Retirement Games . . .

. . . I Don't Have Time !


Lately some of my friendly bloggers have been also sending me forwards of games to play, essays to forward to somebody else and then watch to see what pops up on my screen and stuff that promises me a surprise in four or six or eight days if I forward to a dozen others.

Even a BEST correspondent and blogger who has repeatedly asked me not to forward such stuff, has begun sending that stuff to me. Look folks, I am retired and planning to be around for a 100th birthday bash come 2023.

That leaves me only 13 1/2 years to accomplish sorting, catagorizing and filing a lot of stuff from dozens and dozens of cardboard storage boxes now reposing in our downtown garage, moved recently from the North Hobbs house and barn.

Lady B, who doesn't cotton to my mentioning her at all in my writings, coyly dropped her BEST comment of the month just today that if I had left "all that junk in the barn" I would not have to sort and file because now everything would be ruined.

That comment came about as a result of the weekend 13 degree freeze that caused the pipes leading from a deep-drilled well to a water storage tank to rupture and spray water for hours- perhaps even a day or two - INSIDE the barn.

What's left in that barn today is BEST landfill-destined I have discovered. Anything left is sodden and most definitely ruined, even furniture.

But I still have all my goodies to sort, file and save again, including those cancelled checks from back in the 1940s, and the income tax returns that are just as old.

One of those old checks was a 1947 payment to the hospital for Yarntangler's four or five day stay when she was born - $246!

Over a three week period, daily trips got most everything safely transported downtown into our garage, where I now cannot park the van. I will be working, I have been informed, on a box a night.

Now you know why I cannot fool around with the games and stuff aforementioned Wish me luck.

Oh yeah - I ought to mention that new gimmick everybody is trying to get me into - Facebook. It seems like a nice way to be keeping in touch with relatives and close frieds but what's the matter with just the BEST old-fashioned e-mails i'm really just getting the hang of?

Well, because I think I've got enough to do in the next 13 1/2 years - let's hope it will be more than that - I just don't think I can fit in this additional chore.

Back to my opening statements about games and forwards. I don't mind
- most of the time - getting them. Sometimes I even make a half-hearted effort at playing them with others. I like the colored pictues from New Zealand and nland, eve print some of them.

The forwards I get bug me. Many I have seen a dozen times. I do forward on occasion to folks I think would enjoy them only to get back a quick reply - "this is old, saw it five years ago. "

I would much rather be getting personal messages from bloggers, in particular those who have started blogs months ago and after a few messages, never followed through.

One of my pastimes shared with Lady B, is routine after daily breakfast - the crosswords. We take the morning paper, fold to the puzzle and on the copier, make two copies, thus each of us can do a puzzle in friendly competition .

We do enjoy this game but have learned a big lesson. When we have had company, we've followed the habit of making three or four extra copies so everybody gets in on the fun.

Well, the lesson is just forget about doing puzzles with Chris, Bennie Jean, the Linda and Jim combination, and Yarntangler.

While we've been laboring away with pencil and eraser, we've suddenly looked up to see them sitting back, arms folded, and smiling smugly at us. One of that group actually uses a ball point INK pen to do the puzzle.

Well, that's about enough for tonight. After another hard day at the North Hobbs house, putting up new window blinds, and insulating the new water tank pipes, it's time for a hot soak in the jacuzzi to ease aching bones and then head to dreamland.

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