Do you have a plan?

Everybody should have a life plan.  Or so I've been told.  A formal, write-it-down, put-it-where-you-can-see-it, follow it, revise it, follow it, kind of plan.  I've never had one.  I've just been winging it for over half a century.  

And here I am on the verge of my next life adventure thinking I'd better make a plan.  It may be my last chance to do it right. 

I've got 16 months and 12 days before retirement.  (Give or take a year or two depending on how it goes at the Dumass Corporation.)   So I'm going to make a plan to get ready for retirement.  Here's what I've got so far:

1. Make a plan.

That's all I got.  Pititful, ain't it?

Memorial Day 2011

What ever you're doing Monday, May 30, don't forget the National Moment of Remembrance - One Nation, One Moment

On Monday at 3 p.m. local time, where ever you are, what ever you're doing, stop and take a moment to remember those who have sacrificed their lives for this country. 

The small white tombstones

Stood in rows and columns

Like soldiers in formation.

Proudly they stood

Ramrod straight,

Like soldiers at attention.



Boston Creme Pie

When I was at the grocery store last week, I noticed they had Boston Cream Pies on sale from a national brand pie company. 

I don't know why they are called "pies" because they are cakes, even though they come in a pie tin.  Boston claims it was actually created there or at least somewhere in Massachusetts and it's been the official state desert since 1996.

But I digress.  I don't like Boston Cream Pies.  I don't know why I don't like them, but I don't.   I like cake, I like pudding, I like chocolate and that's all there is to these pies. So I should like Boston Cream Pies. I mean, What's not to like?

I bought one of the pies just to see if I was wrong. 

I was right.  I didn't like it.  So I got to say to myself, "See?  I told you so.  Why don't you ever listen to me?"

All around the mulberry bush ....

Today I got suckered into a project some how some way.

1. I have to give a presentation to the managers on what to do with a new zip code spreadsheet and database that we'll be getting soon.  I don't mind giving a presentation, but, really, how dumb can managers be that they can't figure out a list of zip codes?
2. The IT guy, Dennie, needs to know where to put the database/table and he asked me.  I'm not on that committee so I don't know, but I suggested he ask the project manager, Kitty.  He suggested he wait till I found out for him.  I asked a manager that is on the committee to get the database  - she didn't know.  I asked a co-worker in another office that is on the committee to get the database - he didn't know, but suggested I ask Kitty who's the head of the committee. 
3. Kitty hadn't answered the question I asked her yesterday about the zip codes so I didn't think there was any sense in asking her today's question, but I asked anyway.  Kitty thinks I'm stupid and I think she's a real Dumass kind of employee.  What do you think: I forwarded Dennie's email request for info to her and added a note "Dennie needs to know where to put the zip codes."  She replied "Dennie will put the zip codes where he wants to put them." 
4. Ok.  So go back to # 2 and we'll start all over again tomorrow.

All around the Mulberry Bush,

The lady chased an answer.

She didn't think it was all that hard,

Pop! goes the weasel.

How Time Changes Things

--- when you're so busy living that you forget to pay attention to what's happening around you.

I went to visit an old friend today, somebody from my school days.  We ate barbecued spare ribs, and corn casserole, and apple salad, and we talked about family and friends and former instructors and about how getting old sucks.  Really sucks.  Then we ate Mrs. Wick's Sugar Cream Pie and I came home.

They live out in the country.  You take this interstate to there and then that interstate to a little dropping off place in the country then you go 4 miles east, 2 miles south, 1 mile west, 1 miles north, 3 miles east, a half a mile south and you're there.  Coming home you just reverse that except leave out the 2 middle turns because you shouldn't have made them in the first place.

I learned some things today. 

1. That getting old is more sucky for some than for others.
2. That I still can find my way around without a GPS.  (It might have been faster with a GPS but I got there eventually.)
3. That some time in the last 40 years I stopped being a country girl.  That really hurts.