Staying at a resort-like, age restricted, active adult community in suburban Phoenix for ten weeks with my friend, Kathy, has been a bit like camp. A very nice camp. (http://www.grandinfo.com/) But what would camp be without a letter to mom and dad. So channeling my ten your old self, my letter home… Dear Mom and Dad, Thanks for sending me to camp this year with the older kids. It’s been a blast! Our cabin is real nice and I like it a lot, but the other cabins behind us are a little too Continue Reading
The scary similarities between high school and retirement
Can high school foretell your retirement? I can’t imagine it does, but recently, a friend told me I was the poster child for retirement. As I quickly dispelled that notion, I thought about my life today and found myself thinking back to my high school days, and surprisingly, found many similarities. Bell bottoms and the hair flip, fortunately, are not two of them. I'll always love my parents and at the same time, be frustrated with them for letting me join and then after a year, quit so many Continue Reading
My Brush with Death in the Kitchen
In our second day at Retirement Camp (that’s what I’ve decided to call these ten weeks in this “active adult” community in Arizona), I guess I agreed to play pickle-ball. It happened like this. My friend and I were driving around the area, each of us getting more and more excited over all the offerings that we’d be able to take advantage of. Kathy: “So would you like to play pickle-ball sometime? Oh look, there’s a Culver’s.” Pam: “Great!” You see what happened here, right? She thought Continue Reading
Our Love Affair With Stuff We Don’t Need
The list of 100 things to do in the Phoenix area is pretty comprehensive from museums and galleries, restaurants and food joints, and even includes a ginormous fabric store and a place to watch bats at night. The Mesa Market Place Swap Meet didn’t make the cut; I suspect it would have come in at #101, yet here we were, with a couple thousand other retirees with too much time on our hands, looking for the next great bargain. (By the way, I did ask if we could barter – nope, nor did I see any Continue Reading