Typical Day in the Life of a Retiree

Awake at nine and a half-hour in bed with coffee and the still-with-us Boston Globe. Cat comes up for lovey time. Plunks herself down in mid-paper. How sweet it is.

Down to the kitchen and make blueberry pancakes out of yesterday's waffle batter. Two slices of bacon per person, our idea of dieting. It warn't turkey bacon, either.

Clean up kitchen, spot clean tablecloth and throw in a load of laundry. Monday is still washday.

Give Thisbe her insulin shot.

Onto computer for email, blogging, and working on today's reading for the writing group. Wrote 4 pages yesterday. Good for me.

Shower, etc.

Off to Walmart for cat litter, insulin needles, cat food and a few assorted groceries. I used to scorn Walmart, before retirement and the cats many needs.

Looking for rhubard for rhubard bread later in week. Hope it's not $5.99 per lb. again.

Drop off key for cat sitter with instructions.

Baking food processor bread, and freeform blueberry tart. Dinner is a salad with grilled steak (cooked last night) on top.

Watch a little Wimbleton.

Water houseplants.

Print out reading for tonight.

Wine and cheese, then dinner. La-de-dah!

Off to writing group.

Blueberry tart. Maybe a little reading or TV. Insulin to cat again.

Read more of Eat, Pray, Love on Kindle. Lights out!

Blueberry Pancakes and the Cock of the Walk

One of the best places in Key West is Blue Heaven, a funky restaurant with chickens running about and blueberry pancakes to die for. The gift shop wasn't bad either. Someone on one of my "social networks" recommended Blue Heaven. Thank you. Thank you. Didn't look like much from outside, but once we found the garden with the shade and the chickens and the dynamite menu, everything was wonderful. Good bar, too, but we were just there for breakfast.

I gobbled down three big pancakes that must have had a pint of blueberries scattered throughout. Should have a photo of them, too, just like Stephen Shore photographed his breakfast and motel rooms. Damn.

Of course I was tempted to write Blue Heaven into the book, but it really doesn't belong there, so I'll have to blog it. The coffee was all right and the side order of bacon was cooked to my favorite crispness. Generous, too. Don't you just hate a puny side order or bacon?

I'm posting a few photos of the place. I was too enchanted with the curious chickens to photograph them, but they were a big part of the place, hens, young-un and a rooster, of course, who liked to crow. This was a warm up for Mr. Clucky in South Beach.

Key West in the summer is mucho hot, and we enjoyed the shade. It's tolerable with shade and/or a breeze. I am very fond of places at the end of the road and am hoping to get down to the tip of the Baja before I'm gone.

Grapeshot

A Waiting Game in Foxborough

Waiting for the game to start, and I may as well confess that I've had frissons of nervousness all week. Bill Bellicek, Tom Brady, et. al. How will it play out? Suspense, conflict, good characters, hey, this sounds like a novel. Maybe that's why it's so interesting. The characters are tough, but are they flawed? Flawed enough? I like their steely determination, the grittiness of it all. We don't usually watch the x+1 hours of pre-game hype. Maybe I'll allow myself an hour. What the hell?

Beautiful weather in the Boston area--they could be playing here today. I took a walk and found perfect football weather--sunny, cool, a bit of a breeze but pleasant.

The bean dip is ready. I mixed some of the bought-by-mistake bean salsa into the real bean dip, and got out the chips. S.O. pronounced it edible. We're going with the chicken and pasta casserole in a mornay sauce with baked crumbs on top. The Domino ad was so cool and showed the Dominos a couple miles from here--we recognized the intersection. Even the pizza looked good, but I usually make my own.

Blueberry pancakes this morning made with sour 2% milk and diet Bisquick, the only diet fare we'll see today. I bought some Schaller and Weber double-smoked bacon--to die for. It's slab bacon, which I had been having trouble finding. Always a good feeling to use up something like soured milk without pouring it down the sink. We put Apricot syrup from the Apricot King (grown in the flavor zone) on the pancakes. Their products are so delicious. http://www.apricotking.com/.

The New York Times Book Review was thick today, and I haven't finished reading it yet, what with walking and cooking and je ne sais quoi. So my analysis will come later this week.

I'm preparing to do the dreaded Tax Workbook the accountant sends us every year. Takes about 6-8 hours to get everything entered. I keep all the receipts together all year, but somehow this is heavy duty paper work which I hate. They don't call it paper work for nothin.'

This week we're venturing forth to the new Opera House to see My Fair Lady. We were in the Opera House years ago when it was literally falling apart, but one could see intimations of the glory days, and now that's it's been rehabbed, I'm curious to see if it captures the former grandeur.

I have to come up with a speech about writing for Toastmasters. I'm thinking of talking about characters and where they come from and how real they become to the author. Should be fun, maybe even edifying.

Yesterday the Globe had an article about all the glitzy parties in Arizona, pre-game parties. Some people don't even go to the game, they just fly down, party and come home before the game. The number of private jets flying into the area is unbelievable. I've been flying into Sky Harbor since there was just one terminal. One always gasps at the huge Valley of the Sun and peers down to see the Camelback, and the plane makes a huge loop and comes in and lands heading East. You can see a gazillion swimming pools, and the baked area of the valley and the green of the city--all that water. In a sense, it always feels like coming home, because I visited there so often over the years. I hope my favorite Mexican Restaurant, Such Is Life, is benefiting from the hoopla. Well, enough for today.

So, let's hear it for the Patriots!