The “Snowbirds” are here…..

NEWS FLASH – Canadian Snow Birds spotted over Discovery Ridge in SW Calgary….

I don’t mean “The Snow Birds “…the ones that thrill thousands of fans all over Canada with their feats of aerial brilliance each year. I am talking about the older folks that migrate in large flocks each winter to places like Bumble Bee, Arizona and Two Egg, Florida! I think 6 of them just flew into my gym this morning in the middle of my workout.

My fiancé and I live in a condo in SW Calgary and there is a small gym located on site. Now normally there are several people each morning that drift in, get down to business and then get on with their day. This week has been quite the opposite. The birds have arrived after their wintering south of the border and have invaded the peaceful serenity of our workouts. They have brought with them varying degrees of non-essential workout equipment such as sun visors (for indoors?), men’s dress socks and sandals, books on a variety of subjects such as the mating habits of bone fish, and remnants of curler set hair styles in shades of blue. A whole new perspective of Fifty Shades of Grey!

It always surprises me how a bunch of people who don’t really know each other can gossip for so long? Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but really?? …beside me AND in the middle of my workout?? At one point it got so chatty I fully expected a spontaneous game of bridge or gin rummy might break out right there amongst the elliptical machines and incline benches.

Maybe what we need to do is turn the table that holds the paper towels and disinfectant spray into a coffee station with a 75 cup urn to fuel the discussions? Gym goers can then take turns bringing coffee and cake (gluten-free of course) to nibble on. This table could be added into some kind of snow bird circuit training. Have a coffee and snack, followed by chatting while at rest on the recumbent bikes (no, I mean really …not even moving the pedals…), then over to the gossip challenge while looking out the window and finish off with the daily good byes. Ahhh a full workout!

As the very famous wrestling prognosticator General J R Foley used to say, “let the good times roll”! That’s right! ……roll right out the gym door and over to the “social room”, where they should have been in the first place.

Retirement – Step One

Step one – get your house in order and I mean this figuratively.

Stepping into retirement really is about steps. Lots of them…treadmills, parks, pathways and beaches. I have known people over the years when asked about what the first thing they are going to do is, say “get their house in order”! Well, Ok this follows a quick second to they would sleep for a week. I can’t count the number of people that said to me in the first few weeks I was off work, “hey its a little early for you to be up isn’t it”? I just smiled and said “nope”! They would go on to exclaim that if it was them they would sleep for a week or more. As Sam Elliott put it so eloquently in the CLASSIC movie Road House, “I’ll get plenty of sleep when I am dead”.

I remember when my Dad retired after almost 38 years he and my Mom had a list of things to do around the house. Fix this, paint this wall, organize the storage room, etc. This truly was getting the house in order but I suspect for them it was also therapeutic in many ways. My Dad told me that I would be amazed how much energy I would have after six months of not working. He is a very smart Man and was bang on.

For me getting my house in order was/is about mind, body, and spirit. After my own 33 year career not paying enough attention to how and why I tick it was time to tune-up the old chassis. Too much time behind a desk, attending meetings, flying to places I didn’t really want to go can take its toll on the old paint job. The great philosopher Jimmy Buffet prophesized in one of his many great literary works how some people treat their body as a temple, and that he treats his as a tent! I think all of us can or have been able to relate to this at some point.

So I have been getting my house in order and let’s just say it is a work in progress. Each day sleep comes easier and is more restful, clothes fit better or need to be taken in, energy levels rise as do the corners of your mouth when you remember on Sunday night, “hey I don’t work tomorrow “!
It’s a great feeling….

Should you get your house in order?

It’s Funny How…….

Funny how certain things you do during the day will trigger thoughts or memories of a past experience. These experiences can be good, bad or indifferent. This past month my fiancé and I have been “enjoying”, we’ll not exactly enjoying, this little tea concoction each day in the late afternoon. It usually gets brewed up right around that “it’s five O’clock somewhere ” hour. If you could imagine a steaming hot cup of Lipton chicken noodle soup without the chicken, or noodles….well without the Lipton actually. It is a mixer of turmeric and fresh ground ginger, in a cup of hot water. The other main ingredient is half of an orange squeezed into the cup. This tea is supposed to cleanse the liver among other wonderful things. You would never know it from the taste but I guess a person can get used to drinking anything after a while…. Even at my age….I guess my liver probably could use a little dusting and cleaning once in a while anyway.
I sort of went off on a bit of a tangent that took me away from my memory and purpose of this little note.
When I was young, probably grade 4 or 5 I played organized community soccer with several of my friends. A good friend of mine who lives with his family down east now (Kingston Ontario?)… Well his Father was our coach. Every game we played at the half there would be this big bag of oranges cut up into quarters for all of us the dig into. Today when I was making up the “tea” and munching on the orange half that is all I could think about was how good those oranges tasted in those hot springs days on the soccer field. Sooo good.
What foods do you have now that get you thinking back to the days gone by as a kid growing up?