FRIDAY AT THE WATSON'S
It's the beginning of a 3 day weekend and it feels like Labor Day. It also feels like the end of summer as cooler nights are upon us. How we all hate waking up at 5:00 a.m. to find that it is still 75 degrees outside.

How can summer be over, it just got started. In retirement, the days go just as quickly. Each week comes and go just as fast. It's like life is slipping through my fingers and like water poured into your hands, there's no stopping it or even slowing it down. In my younger days my elders would always remind me to spend my timely wisely and enjoy life. The actor, Sterling Hayden, in a poem that he wrote said, "Don't let the years thunder by." They were all right.

And then I look in the mirror and ask myself, "Who is that person?" for age has changed my appearance. Time has made for sun damaged skin, graying hair (and thinning!). My mother said that to keep from getting sunburned and damaging my skin that I should put salad oil all over my body before going out in the sun. Therein lies the rub. At the beach I always smelled like salad. And I always burned, just like bread in a toaster turned up as high as it will go. That's where the abbreviation SOB got its start. It stands for Salad On Bob. Good old mom, she meant well. If I could just look 45 or 50 again I'd be happy. Damned salad oil.

Back to retirement: Candace, on the other hand, makes great use of her time. She is always doing this and go here and there. But she's been home since 1997 and has definitely gotten a headstart on how to manage retirement. Candace is the happiest person I have ever known.

The woman who lives across the street from us is living her last days and is dying. Hospice visits as does a nurse each day. Her condition serves as a reminder to not let the years thunder by without living each day to its fullest. I feel for her husband who will surely be lost once his wife has passed on.

Okay, so I'm going to make good use of my time. Maybe I should write that on the blackboard 100 times so that it finally sinks in. So today it was a trip to the local propane dealer to fill 3 tanks for the barbeque (we''l barbeque a whole turkey Sunday), a haircut was in order for this shaggy dog, cleaning this and that in the garage, watering my new little trees (one lemon and one lime), playing ball with Jilli and best of all, planning (on-line) our October trip to Hawaii. Candace is off getting the crack in the windshield of her car fixed by the Crackmaster. What a name. You'd think with a name like that this firm would be in the plumbing business! Crackmaster Plumbing.

Grace is in playing a computer game - it's educational, the only type of game we'll have in the house. She's singing while she works on the computer. Grace is tired. She must have had a late night as she's literally dragging around the house today in a low key sort of manner. Grace will not nap and vigorously resists even the suggestion of taking nap.

We'll cook game hens on the barbeque tonight. I'll prepare pizza dough this afternoon which will sit in the refrigerator until Saturday night. That night has always been pizza night in my family. I've learned to place the pizza on a flat pizza stone in the barbeque which has been heated to 400 degrees. It's takes less than five minutes for the crust to be golden brown and for the cheese to be melted. This beats heating the oven to 500 degrees in the summer heat which in turn heats up the house. I need to take pictures of my pizzas and publish them here. They're a work of art.

The pictures? Grace and I are at the fair. The second picture is self explanatory. What's interesting in the picture is Grace is wearing the apparel of choice when she's here. Grace likes to either pretend that she's a ballerina or that she's Snow White. As for me, I'd like to pretend that I'm 45 again. If only the mirror would cooperate: The rest of being 45 again comes easy.