Peace Be With You

Not to be disrespectful to what is happening with Hurricane Sandy but the reporting of that gave me a brilliant idea. There are tons of websites where updates are boiled down to the jist of what is happening - where the storm is, how people are affected, who has power and how the sick and infirmed are faring. Pretty much everything else was drama, and the way they constructed the reporting, you could avoid that.

So why not do the same with the Presidential race.

http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker/2012/sandy

You know, have a Political Stormtracker showing velocity and trajectory of their campaigns, and whether to batten down the hatches, run for the hills or plan a party.

The Presidential stumping ground could go from (too many) months to just a few days of petting dogs and holding babies. Everything else could be posted on the Stormtracker. Past performance, goals and the first-hundred-days-in-office plan, how the White House would get a makeover, etc. We don't actually have to know them on sight to vote. We the people, who are so capable and gritty, can spoon feed ourselves.

I can hardly contain the excitement of a drama-free campaign. I'm sure the candidates believe it's thrilling to meet them. They've been told it will ramp up their campaigns. And in small circles, perhaps so. But for the rest of us, they more resemble that obnoxious next door neighbor we try to avoid.

Famous people are like that. So out of touch. They buggggg me, with their wall-eyed glances, one on the camera and one on the crowd, in shameless self promotion.

The Hubs loves celebrities. He talks all the time about meeting some baseball player named (Oscar? Manuel? Roberto?) Zepada? Cepeda? at the Sushi place we love and shaking the hand of Bobby Kennedy just days before his last. He goes to music venues to see TV personalities. He and his brother actually sent a present once to one of the guys on the tv show, My Three Sons. LOL

I saw Walt Disney once. And I remember the day the Principal of my elementary came to dinner. What kind of father makes friends with the Principal of their kids' school?? I knew instantly my folks had BatPhone access to Mr. Jennings. And even worse, he singled me out the next week on the way to recess, called me by name and said with a big smile what a nice time he had at dinner. I couldn't look anyone in the eye for a week.

I am super judgemental on this topic -- and did you happen to notice the subword mental which supports my efforts to shun those seeking fame for being the magnificently crazy stupid people they are. 

{Except for Antonio Banderas. I'd like to meet him in the historical non fiction aisle of a bookstore and talk about what it was like working with Catherine Zita-Jones.}

The Understated Era

Every decade I have stood on the edge ready to dive, always excited to move forward.

I themed them up:  the 20s as big life transitions, the 30s as building the bricks and mortar, the 40s as focusing on careers and enjoying the fruits of that labor, and the 50s as putting on fat for the coming winter. The 60s*70s*80s were supposed to be the defining years of time well spent once the 8-5 was archived. You know, perpetual recess.

That theory sort of frittered away after the late 40's and those feelings of unlimited potential. Roadblocks were not big issues early on, with oodles of time for a comeback. And frankly, the 50s were supposed to be the pre-golden Me Years after kids and college, and the place to sock away solid earnings.

My folks built a lot of their retirement nestegg in their 50s. I watched.
 

Except it wasn't to be. The late great boomers have been enmeshed in a seriously unproductive decade.  The old tired Plan A seems more outdated than a 3 year old laptop.

 

So I started checking out who weathering the storm and what they have in common. What an eyeful.

The people who stayed in their original home and made do are doing just fine. They resisted the temptation to loot the equity for any reason, and if a dire situation arose, borrowed conservatively and paid it back. ***Lesson***

The folks who saved all the way along, for a rainy day, and took to heart Social Security as just a supplement, they're good, too.  ***Lesson***

And here's a shocker: the ones that came out on top here are those who worked for the government. ***No Lesson***

Seriously! We are the Love Peace Dope generation! No way would we be forced to give up our principles and stick with a conservative job. I was never ever tempted to work for big government. The antithesis of making a difference is a government job. 

But 50 years later and financial portfolios as they are, those big fat pensions and medical for life bennies look mighty tasty! 
 

Talk about irony! My favorite irony is in watching The Body that eased regulations and gave the banks latitude to execute a cataclysmic fraud of this magnitude to also deliver their employees from suffering the effects of it.  Land the Hand on a Giant Smack Down and then Lift Up in Pseudo-Comfort?  What a scam.

Hey, it's the same gig, buying or selling. The rest of us are standing around scratching our heads, wondering what the hell we're going to do without a Plan B.

 

I Liiiiiiiike It!

The Let's-Sell-Our-House- And-See-the-World Retirement

By LYNNE MARTIN

I'm 70 years old. My husband, Tim, is 66. For most of our lives, each of us lived and worked in California. Today, our home is wherever we and our 30-inch suitcases are.

In short, we're senior gypsies. In early 2011 we sold our house in California and moved the few objects we wanted to keep into a 10-by-15-foot storage unit. Since then, we have lived in furnished apartments and houses in Mexico, Argentina, Florida, Turkey, France, Italy and England. In the next couple of months, we will live in Ireland and Morocco before returning briefly to the U.S. for the holidays.

As I write this, we have settled into a darling one-bedroom apartment a hundred yards from the River Thames, a 25-minute train ride from the heart of London. We have a knack for moving in. Within a few minutes of plunking down our belongings in new digs, we have made it our own: The alarm clock is beside the bed; my favorite vegetable peeler and instant-read thermometer are in the kitchen; and our laptop computers are hooked up and humming. Together we begin learning how to make the appliances cooperate.

Given all that, I suppose a better way to describe us is gypsies who like to put down roots. At least for a month or two.
 

Why we're doing this is simple: My husband and I—in a heart-to-heart conversation during a trip to Mexico—realized that both of us are happier when we're on the road. We enjoy excellent health and share a desire to see the world in bigger bites than a three-week vacation allows. The notion of living like the locals in other countries thrilled us, and after almost 18 months of living "home free," we are still delighted with our choice. Even a "cocooning" day is more interesting in Paris or Istanbul.

How we're doing this is more complicated. But we think our plan would work for many retirees with a reasonably healthy nest egg. A budget on the road—as in a stationary life—depends on how a person prioritizes expenditures and what kind of lifestyle he or she wishes to pursue. Someone who needs a large wardrobe or thrives on giving lavish dinner parties wouldn't find our life appealing. (Rented places seldom offer much in the way of attractive dinnerware.)

We certainly have moments when we question our sanity. Being up to our knees in water, completely lost in the middle of a torrential rainstorm in Istanbul, or discovering that we have locked ourselves out on a third-floor Paris balcony does give us pause.

But we've learned three things. First, coping with new situations and making complicated travel plans even as we're on the road keep us sharp.

Second, we aren't alone. We meet fellow retirees on a regular basis, some who are taking extended vacations, others who are leading a life similar to ours, and some who have settled permanently overseas. A man I met early on in our travels said to me, "There are a lot of us out there who have figured it out."

Third and most important, the rewards far outweigh the risks. The moments when we glance out "our" living-room window at Florence's skyline or turn a corner in "our" neighborhood and see the tip of the Eiffel Tower winking at us make the scary times worthwhile.

Becoming international nomads sounded appealing, but we first had to find a way to afford such a lifestyle. Serious number-crunching showed that selling our home in California would allow us to live comfortably almost anyplace in the world. Not having property taxes or a roof that needs fixing can pay for a lot of train rides.

 

A few specifics about money. Our financial adviser sends us about $6,000 a month, generated from investments. We also collect Social Security and a small pension. We have a "slush fund" of about $20,000, which allows us to make advance deposits—for housing, cruises, flights, hotels and so forth—without affecting our cash flow.

We follow some simple strategies to keep our budget in line. Stays in more expensive locations, like Paris or London, are balanced by living in less pricey countries like Mexico, Turkey or Portugal. We dine out several times a week but eat at home much of the time. I like to cook, and food shopping is a great way to learn about a country. (Finding baking soda in Buenos Aires isn't nearly as simple as it sounds.)

People certainly could live on less than we do. Accommodations are a good place to start; the cost of rentals overseas varies considerably with size, season, location and amenities.
And when all else fails, walking and gawking are free everywhere.

Although we have used airplanes, trains, buses, taxis, cars and ferries, our favorite means of transportation is now trans-Atlantic repositioning voyages.

When cruise lines move their ships seasonally, they offer big discounts. Not many people can spare several weeks in the off-season to cross the ocean. But it's perfect for us because we not only reach our destination, but we also are housed, fed and pampered for more than two weeks each time. Traveling by ship, we arrive in sync with local time and get a quick peek at interesting places that we probably wouldn't choose for an extended visit.

We are not married to any particular cruise line. Tim shops for the best deal he can find that fits into our schedule, although we sometimes schedule around the cruises. Prices vary. In May, our Atlantic crossing—16 nights with an ocean-view room—cost about $2,500 for the two of us. That included all of our food, and a wine package for me. Our return trip in November from Barcelona to Miami with the same cruise line will cost about the same.

Our repositioning bookings extend into 2014 and form the base from which the rest of our travels plans will grow. At the moment, we have reservations for next year to live in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia. We are already confirmed for a Paris apartment for June/July 2014.

In our experience, vrbo.com and homeaway.com are the most reliable sources for short-term rentals. They offer a wide range of properties to fit almost any budget, and because we usually stay at least a month in each place, we can sometimes negotiate a slightly better deal.

We have had the best luck renting properties whose owners live locally. They offer information about transportation and shopping, grant reasonable special requests and are usually quick to correct any shortcomings. When I mentioned to our apartment owner in Paris that the pots and pans were a bit tired, she appeared the very next day with a new set of cookware and two wonderful stainless-steel frying pans.

Of course, challenges await us at each destination. A partial list: learning how to negotiate the grocery-store routine; using local transportation; connecting to the Internet; getting decent haircuts; operating heating and cooling systems; deciphering exotic DVD players.

Producing meals in an unfamiliar kitchen is often a particular challenge; microwave instructions in French or Turkish can considerably delay meal preparation, And every washer/dryer we encounter presents a whole new group of mysterious settings.

Connecting with people we would never have encountered in our regular lives is the most thrilling part of our lifestyle.

In Paris, my favorite neighborhood cheese vendor chose a slice of Brie that he guaranteed would melt perfectly at the precise time our guests arrived, and it did; we met two brilliant young Serbian educators and an internationally known Italian poet at a dinner party on a terrace overlooking Florence; and the owner of a gorgeous 16th-century hotel where we were staying in Kusadasi, Turkey, whiled away an afternoon with me playing fast and furious backgammon. Such moments make the uncomfortable times—like being stuck in a London traffic jam while still learning to drive a stick-shift car on the left side—more than worthwhile.

We also enjoy the freedom of not being weighed down by our "things." Indeed, one of the benefits of living home-free is that people we meet on the road are interested in us and could care less about our house, our antiques, our art or other possessions. It's a remarkably forthright way to relate to others.
Most days we're up by 8 a.m., and we read our newspapers online with our coffee. If it's a "tourist" day, we try to get out in the morning before the crowds fill up the museum, historic site or event we're bound for. Sometimes we just attend to life with grocery or clothes shopping, or catching up on our laundry and our reading.

Strolling along the Thames on the way to have a haircut turns a mundane chore into an event, and many times we enjoy a chat with an interesting stranger along the way. My husband devotes some time every day to making travel plans for the future and writing a novel, and I try to work regularly on my blog, homefreeadventures.com. Many evenings we watch our favorite shows or a movie we've rented online, and we usually stay up too late, just as we used to do at home.

Since we have eliminated homeownership, we have few bills to pay. We use an online bill-paying service, and we buy almost everything by credit card so we can rack up mileage rewards. One of our daughters receives the mail, which has dwindled to almost nothing.

A good Internet connection is essential. Our computers link us with family and friends, help us plan future travels, and are our source of entertainment in places where movies and television in English are elusive. Each of us has a laptop and an iPhone, and our Kindles house our library and travel books.

We have Medicare and supplemental plans, and when we return to the U.S., we see our doctors for annual checkups. We also have international health insurance covering medical emergencies and evacuations. The plan has a big deductible to help reduce our overhead, since our experiences with health-care providers abroad have been very positive. For instance, Tim awoke one morning in Mexico with raging flu symptoms. A doctor was at his bedside within the hour, administered an injection and gave us a prescription. He charged about $50, and Tim recovered quickly.

Of course, we miss our family and friends terribly, but they have forgiven us for leaving and welcome us enthusiastically when we rent a house near them for a visit. Even our financial adviser has grudgingly admitted that our plan is working well.

For us, giving up 2,500 square feet of gracious California living for a 500-square-foot apartment in Paris or Istanbul is more than a fair trade-off. In place of our heavy-duty gas stove, big-name pots and pans and enormous refrigerator, we now find ourselves using Barbie-size sinks, bar fridges and some pretty sketchy cookware. We share bathrooms with one sink and watch movies on a 13-inch computer screen.

At the same time, we enjoy lunches where the paté comes from heaven, drives through the luscious French countryside where even the cows are beautiful, and strolls along the Arno River in Italy for our after-dinner exercise.

We don't plan to quit until the wheels fall off.
 

Sunrise in Laos, by Pam Houston

Such beautiful, beautiful imagery to enjoy.

Sunrise in Laos
by Pam Houston

 

I am a mountain girl, and my first love in Asia are the monasteries tucked between the snow-covered razor ridges of the high Himalayas. But I've been drawn south into these humid lowlands by the reported kindness of the Laotian people and the early morning ritual that is about to begin.

A rooster crows. A peacock screams. And then the bells of the monasteries begin to have their morning conversation.

When the monks come pouring down the stone steps of the prayer halls, they appear first as a river of color, a ribbon of saffron silk, shockingly vibrant against the chalky streets, the dusty footpath, the gray -- almost mercuried -- sky. All over Asia, monks wear robes the color of spices: curry, cumin, paprika. In Luang Prabang, every robe is brightest saffron, the cloth wrapped complicatedly around their torsos and hanging to their ankles, tied at the waist with a bright yellow sash.

As they approach it becomes possible to distinguish one monk from another, hands clasped in front of the belly, echoing the shape of the wooden begging bowl they hold.

Like the Mekong they live beside, this river of men never stops moving; they pass in a quiet, contemplative gait that is two parts walking, one part floating. One by one they drift past the woman, who also keeps a kind of time with her motions: one large scoop of steaming rice into each hand-carved bowl, refill, release, refill again. Every monk bows to her deeply and moves on.

Every few streets the same thing is happening: different woman, different monks; same bright, graceful river passing in front of her. And again a few streets over, an unmistakable flash of color, and again, a few streets beyond that. This is what happens here every morning, 365 days, year in, year out.

The women up early, cooking in the dark, carrying their little tables in the milky first light. Then the monks, a small fire in the gray light, lightening their rice cookers, lightening their burdens.

The sun strengthens slightly. In an hour, the fog will lift and the heat will begin to press down. There is a flick of fire, a swirl of a saffron sleeve as a monk moves around the corner, back up the stairs and into the dormitory, like a magic trick of compassion, of generosity, of prayers offered and received.

A Bowl of Tulips

Kindness is hardest to do when it is unappreciated, but that is when it is most needed.

I came across a free retirement calculator which became a very good tool. I wasn't prepared for the twenty different options and a series of questions too advanced for a morning looksey.  It turned into a somber moment to look forward twenty or thirty years to what the needs might be.  It dawned on me, the day is almost here when income will end and whatever is saved is what will have to last.  Likely the transition will be more abrupt than with our parents, who had the luxury of choosing a date and excitedly marking it off the calendar. This reality is where talented, educated young people have difficulty finding jobs, and new jobs are not being created. We may not have the luxury of going out on top.

But today is not that day! I worked with the calculator and entered all the info from retirement programs, savings and retirement income that I knew, and felt we've done a decent job saving so we should be okay. What came up was a pretty frightening graph that estimates how much *other* income will be needed to augment retirement and social security to maintain a modest standard of living. By age 80: $80K a year.

The Gods Must be Crazy!  Makes me contemplate this idea of living off the land and being as self sufficient as possible as more of a necessity than an elective choice. And you better believe the hot topic will be about post-workforce income and what we are going to do about that.

All this retirement talk definitely condensed the issues down to the meat and potato topics for the Presidential election next month. I'm looking at them only in terms of ~ National might; citizen protections from government/business corruption; strong social programs; healthcare reform; and financial strength.

We need someone at the helm with a moderate cooperative spirit and strong ethical principles to break through the partisanship.  This year my vote goes not to the lovely bowl of tulips draped with a matching bow, but to whomever will look after my best interests and get the job done.

The Squatter

Crops are in and out, again. The corn in the morning is chopped down by the time the farm workers head home, and by morning it is baled and ready to ship. I wish I saw transitions as ultimately good and nothing to be feared; or the beauty in life being a continual and migratory step along the journey that will bring new, unexplored things.

My roots are deep in the now.  I tire of the pretty side of cancer with its shirts and walkathons and blitzes now that I face the paperskin, cane walking, hard breathing, gut wrenching squatter that has leached into bones and organs and set up house in my friend's lives.  

It is bittersweet, sitting with a friend who is very very ill, cheering him and his lovely wife who is as much a victim as he is, and watching their daughter's courage and resign. And the next day, with a gathering of lifelong friends, one having just learned about her son's friend's cancer and bowing her head with dark, helpless tears; a second in remission but whose haunting eyes reflect back the ordeal and weariness there; and another, walking stooped with a cane, now shallow chested and struggling to even be there.

Anger is such an inadequate word. Whatever strong thing that is inside of me bubbles bubbles bubbles just below the surface;  I cannot fathom why there would be something manufactured to consume the host along with itself.  Do not tell me this is a natural part of life. Being 'about that age' is no consolation, none at all.

The Way of the Farmer

My weathervale has shifted. I can tell by the sour taste of discontent that there is a syncing problem. I got a new phone two weeks ago, and it was way too big a change, so it was returned last week, still unsatisfactorily, and that is when I realized what I wanted was to go back.

It is not due to the change in weather, but I long to retreat into a book and stay there for about a week. Or lay in a bath with the amniotic fluid of hot water soothing me from whatever is scary and hard. Living here on the land is a chance to witness how the land gives back and how the farmer makes that happen. I marvel at it.

It is an honest exchange. Alfalfa crops surround the house, a chlorophyll-colored small weedy-looking plant that is underestimated by passer-bys who think the land is fallow. Alfalfa is harvested every couple of weeks like grass and we have watched at least harvests in the short time we have been here.

We go to bed to the hum and rumble of the tractors, and sometimes in the twilight see the profile of the lone farmer as he works the land. By morning, rows are piled with cuttings, or already baled and ready to go. Money air, my Grandfather called it, and he was right.

Alfalfa is nothing as grand as hay or corn, with its tall and graceful stalks that glitter and catch the sun. No songs are written about it. Nobody anticipates it like pumpkins or watermelons, except for the guy in the cab. Farming alfalfa yields a respectable income for this useful, nutrient-rich crop.

The world doesn't change much in AgriWorld. It mostly involves updated equipment and improved soil nutrient combinations to draw more harvest from the land, that sort of thing. It is a fundamental life where earth and man understands one another and above all respect for Mother Earth. Let me lay here quietly and contemplate that.