Retirement - A New Career

Retirement – A New Career

 

Listen, it’s about time to start taking retirement seriously. This is after all an ever-lengthening career path we are all bound to follow. An’ it ain’t near as easy as it might seem neither. There’s a whole lot of trainin’ involved. It’s a little bit like when you graduated from high school an’ at the convocation you suddenly realized that the life you’ve known an’ become familiar with all them years is suddenly over. There’s no way to get it back an’ now you’re facin’ the unknown, without any tools to help you cope.

Well that’s not entirely true neither. Somewhere in yer long life, some o’ the things ya learned have got to have stuck somewheres in yer brain. See, that’s the first thing ya gotta learn, that ya ain’t entirely useless. We get the idea that when our workin’ life is done, we’re done too. Not so! Far from it, we got a long time ahead of us. It’s called retirement. Now it’s a matter of choosin’ what ya wanna retire at. An’ if ya find ya don’t fancy whatever ya pick, ya can just throw it away an’ try somethin’ else. That’s the beauty of retirement. Ain’t nobody can tell ya what to do (or how to do it) within reason. It has largely to do with budget of course. Ya can’t embark on an ocean cruise in a canoe after all. Well there’s that an’ of course it might get the Missus a tad annoyed if ya tried carvin’ a totem pole with a chain saw in the livin’ room.

The thing is the importance o’ research. Well heck, it’s not as though you ain’t got the time. It’s different than it was when you was workin’ an’ tryin’ to think o’ what retirement would be like durin’ coffee breaks. Now you can crawl up into yer easy chair an’ spend some quality time daydreamin’. If somethin’ comes to mind you might like to try, spend the time to research it all around an’ if it still sounds good, go for it. If it don’t work out, just throw it away an’ start the whole process all over again.

See how easy that is? In fact, you can choose two or three things to work on at the same time, just to avoid the possibility of boredom. There’s just so many possibilities to retirement that you can make a whole career outta pickin’ somethin’ to retire with, without ever even do anythin’. It turns out that retirement will be the best career you’ll ever have an’ you’ll wish you’d started it earlier in life. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.  

 

 

More About Evolution

More About Evolution

 

I figured I was finished with the subject of evolution after that blog about two weeks ago, but no there’s more goin’ on than meets the eye apparently. I was watchin’ my daughter typin’ away on her what-you-macall-it Ipad/Ipod, sendin’ out a text message – with nothin’ but her dad blamed thumbs. They was goin’ up an’ down like little trip hammers, like the telegraphers dots an’ dashes, sendin’ out a message of some sort. Well I’d never seen anythin’ like that before an’ it struck my funny bone. I remarked out loud that I wondered if they had such a thing as two thumb typin’ lessons. So now it was all our turns to laugh.

Well, just hold ‘er right there Newt. Like I usually do, I Googled it an’ wouldn’t ya know it, there was a whole bunch o’ sites about thumb typin, an’ designin’ new configurations to make it easier an’ faster to do. Seems I can’t ever think of a brand-new idea but somebody has already beat me to it.

But to the point of evolution, I started to think about what would happen to our hands by adoptin’ this new style of thumb communicatin’. It seemed that we’d end up with one long pointy digit at the end of each hand an’ the rest would just be little stubs.

Turns out that ain’t true neither. Well ya got yer trigger finger that’s needed fer all them wars we’re fightin’ for starters. Then ya got yer “Up Yours” finger which is very important fer road rage an’ sundry other things these days. Don’t altogether discount the ring finger neither. It’s gained some popularity these days with all them same sex marriages. I guess it’s a place for symbolism that’ll keep it’s place of importance for a while yet. Then of course there’s the pinky finger which is altogether necessary fer pickin yer nose or yer ears or even raisin’ up when yer drinkin’ a cuppa tea. That one’ll never go outta style.

Whew, that’s a relief! Fer a while there I was thinkin’ our great grandchildren ain’t even goin’ to be able to shake hands no more. Who am I kiddin’? They don’t do that no more anyways. They just do fist bumps an high fives these days an’ who knows what they’ll be doin’ next? They’ll probably be just textin’ one another. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

 

The NHL gots the Mumps

The NHL gots the Mumps!

 

Now there’s a story worth tellin’! Finally somethin’ o’ substance outta the NHL. THEY GOT THE MUMPS! Well not all o’ them, but some o’ them anyways, even Sidney Crosby! It’s a good job they got separate dressin’ rooms or they’d all have ‘em. They might still all get ‘em too, what with all that body checkin’ goin’ on in the games.

I got this picture in my mind o’ them guys whizzin’ round the ice runnin’ at one another an’ spittin’ on their opponents’ sweaters or gloves INSTEAD of hittin’ ‘em. Now that would provide a whole new dimension to the game. Suddenly all that hittin’ an’ body checkin’ an’ fightin’ would disappear – instantly, an’ get rid of concerns about concussions at the same time.

Who’d a ever thought that there’s a medical solution to the violence in sports? Now if they would only go an’ spit on Gary Bettman, he might get the message too! I’m just kinda sorry that the old wives’ tale that mumps in adult males will turn them all into eunuchs is just an old wives’ tale more or less. We could’a had six man barber shop singers vyin’ for the Stanley cup instead o’ them hard hittin’ fightin’ goons on the ice. Imagine a musical Toronto Maple Leafs team. Well, it’s a nice fantasy.

Let’s face it. The game an’ the people who play it are far different than they were in the days of Jean Beliveau whose funeral this week pays tribute to one of the giants of the game and a giant among roll models for young people an’ even older ones to follow. These buggers deserve to get the mumps with swollen cheeks an’ other parts, what with the way they play the game anyways.

But I digress. How hard can it be to design a medication to inoculate all them players before game time. Just the very idea that they’d be singin’ harmony to their fans instead of fightin’ an’ body checkin’ would put the fear of the Lord into them goons on the various teams. What they could do is put some o’ them germs in the Zamboni an’ spread ‘em over the ice before a game. That ought’a do it!

Well listen, no matter how you slice it, it would be some good entertainment to see them big players whizzin’ around the ice with their puffy cheeks an’ oversized jock straps tryin’ to play hockey. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’. 

 

 

Humans!

Humans!

 

You gotta keep yer eyes an’ ears open if you wanna spot the evolutionary changes in humanity. This ain’t just for archaeologists to discover thousands of years later, but right here an’ now you can see it happenin’ before yer very eyes! It’s sorta like the global warmin’ of the human kind. There’s all kinds o’ warnin’ signs all around us that we just don’t see until we start to put it all together an’ then it becomes as plain as the nose on yer face.

Let me give you an example. There was a little cartoon on facebook the other day where a guy is talkin’ on the phone. He says to whoever is on the other end o’ the line, “Did ya have to call? Couldn’t ya just text me?” That kinda reveals the idea of what’s happenin’ here, of how we communicate nowadays.

I’ll put it in more vivid context for you. One of our granddaughters dropped in for a visit last night. She and her Oma were chattin’ about shoppin’ on Black Friday (which the Missus had inadvertently done). The Missus was complainin’ she didn’t realize how busy it was gonna be. So our Samantha, a young, upwardly mobile, well educated, well traveled professional woman pipes up an’ says the malls are all full o’ HUMANS! An’ she HATES humans! In fact she says she will rather go to the scan an’ pay aisle at the grocery store just to avoid the grouchy HUMAN cashier. Normally, Samantha is a very kind, caring person so this attitude is a bit of an anomaly. But I guess we all have our preferences and/or maybe off days.

What I was getting’ at here was the general attitude o’ the young people an’ the impact on the shopping malls an’ big box stores, not to mention the future of robotics. It kinda looks like the shoppin’ malls an’ big box stores only future will be as giant warehouses to ship out online orders with a largely robotic population, leavin’ HUMAN jobs out of the mix as much as possible. Amazon is already doin’ it.

So there you have it. Shopping Centers and big box stores will soon be giant warehouses, but at least THEY will be salvageable. HUMANS on the other hand are already expendable an’ might just as well become extinct. As long as you got yer scanners an’ the internet, who needs them anyways. An’ it’s just in time too. Our world population is bustin’ at the seams an we got to downsize. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin.

 

 

 

 

The Holiday Season

The Holiday Season

 

When in tarnation does this folly really begin? I would say about mid July with the onset of “Back to School” sales. That’s really the primer to get retailers motivated for another season of retailing. Well it’s a joyous occasion for both parents and children. The kids get out of day long day-care and back to their friends. The parents finally have the little buggers out from under foot. That’s certainly cause for celebration. So the retailers go gang-busters in encouraging the season. We are led to believe that EVERYTHING is on sale!

Then of course there’s the labor day weekend. We even get a statutory holiday out of it! That’s when Rona an’ Home Depot an’ Canadian Tire gear up an’ go to town. So it ends up to be a “fix your house up” weekend. After that there’s about a two-day lull before you gotta get Halloween costumes an’ decorations ordered an outfitted. An’ Holy Crap! Almost forgot! You need winter clothes for yourself an’ the kids too!

The food stores an’ specialty shops have their go at you for Thanksgivin’ an’ you stock up on enough food to last through Christmas (if it don’t go bad before). It seems the cheapest thing you can buy throughout the sellin’ season is the poppies for Remembrance Day.

My Missus has spent her whole life in the retail business, sellin’ about everythin’ there is to sell except maybe cement, an’ I can tell you – no, maybe I’d better not – what she thinks about shoppin’ malls, shoppin’ in general an’ the whole commercialization of about everythin’ there is. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she wasn’t alone neither. By the time Christmas finally shows up, these sales people are totally exhausted, an’ for want of a better expression, disgusted with anythin’ associated with Christmas. The expression “Thank you for shopping at . . . . and have a nice day/evening” has an entirely different meaning than the words represent. It might make a Longshoreman blush.

We’d come home on Christmas Eve, close the gate, drive into the garage, run into the house an’ lock the blasted door as a definitive gesture an’ go to bed. The thing is, she knew she had to be at work on Boxing Day to handle all the returns an’ take care of all the Boxing Day sales crap.

So even after all these years of retirement, when she says she hates Christmas, she ain’t kiddin’. An’ it ain’t got nothin’ to do with our Lord an’ Savior neither. He’s alive an’ well in our house, just not in them greasy admen’s minds or in the malls. Bah Humbug to them! As far as she’s concerned, you can take your Christmas an’ stick it where the sun don’t shine. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

A Woman's Work is Never Done!

A Woman’s Work is Never Done!

 

Yeah, well that’s what the Missus says as she’s busily dustin’ off my desk an’ putin’ things away in places that only she knows about. It’s got so I make for my office whenever I see her armed with her dust mop. That thing is like one o’ them AK47’s in her hands. You never know what’s gonna get hit next. So half my time is spent in the office on guard duty rather than doin’ anythin’ productive.

Well an’ that ain’t the only thing neither. Dollars to donuts I could easy get a job in an art gallery hangin’ pictures up too. It ain’t nothin to see a bunch o’ pictures on the floor, leaned up against the wall when I get up in the mornin’. It seems she’s been dreamin’ about or schemin’ about re-arrangin’ how things ought to look an nothin’ satisfies her ‘til it’s done. Even then it’s not a for sure thing neither. It could last a coupl’a days or weeks even, but eventually . . . . . . well, she has another vision.

Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t complainin’, far from it. How else would I get the kind of entertainment offered up by these antics? It’s like mock war games to keep up with all the goin’s on. Reminds me of that old couple we knew in the square dancing club we belonged to years ago. They’d lived in England durin’ WWII an’ he was in the Home Guard. She had a different motivation for movin’ stuff around. She was nervous about bombs an’ doin’ that sorta thing occupied her time.

You got to remember that in them days there was total blackouts to confuse the Germans. Well, after about two or three days without much sleep, the guy comes home, dead tired. Not wantin’ to wake the wife, he creeps in, pulls off his boots an’ flops on the bed. Imagine his surprise when the bed wasn’t where it was the last time he flopped into it.

Well thank goodness my Missus don’t go THAT far. At our age, if we missed the bed, we’d likely end up in the hip replacement department of the local hospital. Although I gotta say she come pretty close the other day when she informed me that them two big horkin pictures in the bedroom hadda get changed around. Well I couldn’t do anythin’ about it cause they were already layin’ on the bed where I wanted to have a nap. So, grumblin’ under my breath (so she wouldn’t hear) I make a new nail hole an’ hang the one right over the bed. Shame, really. I liked to look at that one across the room while I was dozin’ off. Then I hung that heavy sucker over the Missus’ dresser an went to bed. Layin’ there, still mutterin’ under my breath I look up an’ notice the one over the dresser is that big petty-point of a boy layin’ on a hill, day dreamin’ about the clouds in the sky. Well if that don’t beat all! That’s just the mood I’m in, an’ I promptly fall asleep. Don’t you just hate it when the Missus is always right? To tell the truth, I hope her work is never done. The only thing is, I’m puttin’ a police tape around my office. She has a healthy respect for authority. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

Canad's Human Rights Record

Canada’s Human Rights Record

 

Gomeshi really started somethin’ this time. At least he did with me. Another sleazebag in the lime light vying for our attention. Thankfully the court of public opinion has thrown him under the bus an’ not a moment too soon! No sooner did women start coming forth with some of the ammunition to nail his hide to the barn door than complaints of abuse started surfacing (of all places) in the House of Commons. A couple of Liberal MPs were suspended pending the outcome of an investigation (by somebody unknown) and the whole house got its shorts in a wringer about privacy and reliving the abuses, whatever they were. Low and behold, all of a sudden Sheila Copps comes out of the woodwork, announcing the abuse she suffered at the hands of parliamentarians years ago. I can still remember when she got into a verbal swordfight with big old John Crosbie and ended up skewering his big fat butt to the pork barrel. I think in one of his typical tirades he called her “baby” and she pointed out that she wasn’t anybody’s baby, especially HIS! I certainly hope she now comes forward and files formal complaints with the police on her abuses.

We “tut tut” and shake our heads in disapproval at the abuses that go on in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and other places far away from Canada. We would never condone such things here in Canada. Oh no? Well just for your information, read this: http://criaw-icref.ca/ViolenceagainstWomenandGirls. That’ll open your eyes a little bit. It turns out that we are one really sick nation of abusers. Five hundred thousand cases per year happen here in Canada. If you do the math, that amounts to one case of abuse per minute.

So when we stand in silence to remember those who have fought and died so that we may live in a free and democratic society, we need to look and see just what kind of free and democratic society we have wrought. Would these men and women have given their lives to pay for the sick society we have become? I think not.

The twelve hundred murdered and missing Aboriginal women would agree with me. The men and women who are being abused every minute of every day would agree with me. Just now there was another report of a sixteen-year-old Aboriginal girl who was assaulted and left for dead in the Assiniboine River. She was fortunately found and survived. She would agree with me.

We have absolutely no business calling for improved human rights in the countries we’re wagging our fingers at when we ourselves are blatant abusers. We’d be far better off recognizing our own shortcomings and cleaning up our house rather than point our accusatory fingers at our neighbors. But then Mr. Harper et al would be confused at my accusations. He would peek out of his fluffy cocoon, declare that everything is fine in there, and keep on allowing abuse. In fact that’s the case with many of us who either haven’t been abused, or those that think this is acceptable. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin.