The Portland days are getting shorter, and my morning runs will soon be shrouded in darkness. There’s just a hint of light as my 6 a.m. alarm goes off each morning, and I have to carefully maneuver my way around sleeping dogs to get out of the bedroom, giving my wife a few extra minutes of sleep before she has to face the work day. This morning clouds filled the sky, adding to the feeling of gloom, and a light mist was falling. The drop-cloth of winter is being spread over the city, and it may be time to get out the happy lamp. I now know why bears hibernate.

Speaking of darkness, I was irritated last night after another Cubs loss, as they just can’t seem to close out the Brewers and Cardinals. I know that not everyone cares about baseball like I do. Sports has always been an outlet to express my anger and frustration. I rarely get mad at anyone or raise my voice, but put me in a room alone with a game and I can scream with the best of them. I pound my fists, yell obscenities, and imagine the worst.  After the game is over and I’ve released all that steam, I can walk out of that room like nothing happened. I don’t have this same experience when I go to a game or there’s other people in the room watching with me, so the darkness stays bottled-up inside me. Between the Cubs, Sox, Bears, Colts, and I.U. sports, I have plenty to be upset about each week. Fortunately, being silly about sports is essentially the only anger I feel, so it seems harmless in perspective to everything else going on in the world.

I just finished up our reservations for Chicago next week, including a rental car and our Indiana stays. I also hope to visit with a Banister relative while I’m in Indianapolis. Part of the trip, of course, is a Cubs vs. White Sox baseball game at Guaranteed Rate Field, formerly Comiskey Park. My wife has some business in Chicago and then needs to get her 97-year old mother to the doctor’s appointment in Indianapolis, so the trip will involve a lot of driving and various hotel stays along the way. We try to make this trip back to the homeland four times a year, but there’s little time to get-together with friends as we dash from place to place. We’ll return again over the Holidays, with no business obligations, but icy weather can easily interrupt our plans. There are a lot of “buts” involved in each of these “Planes, Trains, and Automobile” adventures to the Hoosier state.

I’m faced with several projects before we leave home for 7 days. There are some pictures to hang, bed repairs for guests that will arrive the day after we get back, cleaning projects to schedule, interior painting preparations, grill service, laundry, packing, and garage reorganization. We now have plenty of hot water thanks to our new tank-less system, and I no longer have the hassle of checking and re-lighting the pilot every other day. It will probably pay for itself in the next 10 years, but chances are we won’t stay in Oregon that long. The other investment that we’ll make soon is refinishing the garage floor since removal of the hot water tanks damaged some of the tile. A song from the new wave rock band The Fixx includes the words, “One Thing Leads to Another.” Retirement indeed is not without Hassles!