Musings
About retirement… and random other things!
These blogs first appear as weekly columns in the Red Deer Advocate
Unexpected detour down memory lane
(Here I am at my first office job in 1981 - rotary phone, ashtray and rolodex and all!) The year 2020 brings immediate thoughts to mind of huge events, including one for me that seemed inconsequential at the time. It was the year I became eligible to begin receiving my Canada Pension Plan benefits, if I chose to do so. I was still working full...
Will you still feed me when I’m sixty-four
How we used to laugh at those old Beatles lyrics way back when, feeling that the age of 64 was lightyears away. But I’m here now. Just turned 64 a few weeks ago and must say it has already caused a bit of confusion. It started when my dear school friend sent me a New Year’s card that said what a great time was coming up, as we would be going into...
Elbows up, standing shoulder to shoulder with linked arms
Gosh, that title sounds like a game of Twister, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t feel like a game these days. It got me thinking: What do you stand on guard for? Your word? Your livelihood? Your kids? I vividly remember the last time I took my daughter camping. She was about five years old and I was just getting used to being alone in the world with...
Gracefully surrendering the coordination of youth
On the days when I wake up and my eyelids won’t accordion-fold open into their prescribed slots properly, I know I’m in for a day of jamming square pegs into round holes. A day where anything that requires the technology and good fortune of an accurate twist or a fold upon itself in order to function will be completely off. I will coax my eyelids...
Life is a matter of perspective
(Here's me with my youngest nephew on a previous set in Olds - the artist of the mural took the picture!) My nephews are so adorable. All four of them are clever and kind, and either in their 40s or inching much closer to that magic age. It was only a few years ago that I stopped slipping a $10 bill into their birthday cards. I mean, one of them...
A clean sweep
I have always found the action of sweeping my kitchen floors to be soothing, although by the third round of tending animal fluff in a day it can get a bit repetitive. I’m thinking it’s the gentle side to side rocking that’s relaxing, sort of like the motions we made when we were learning the song Kumbaya in the 1960s. Or maybe it’s the TV...
We need a little good news
I’ve been humming the old Anne Murray song to myself a lot lately, because I love her music and because ‘We sure could use a little good news today’. As I write this, we are in a minus 40 deep-freeze, we are mad as hell about world chaos being caused by a single person and we were already tired of dealing with cost of living challenges. The...
What we choose to read
I have spent several years of my life feeling slightly ashamed that I haven’t read Alice Munro. Notable Nobel Prize winning Canadian author – I wondered through the years what the disconnect was. I felt slightly intimidated at times and then quite disinterested at others, thinking that I don’t really read short stories. But then I began to write...
Have you ever met your doppelganger?
I heard about my doppelganger long before I met her. Nicola is my distant cousin from Ireland and her uncanny similarities to me became a repeated theme among cousins in the ‘Canadian line’ who journeyed to the old country. When my mom and dad first set foot in Ireland, they had all four of us kids in tow. I’m not sure how they managed to save...