Since Then…

Day 103

          I have found the answer to one of the oldest and most asked queries that confound our collective lives.

          The Question:

          “Where does the time go?”

          The Answer:

          (Virtual drum-roll please……)

          Into the Past!

          I know that because here we are parked in the Yetter’s Diner parking lot.  We arrived here on Day 58 of this Eastern Sojourn and here we are on Day 103, still parked in our reserved spot!

          This is probably the most difficult post that I’ve written to date for several reasons.

          The first is that if you go all the way back to my first missive on this topic I implored all of you to slap me around if these tales became too personal,  or dare I say, too egotistical. So, In order to hold myself to this self-imposed boundary, I have not written anything since that 58^th day of our trip.

          We haven’t had any big adventures, which brings me to the next reason why I’ve been “silent”……

          Well….. again…. we haven’t had any big adventures!

          What we have been doing for all this time is practice being “Retired”.

          And yes, Retirement is everything that it is cracked up to be!

          By and large, the most discussed topic of any given day is another age-old question, “What do want for breakfast, lunch, dinner, Happy Hour…..” etc.

          Those answers are far more elusive than any question or theorem posed by Mr. Einstein and his cronies. Hence our never-ending expeditions to Shop Rite, Aldi’s, and Trader Joes.

          I leave the big decisions of what to procure for our meals pretty much up to Miss Paula. If it were left up to me, I would just have the same thing all the time. Back in the day, when my Dad had a restaurant down in Wayne, I made the same thing for lunch every day for a year, a Grilled Cheese and Bacon. When that year was finished, I switched it up for the next year and made myself a Bacon Cheeseburger. On the days that I didn’t work, a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich would satisfy me very nicely. I find that saving my Thinking Powers for the Big Decisions works best for me and I don’t waste Brain Cells and Neuron Synapses on the little stuff, like “What should I eat Today?”

          Thankfully, Paula is not this way, and she revels in scouring the Trader Joes Face Book Page for healthy new menu ideas and Five-Star Recommendations! It is because of her and her perusal of each products Nutritional Data that I do not have an additional fifty pounds hanging on my already overweight chassis. Thankfully we can bypass those truck weigh stations that are on the highways because we are not a commercial vehicle. It would be very embarrassing to be hauled out of the motorhome and made to stand on those big scales and have all of the DOT workers yell at me because I have illegally added too much “Retirement Weight”!

          “So Don, what have you both been doing since Day 58?”

          I can answer that one!

          Besides practicing the retirement thing, we have been visiting friends and family around the area. We made a trip to Cooperstown and Lake Otsego to visit Barb, one of Paula’s oldest (in terms of longevity, not age!) friends. Barb turned her boat over to me so that I could patrol  the lake and make sure that it was safe for everyone else.

          It was.

          We also went down the Shore to Ortley Beach for a mini–Family Reunion with some of Paula’s cousins and their ever-growing families. There were six little tykes there, two of which were of the teeny-tiny variety, with one on the way.

          There were a few noisy times as you may imagine! We also had Splash with us, who we were dog-sitting for while Matt, her son, and his family went on a cruise.

          Paula made a trip to Vermont for Barbara’s birthday, and I went to Manchester-by-the-Sea to ready the bay window where the Constitution model will reside, it needed a sill extension and it came out very nicely, if I do say so myself! We encountered some wood rot in the window which made it a bit more complicated, but the finished product is better than the original!

          There were Ballet/Dance recitals to be attended on both sides and they were flawless. Memorial Day we spent with Matt and his family at their Swim Club in Chatham where I took over the grilling duties…. Sorry, I can’t’ help it!

          Around Sussex County we have a Car Show planned with Ideal Farms hosting it. The word on the street is favorable as the Chatterbox name was thrown in there for nostalgic effect and if the weather cooperates, we should have a very successful Friday evening. The Wawa is also scheduled to open on the former Chatterbox site, and I have been invited to be involved on that day. There will be a “Hoagies for Hero’s” event where we will be “Guest Building” sandwiches and the proceeds will be donated to the SCARC Foundation. Wawa has taken over my seat on that Board and I couldn’t be happier!

          Tommy and his family, (our hosts at Yetter’s)  took a trip to Greece so I volunteered to mow the lawn here at Yetter’s and also at his house. I’ve also been mowing over at Ideal Farms in preparation for the Car Show on July 15^th. Ben from Ideal has obtained a brandy-new Gravely 72” Zero-Turn Mower that is the best one I have ever used! I make excuses for mowing so that I can ride on it!

          We’ve filled in the rest of the time with the obligatory Doctor’s visits and the like. We are also preparing for our New England leg of this trip East so we can visit Paula’s son Brian and his family in Maine, her sister Barbara in Vermont, and my son Donny and his family in Massachusetts, when we will finally deliver the USS Constitution model that I have been working on for the past four years.

          This weekend we will be in Annapolis visiting my friend Martin Ritter, who was the owner of Ritter Food where I worked for all the time before the Chatterbox.

          So now you’re all up to date, The weeks ahead may bring some interesting things from New England, so “Stay Tuned” is the mantra of the day!