I’m in the desert this morning, after enjoying a great meal and dessert last night.  When I left Oregon yesterday it was still pouring down rain after what seemed like weeks.  Here in Tucson there is blue sky, sunshine, and some warmth.  My toes are starting to thaw out.

My working wife attended meetings yesterday and woke up this morning saying, “Well I guess I’m retired like you today.”  The first thing that came to mind was – no, you’re on vacation.  You see, I’ve learned that there’s a big difference. After all, she’ll have to go back to work on Monday, while I will still be retired.  I, of course, did not say anything because I certainly didn’t want to rub it in and make her jealous.  She still has a few more years until she earns this status.  

When I was lying. or should it be laying, by the pool yesterday (I hope I’m not making you jealous either), my mind started to wander, as opposed to wonder.  It was trying to cycle through all the worries I should have and the best it could come up with was if I had given the dogs enough to eat to tide them over until the pet sitter arrived.  Trust me, they won’t starve, but one of them is hungry all the time (Tinker – the schnoodle).  She always worries about her next meal, but couple that with the fact that she saw us packing suitcases and you have grave concern.  My point is that my pessimistic mind could not come up with much to worry about, unlike the days when I was working; plus, no e-mails were flooding in and no phone calls needed urgent attention.  Trust me, retirement is way better than vacation.

I then began to wonder, not wander, if you can really call it a”vacation” if you’re already “retired?”  Vacationing, to me, implies that you have to go back to work once it’s over.  Needless to say, there have been no hassles yet this morning.