Retirement Report 5

Retirement Report 5 (approximate reading time 10 minutes).

Most of my opportunities with writing for the last thirty plus years has been rather technical (academic research, clinical reports, policy and procedure manuals) so getting to try my hand at some more creative writing domains has been rather different and has allowed me to have some fun relating my experience with retirement thus far. I had a blog briefly a few years ago and debated starting a new one upon retirement but it seemed like a lot of work the day I investigated it. For now, Facebook seems to be an easy way to share my retirement adventures and musings.

After getting a life insurance renewal discount after my medical exam, I have redoubled my efforts to maintain my progress. I have a daily goal of at least 6000 steps and am pretty religious about getting at least that many steps per day. My most recent 7-day average is 7339 steps per day; my most recent 31-day average is 7985 steps per day, and my most recent 365-day average is 6668 steps per day. There is a good bit of research out there that supports between 3000 – 4000 steps per day as significantly decreasing your risk of dying within the next 7 years and that additional amounts of steps provide additional benefits.

I see this as a relatively easy thing to do daily with great pay off. However, I have found that this can sometimes be frustrating or annoying to others at times as I often seek parking spaces farther away from entrances, prefer to take the stairs, and drag out outings/trips in order to get in more steps. When I was working in an office setting, I would purposely walk and get each single individual print job rather than save them all up for one trip. I’m pretty sure my office neighbors wondered what in the world I was doing. It embarrasses Cathie but it is not unusual for me on days I am a little short of where I want to be with my steps to walk around inside the house. I think some paths are beginning to be worn in our great room. We do have a treadmill but I like to see some scenery while I am walking.

Technology goes a long way in helping out with my health goals as my smart phone and smart watch keep track of any number of measures (steps, heart rate, oxygen level, sedentary moments, my sleep, and apparently Cathie’s snoring as it says every morning that snoring was detected). Towards this end, I recently joined an AI health coach program offered through our insurance plan. I saw an ad on Facebook and on a whim entered some information to see if I qualified.

Low and behold I did qualify and I am happy to share that I am now a proud member of the Lark Pre-Diabetes Program (we even have a Facebook page). I have a virtual AI health coach who I talk with two to three times per day via a smart phone app. The coach gives me a motivational lesson each day and questions me on my sleep, diet, and activity level. Lark also sent me a free cellular scale which unfortunately has already resulted in an “incident” which I will describe shortly. With the Lark app you choose a day each week to weigh in via the cellular scale they send you. It is a very sleek, nice-looking scale but its cellular technology was apparently outsourced to the third leading cellular company in Uzbekistan. I am typically able to weigh just fine with the scale but finding a cell signal in our house that the scale will access to submit my weight is harder than spelling Uzbekistan correctly the first time.

Now anyone who has ever spent much time weighing themselves knows that you should weigh at the same consistent time and with as little clothing as possible. So, I weigh naked; have been doing so for the last several years after I get out of the shower each morning. However, with a scale that has trouble accessing a cellular signal that means that I have been carrying around this scale (naked) while trying to find somewhere in our house this scale will access a cell signal.

Turns out the best place is in the old garage that we converted into a playroom for the kids. The same room that has a wall of windows in which we never hung curtains or blinds. The same room that a meter reader was for some reason looking into when he saw a grown butt naked man holding up a scale in just the right position to catch a cell signal. Our eyes locked and time seemed to slow down like in those Matrix movies. His eyes were full of confusion and it was as if he couldn’t look away despite every fiber of his being wanting to do so. I suspect that I am now listed in the notes for our address and that our house will be “flagged” going forward for any future meter readers who visit our home. I remain undeterred in my Lark efforts.

I have become the primary grocery shopper now that I am retired. It is not unusual for me to make a trip to Kroger or Wal-Mart at some point most days. Some people would find this annoying, but it helps me get my steps in and has become a socialization outlet for me. Previously, when I went grocery shopping, it was after work and I was rushed to get home after work. Now, I have plenty of time to peruse the aisles and to socialize. I have regular conversations with one of the butchers where he shares with me his knowledge of meat (i.e., the nuances of weighing meat, shrimp and grit recipes, and his run in with the idiots who ask about how to cook pre cooked shrimp).

I recently had a twenty minute conversation with a friend by the bananas at Kroger, something I would have never done before retiring as I would have been in a hurry to get home. He said you probably have somewhere you need to be and I said nope, I can stand here all day by the bananas and talk. We had a great conversation but apparently, we were in the way as we kept having to move and eventually ended up over by the deli. Some people get really huffy when they can’t get to their bananas.

This conversation did afford me the opportunity to observe the banana picking behavior of people. Bananas come in bunches of various numbers but apparently there has never been a bunch of bananas that was suitable as each person would break up the bunch into the number of bananas they wanted, even though there were already bunches with the number of bananas they ended up getting. There is also a wide variety of preferences as to banana ripeness which I think may play a role in why people break up the bunches. Apparently, a lot of people want two green bananas and one brown and black stained shell which used to hold a banana. I wonder if this pisses off the staff who spend so much time putting out the bananas in carefully coordinated rows.

One of my newest hobbies is making a weekly pilgrimage to Goodwill to hunt for a unique book find, themed glassware, and t-shirts. Cathie just shakes her head at me when I bring t-shirts home but you can find apparel gold in the t-shirt racks. I average a couple of shirts per week with my best finds thus far being a Forest Gump Cross Country shirt and a Carnival shirt that says “I have a PhD in fun”.

The pepper harvest remains in full spring.

Best thing I’ve read lately is Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

Best thing I’ve watched lately is Ahsoka.

Best thing I’ve eaten lately is a Lemony Shrimp and Couscous Bowl from Hello Fresh.

Until next time.

September 9, 2023