Phase 1

And so, the factory whistle blows again.  Ha!  Except, I need not answer, for you see, I have more vacation time than work days left until my retirement is official.  I go. . . on occasion.  I still have a position and duties, and I am no shirker.  Still, I go, as I say, occasionally and only for as long as I want.  I am easing into retirement.

And it is weird.

Every day becomes like the other.  I get up, drink coffee and read, then exercise and come home to do some sort of work, have lunch, take a nap, get up drowsy and get ready for dinner.  I have not been completely lazy.  I have worked.  I weeded the long driveways.  I had not worked like that for over a year, and I was sore after.  The next day, Ili and I threw twelve yards of mulch.  That was the real challenge.  I am proud to say that I was up to it.  I was "the man" for the job.  It has take me a long time to get to this point.

Yesterday I went to Home Depot and got fifty pound bags of soil for filling in some uneven steps.

In short, I'm giving up a job I like for one that I don't like so much.  Not really.

But today is a factory day, and tomorrow is as well.  Soon the workers will begin to resent me.

I can see how retirement can be dangerous.  Ili says she will get me a t-shirt that says, "I'm not a drunk, I'm a retiree."

That is Ili's picture of me in Paris as I was photographing something.  Very clever, I think.  The Paris Photographer.  I must have been focussed on a monument.