Driving Miss Nancy...
12/14/2011
The title reflects about all I really have to do these days. Well, that is, except for breathing, eating, brushing my teeth, bathing and occasionally slipping into the bathroom for a needed personal relief moment. My life has surely changed, but I have to say, unequivocally, I love it.
As for driving Miss Nancy, aka The Nancy, I really don’t do that much any longer especially since the gas money is coming out of my pocket and not that of my former employer. It is funny how quickly I began paying attention to the price of gasoline once the cost of it was to be borne by yours truly. In fact, now that I have joined the ever growing ranks of aging Americans subsisting on a limited income I find myself looking at the cost of a lot of items, but just looking. I still spend like a drunken sailor, hoping I might just spark a turnaround with this economy by spending my children’s inheritance. At the very least I am making a valiant stab at it, much to the chagrin of my wife.
Notwithstanding what I said earlier I have found myself to be rather busy these days. As retirement approached I was very concerned with how I might fill my daily dance card, I have found it simply isn’t that hard to do. I am not a list maker, but I do choose to keep a short running list of possible projects securely anchored within my ever rapidly atrophying cerebellum. This way should I forget something I know it will one day pop again in my conscious thoughts and I will think of it as a brilliant, albeit, new idea. This is aging at its finest.
Speaking of my “To Do List,” this week I made a trip to the local landfill and dumped off all the old company files and crap I could not part with while I was employed but now view as merely superfluous clutter, this was the first item on my list. I also plan on, at some point, no hurry, to clean out my 1/3 of our walk-in master closet (The Nancy took the rest for her stuff).
There are suits and sports jackets hanging the closet I have not worn in years and ties so old and wide you could land a bi-plane on them. Much of what is on my side of the closet will make someone else very happy, I hope. These are gently worn, good quality clothes, just not worn any longer. Actually I probably won’t have need of most of what is in there. Five or six suits, five or six sports jackets, slacks, dress shirts and many pairs of shoes, all adding up to way too much stuff I won’t ever wear again, and have no need to wear again. One of the last suits I purchased is (very) jokingly referred to as my “burial suit,” though don’t anyone get your hopes up, I am here to stay. I need to be a burden on my children. So you can see I do have things to do, right?
At this very moment I am sitting in the parking lot of a hotel in Charles Town, West Virginia waiting on “Miss Nancy” to get out of a meeting so I can drive her back to our home some fifty miles west. This is the only item on my dance card for today, well, that is, except for my nap.
And that is all I have to say about that…