My P.O.V. on Retirement

If I live long enough to be eligible for residency in a retirement facility, I hope I don't. I don't want to spend my remaining years shuffling down a dimly lit, urine smelling, sad little hallway to my closet sized bedroom with its obligatory 17 inch TV, vase filled with faux daisies, and uncomfortable visitor's chair. The last thing I want to talk about is my ailments to another senior who is obsessed with bowel movements. I want to live out in the fresh air filled with progressive thinkers who know how to have fun. I want to shop till I drop and go to see kick-butt, scifi movies with a socially redeeming message. I want to drink a White Russian every year on my birthday. I want to try to stay awake every new years eve and drink a toast to the new year. I want to visit Australia and see Ayres Rock, go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, see the Rabbit Proof Fence (or where it used to be), pet a Roo, play a didgeridoo, see a Koala, tour Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, see the remains of the last known Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine), and taste a vegemite sandwich, maybe. Then when I'm too old to do or go, I want to quietly slip into the last dimension having exhausted my wish list.

I’m going MAD, MAD, MAD from the rain, rain, rain…

It seems like it’s been raining for months. It has! It’s been raining for the last 4 months and I’m sick of it. Humidity is normal in the south but I feel like I’m drowning each time I leave the house now. I’ll probably regret saying that when we go through a dry spell and I have to water the lawn every day. But right now I’m tired of seeing all the green and black mold growing where it shouldn’t. I’m annoyed about not being able to clean up and enjoy my screened-in porch ‘cause it keeps raining and I can’t put my chairs close to the screened side because they’ll get wet…again! My lawn is mud and pools and ponds where grass used to grow and mosquito larvae are probably growing there by the millions. I’m sick of putting all my rain gear on to take the dog outside so she can do her poop and pee and then having to haul out towels to dry her off when she comes in soaking wet. I remember one of the short stories in Ray Bradbury’s book “The Illustrated Man” called "The Long Rain". I am including a short synopsis from Wikipedia here:

"The Long Rain" — A group of astronauts are stranded on Venus, where it rains continually and heavily. The travelers make their way across the Venusian landscape to find a "sun dome", a shelter with a large artificial light source. However, the first sun dome they find has been destroyed by the Venusians. Searching for another sun dome, the characters, one by one, are driven to madness and suicide by the unrelenting rhythm of the rain. At the end of the story, only one sane astronaut remains, and manages to find a functional sun dome.

I’m going slowly MAD from the sound of the rain, first softly tapping on my window panes and then loudly hitting windows and roof. Then there's the sound of water dripping into the bucket I have had to put in my fireplace to catch the rain blown down the flue from gale force wind gusts. I’m going MAD (I tell you) from not being able to move about without an umbrella always at the ready. I am fed up with jumping over puddles between where I park my car and the building I want to enter, winding up with wet feet anyway. Drip, drip, drip, splash, glub…