would assume.

But I had second thoughts. I mean, we’re not as heat resistant as we used to be. I had a million other reasons for not going, but Dale was excited. I’m not sure he ever understood death was not just a name but an option.

To help me plead my case, I found a video of a couple touring Death Valley in the summer with their two children. It was about 20 minutes long, and not the finest cinema out there, but it told a story.

Basically, they drove from one site to the next, got out of the car and then got back in before they died from exposure, never actually seeing the sites as they were meant to be experienced.

I made Dale watch the video, and he said it was 20 minutes of his life he’ll never get back. However, he also said it didn’t sound like fun to drive around all day after driving eight hours just to get there, especially when it was more of a whim than anything else.  

A whim was it? We agreed to cancel.

On the day we would have arrived in Death Valley, the temperature was 129 degrees Fahrenheit. I let out a big sigh of relief and said something to the effect of thank the Great Planner we didn’t go. I figured Dale would nod in agreement. Instead, he looked at me with disgust and said, “We could have been there.”

And that is why we don’t speak of Death Valley anymore. There will come a day when we will try again, but it is not this day.   

In other travel news, we’re doing an overnighter to Sonoma this week. I don’t expect any drama, but I’ve been wrong before. Oh, and my 50th high school reunion was this weekend, but I did not go. Certainly, there were people I would have enjoyed seeing, but I’m not good in large social settings. At other events, I have been known to find one person and cling pathologically to them for the duration, ruining their opportunities for what I’m told is happy mingling.

Staying home was the humane thing to do.   

You know I love reading a crime series. Up until now, I’ve concentrated on one series at a time. I was well into the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley, when I saw a new Lincoln Lawyer book by Michael Connelly was going to be published in November. I decided to read those, too .

That went so well, I added two more to the mix. The Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson and the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. I’m surprised to find I like having a variety on hand, and it helps with library choices in case the next one in my queue is checked out.  Yes, I only read them in order and have a spreadsheet to help me keep track.

A word about Inspector Gamache. These are popular books, especially after the TV show Three Pines came out. I’ve checked out the first book, Still Life, at least four times but never read it. I finally said, this is it. Read this book or hide your head in shame forever!

I didn’t like it at first, because I tend to favor mysteries featuring the hard-boiled private investigator. But once I accepted it’s a different subgenre, I calmed down and began to enjoy the book immensely. The writing is so intelligent with spot-on literary and cultural references … but never pretentious. The setting is almost like a cozy mystery, but then there’s plenty of murder and dark despair to go around.

Maybe it was reading about the idylic village of Three Pines, but it seems there’s a hint of fall in the air, and I just want to cook, cook, cook. I love savory pumpkin dishes and have a decent collection of recipes I want to try.  How about creamy kale and pumpkin soup? That sounds great to me. Dale? Kale? Not so much, but he’ll eventually go along for the ride. Or a pumpkin stew with juicy chunks of beef and maybe some curry seasoning.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I still get asked, “What do you do all day?” Ha! Nothing and everything.

Friday traditions

We thought being trapped in the mud after the heavy rains would be the worst of it, but then, exhausted and still a little hung-over, we ventured out from our soaked and filthy tent to join 70,000 other desperate souls trying make their way home after an epic adventure at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.  

Um, well, not us, exactly – but somebody, maybe? Just having a little fun over here at Chez Boring … which is just how I like it.

No holidays where we have to fly anywhere, thank you very much. I spent most of the summer playing golf early to avoid the heat. I played with a guy the other day who told his wife he didn’t want to go anywhere anymore – just to the golf course and back. I bowed my head in silent admiration.

Oh, I got new glasses and had to drive 30 minutes to find the same frames so I wouldn’t have to get anything different. When I was online trying to find identical frames, I saw an ad for an optometric shop with the slogan “Life is too short for boring frames.” I was like, no, no, not for Donna. I’m sticking with black until something darker comes along.

Our Friday tradition is Dale’s homemade pizza and a movie. In preparation, we made a liquor store run to get “back-up beer.” We have a kegerator, and there’s no gauge to tell you when it’s getting low. You can pick it up and see if it feels lighter, but Dale prefers to go with my recommendation, based on my reputation as “the beer whisperer.”

What can I say? I just have this second sense when the keg is getting low.

A second keg will fit in there until the first one kicks. That’s the back-up beer. Today’s choice is Panic IPA by Track Seven Brewery. Before the pandemic, a few of us in the cul-de-sac used to have driveway parties, and Dale would wheel the kegerator out onto the front porch for the neighbors to enjoy. We were the envy of the hood, and not just because we’re young and good-looking.

Then everyone went inside their houses and never came out.

Tonight’s pizza has a OO crust topped with a creamy white garlic parmesan cheese sauce. Then two more cheeses – whole milk mozzarella and smoked gouda. The rest of the toppings are smoked salmon, capers, red onion and diced fresh tomatoes. It’s one of our favorites.

I’m not sure which movie we’ll watch. We’ve been focusing on bad 50s monster movies and have watched 30 of them to date! The Amazon watchlist keeps expanding. Most are pretty awful often involving an inquisitive scientist with a beautiful (unattached) daughter and a confident (unattached) military man sent to investigate strange goings on. Surprisingly, the monsters are few and far between.   

We laugh a lot, so there’s that.

I’m reading The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly. This is book four of seven in the Lincoln Lawyer series and it parallels the second season of the TV show, which puts a different spin on the character Lisa Trammell. I like both versions, but they are quite different. There will be a new book in the series published in November, so now’s the time to catch up!

The weather is really beautiful here in Northern California, so we’re just trying to enjoy it. Dale and I always talk about hiking when it’s not too hot, but then we never do it. We agreed this week to try and do a hike every Thursday. There will be some weeks when it won’t work for various reasons, but I wanted to pick a specific day so when I book appointments, I’ll know to keep Thursdays open.

I know, so busy am I.

Oops

Never trust a writer. I thought long and hard about whether to quit blogging, and I finally decided to move on. Although I absolutely love retirement, my life is not particularly exciting. I figured everyone was bored.

I wrote the farewell post and pushed the button that said I’m outtie.

Your kind and generous feedback made me realize I don’t have to be anything other than what I am. I live how I live, and I write what I write. Thank you for helping me understand there’s a great group of people out there who appreciate my humble efforts. It’s not like I have to trek around the world backward and blindfolded to keep you interested. Sometimes you comment, sometimes you don’t, and that’s just fine.

It took less than 24 hours for me to realize I can’t not write, so I may as well do it among friends!

I’m not quitting. I’m sorry for the drama. I hope you’ll stick around as we return to our regular programming.

Moving on

Hello friends,

I’ve decided to shut down Retirement Confidential. I’ve enjoyed sharing this space with you, and I’ve learned a lot from your insights. Thank you for being part of my blogging journey.

As it happens, I love my life but no longer feel the need or desire to write about it. There’s something to be said for just enjoying the moment, and that’s what I plan to do. I may try my hand at other writing projects. Or maybe not. We’ll see what happens.

Again, thanks for all your support!

Donna

No such thing as bad weather

October will be six years since I retired, and I’m getting better at it all the time. I’m better at relaxing, not stressing out, not regretting and just enjoying the time that has been given to me.

I had my annual physical this week, and all my blood work came back fine, including my CA-125, which is a metric used in diagnosing and monitoring ovarian cancer. Mine was a perfect seven. I’ve been disease-free for more than 24 years, but every single time I see that number, I tear up. I feel so lucky.

For some strange reason, the dramatic weather associated with climate change is helping me accept the seasons as they come. My new mantra is there’s no such thing as bad weather. It’s just weather. Yes, it’s hot now, but it will be cool later. Enjoy each day as it comes.

I mentioned my new-found acceptance to Dale, who looked at me like I was from outer space. I mean, isn’t what everybody does? Not me – in the winter, I would complain about the cold. I couldn’t wait for summer. Then when summer arrived, I was mad it didn’t last long enough.

Now, I just want to make the most of whatever nature throws our way. Instead of dreading winter, I thought, well, I could start with getting a decent jacket. Look better, feel better, right? For the past eight years, I have been wearing a fleece freebie I got at a corporate retreat (complete with corporate logo).

As it turns out, Dale was also looking to upgrade his winter look, so we went to REI and threw some money at it. I got a cool black cropped puffy jacket from North Face, and Dale bought an REI puffy jacket in blue. I like how mine fits at high hip … much more flattering on me than mid-thigh.

We always joke it’s cold out when the Californians trot out the puffy coats. At least now we’ll fit in. Well, probably not, but it’s a start.

Books & TV

I’ve been reading more than watching. As per usual, crime fiction is my genre of choice, and I particularly love reading a series from beginning to end. I just finished book nine of the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley.

Easy is very much the hard-boiled private eye, which I like a lot, but I also enjoy reading about the African-American experience in California – starting with post-WWII and currently addressing the Watts riots, also known as the Watts Rebellion. It’s interesting to see how Easy evolves. He’s an educated, self-taught man who can easily speak the King’s English or slip into a country dialect people often expect from a poor black man of his time. He uses both forms of communication to his advantage.

Sometimes I’ll hear about a new book coming out, but it’s not the first in the series, so I have decisions to make. I recently read a review of Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara, and it sounded great, but then I realized it was the second in the series. The first one, Clark and Division, was at the library, so I read that first and am now on the waiting list for the new one.

The story focuses on a Japanese-American family in California after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Guided by fear and prejudice, the U.S. government incarcerates the family in Manzanar and eventually relocates them to Chicago. Rose Ito, the older sister, is sent first. The younger sister, Aki, is 20, and she and the rest of the family arrive in Chicago to find Rose has been killed by a subway train. Aki investigates the death, and the family tries to adjust to life in Chicago.

In addition to being an entertaining mystery, the book personalizes a tragic chapter in American history. And in California’s history. It does seem as though I’m attracted to historical fiction that tells the story of those who have been badly treated by the system, and sadly, there’s no shortage of material.

Another tactic is to re-read a series when a new book comes out. I saw a new Mickey Haller novel by Michael Connelly is due out in November. I’ve read some but not all of the series, so I decided to start at the beginning and picked up The Lincoln Lawyer from the library today. I just finished the series on Netflix, so it will be fun to compare and contrast.