Book Review of J.R Rains Moon Dragon

Once again JR hits a home run with Moon Dragon, a sequel in the Samantha Moon Detective for hire series.  I devoured this book in a matter of minutes! As typical for JR he makes the character as if she could be one of your best friends!  I could imagine having the conversations about her life that she shares with her closest confidants.  Samantha Moon is foremost a Mother, and experiences all the tribulations single mothers everywhere do, but with a twist, as she is of course a "Super Vampire."  I found the best part, and most appealing thing about the Samantha Moon character, is the ordinariness this author creates in her life.  Samantha struggles daily to contain the demon within her and retain her humanity, while juggling children, job, friends and family.  Don't be deceived by her love for Starbucks, she is a bad ass kick butt vampire!  But alas, I do have one negative thing to say about this book, as with all the JR Samantha Moon stories, they are too short!  Come on JR regale us with a longer story line in the next episode, I hate coming to the end!  Excellent sequel and a must read for JR Rain fans!  I of course give it 5 stars as that is the max.  Great Job JR!

Humor and beauty is hidden in everything, just learn to observe!

First of all I must start with my disclaimer: I have noticed a funny thing in this journey of life, even though we may begin in different places, our paths cross with others so we can learn things from them.  I choose to do this by observing, in a positive way, rather than a negative one.  I feel that some life lessons are best learned through observation.  That is the vein of my writings about my Sun Lakes experiences.  In sharing my little adventure about Sun Lakes, it is not my intent to humiliate or make fun of the people who live here, well kind of on the making fun part.  <Grin>  As BFF Hubby so loves to remind me, I am one of these oldies!  I am merely observing and seeing the humor in my life at Sun Lakes, which I attribute to the diversity of people and ages.

This week’s blog observation is about seniors and driving, so keep in mind my rant here has nothing to do with fact and reason.  

We have several gates in Sun Lakes - there is, of course, the main gate with a guard and then several other gates where the residents can enter with a scanning device.  We enter the one that is closest to our house, and since we have moved in, we have noticed our gate rail arm is broken no less than once a week. Seriously, it really makes us belly laugh, we don’t know why it makes us hysterical it just does.  

We figure it has to be a resident, and since they live here they must know how the gates work.  BFF Hubby and I have come up with our own story as to how it gets broken, much in the same way we make up stories about people when we people watch.  We decided they see the gate open and a car just going through; they push the gas pedal and try to go on in behind the prior vehicle.  Bam the guard rail comes down on their car, and crash the guard rail is broken!  We asked the guards, and they say they have no idea, but they think it is outsiders trying to get in behind a resident. Uh huh, sure it is.  I asked them why they don’t put up cameras to catch them.  If it’s residents, then maybe you can give them lessons on entering the gate; if it’s outsiders, get their license plate information and make them pay for it.  BFF Hubby and I are sure our story is correct. 

I have to let you in on a secret; they drive very scary here both with cars and their golf carts. And you know the definition of scary is frightening, causing fear or alarm!

My biggest frustration, or at the very least annoyance, when traversing the streets of Banning, is getting stuck behind a massive American sedan driven by that "little old lady from Pasadena" whose blue hair barely clears the headrest and who is driving slowly.  As George Carlin put it, “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”  And then I say that someone going the same speed behind me is obviously a deranged maniac stalking me to my house to kill me. I mean sometimes I wish Google Maps had an avoid the senior drivers route.  <Grin>

On one occasion, my daughter and her family were visiting and she was driving our car at the time, which was an Infinity FX35 medium-sized SUV, so not a small vehicle (you get the picture).  We were at a stop sign, getting ready to turn right, and this lady opposite us was attempting, and I use the word loosely, to turn left.  The bad news is she was cutting the corner into our lane, I mean literally if she would have hit us it would have been head on and she was driving a big Cadillac sedan.   My daughter honked at her; fortunately she was going slow, and stopped in time.  She rolled her window down and said, “I am so sorry, you were in my blind spot.” What the hey!!

Then there are those drivers, both men and women, that pull out of their driveways and don’t look!               I have had this happen in the golf cart and in our car on several different occasions, phew, very scary. The UPS driver gave me some good advice; you must drive defensively while driving in Sun Lakes, if you see them, always give them the right away.  Not a bad tip.  

BFF hubby loves to remind me when I complain about these old people that now that I'm retired I’m one of them.  So, argh, my attitude and snotty verbal references have changed considerably, as that blue-haired senior citizen is now me!  I’m beginning to think retesting for seniors is not such a bad idea!

I remember when watching the movie Back to the Future, we thought after the year 2000 the world would be full of flying cars; can you imagine how that would be for seniors? <Shudder>  But the good news is we now have blankets with sleeves, I don’t really see the relevance, but it cracked me up.

Now when I am driving slowly through the town of Banning, I have created my own game. I see if the blinker on the little old ladies car ahead of me matches the beat of my music.  Oh come on now, you know they drive forever with their blinkers on.  <Grin>

And so I will leave you with one last recent observation, you know those orange cones they put on the highways? Well, the little old man in front of me the other day hit so many I think he was trying to beat some imaginary high score.

Stay with me, and I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or "my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…

Days go by, hours pass, minutes keep on ticking and time marches on...

Fast forward, all of the renovations were completed, all new furniture, appliances delivered, and we officially moved into the house on March 1, 2014. My daughter graciously allowed me to stay at her home in Corona, from Monday through Wednesday, and then I went home Thursday night after work.  My son and daughter-in-law also offered their guest room, which was actually closer to my work.  But I was used to the commute and apparently a glutton for punishment. <Grin> It really was a great experience for me, as I got to be a part of the daily routine of my Grandkids, who at the time were ages 7 (Kendall), and 11 (Chandler).

But I must tell you on the other hand, it was a very rough three months for BFF hubby and me.  Well, I think more for me than for him, as I would go home for the weekend, where  I felt like a visitor.  Every Sunday night I would pack up my stuff for the week, and as I hugged BFF Hubby goodbye I would start crying and did that for most of the drive to my daughter’s every time I left. This was the first time BFF hubby and I were separated that long from each other and keep in mind we have been together for 35 years, making it very rough.   I wasn’t worried about him so much, as I knew he would be eating all right, taking his main meals at the clubhouse restaurant, not a bad way to go I’d say. And for me I focused on thoughts of being permanently home in June, which gave me the strength to go on each day.

Okay maudlin part is over, and then there is the work thing; I tried being grateful for my job, but reality always won over.  How can a person really enjoy waking up every morning at 5:30 am, leaping out of bed, take a shower, get dressed, fix hair and makeup, grab some coffee and breakfast to go, only to fight traffic so you can get to a place where in essence, you make a lot of money for someone else, and are expected to feel grateful for the opportunity to do so! Phew, it exhausts me just thinking about it.  Oh come on now, if we are being completely honest, you know that’s it in a nutshell! <Grin>  

On a side note, getting ahead and talking about my present life - there is no better feeling than going to bed at night, when you feel like it, and not having to set an alarm for the next morning, and arising when you wake up naturally. That’s a perk of retirement! <Grin>

Okay, so back to what was going on at work.  I determined with my boss that I would begin to be more like a consultant and hand off my work, slowly transitioning out of things, which I felt sounded like a good plan and we had three months left to do it.

Delegating to me meant helping and letting my staff become the experts.  Unfortunately, the person ahem, I reported to had a different management style.  <Grin> Managing by not wanting to know anything…he wanted me to pass it on to the staff, and let them give the answers, while he filled our time with irrelevant anecdotes and stories,seriously that’s the amazing truth of the matter, the man could spend countless useless hours regaling you with his past life at his old job, and how wonderful he was and what wonderful things he had done, ad infinitum!  And what the heck, he continued to hand off key projects to me as if nothing was changing.  Reality check here, I’m gone in three months, dude.

I kept my cool telling myself, “Why do you care, it is no longer your problem,” the way I kept a smile on my face, was by remembering he exemplified the Peter Principal: “every employee tends to rise to the level of their incompetence."  I have to say the days moved slowly, I found myself leaving early, as why not, he doesn’t care, so why should I? And hey, the best part about my last work days was that my chair swiveled, and after all what was he going to do to me, fire me?  Please do! <Grin>

I just have to add one more disheartening boss bashing thing, why, because I can; it’s pretty sad when your boss gets paid more than you, and you still have to help him write a basic email.  I’m not saying he’s stupid, I’m just saying he has bad luck when it comes to thinking.  I mean the qualities you must possess to be him are ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. <Grin> Okay, all done and yes, it does make me feel better!

So the days kept on passing and the months, thank goodness, after all life is somewhat like a taxi, the meter just keeps ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still. So I hung in there, bit the bullet and put a retirement calendar app on my phone.  June could not come soon enough!

Stay with me as we keep moving towards the goal, and I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or "my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…

May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends….

Many you have requested that I get going on actually living at Sun Lakes, although interested in what my trials and tribulations as a new home owner were.  On that note I shall attempt to wrap up all the machinations on the house.

I will start this post by stating: I am grateful for the lawn that needs mowing, windows that need washing, and floors that need cleaning, because it means I have a home.  I do not want to lose sight of that in writing about my experiences with my newly purchased home.

One of the things I must get off my chest, not only did the prior owner leave the house filthy, she took anything that was not tied down, including the curtains and curtain rods.  I was OK with this as it looked like my Grandma’s house, and I was putting in plantation shutters throughout anyway.  

I don’t know if I mentioned this in my prior posts, but when we purchased the home, it included the stove. This did not stop the prior owner from trying to bully us into letting her have it.  We of course responded with a resounding NO.  This woman puts the tack in tacky, she actually took parts of the stove, along with a lot of other things; seriously, we couldn’t believe it either. But good relations with the realtor, one phone call and the missing parts magically reappeared.

Things began to progress and we had chosen a move in date, so all that was left was for me to turn in my notice, which I did in March; last day for work would be Friday, June 13^th.

So here are the things I had always dreamed that I would say when I quit. These are lines from my favorite movies that I thought would sound good followed by, “Oh yeah, I QUIT!” <Grin>

"Hasta la vista, baby." —Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator in the Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" —Peter Finch as Howard Beal in Network (1976)

"If I'm not back in five minutes, just wait longer." —Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

"You get nothing! You Lose! Good day sir!" —Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner." —Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing (1987) (I don’t know what this would mean if you are quitting but I always wanted to say it.)

"Go ahead, make my day." —Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan in Sudden Impact

"What we've got here is failure to communicate." —Strother Martin as the Captain in Cool Hand Luke (1967)

"And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit." —Stephen Root as Milton Waddams in Office Space (1999)

"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" —Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry in Dirty Harry (1971)

"Time marches on and sooner or later you realize it is marching across your face." —Dolly Parton as Truvy Jones in Steel Magnolias (1989)

"A jester unemployed is nobody's fool." —Danny Kaye as Hubert Hawkins in the Court Jester (1955)

And my ultimate favorite; "Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and @%$* the prom queen." —Sean Connery as John Patrick Mason in the Rock (1996)

Oh the fantasies I played over in my head, I really wanted to walk in on the Friday I decided was my last day and say one of the above and promptly leave.  Oh come on now! You know you have all thought the same thing. I saw the joke of the person winning the lottery, standing on their boss’s desk peeing and saying I quit!

But alas, reality always wins out and I thought it best to leave with my dignity.  Here is what I actually did:

Dear (My Manager’s Name),

Please accept this letter as formal notification that I will be retiring from my position as Sr. Manager of Global Indirect Sourcing. My last day at Edwards will be June 13, 2014.

I have enjoyed working with and learning from my colleagues for the past thirteen years, and am ready to move to the next phase of my life.

During the next several months I am more than willing to help you in any way to make the transition as smooth as possible.  This includes assisting in the recruiting and training of my replacement. 

Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like me to do.

I have been very fortunate to have been a part of Edwards for the past 13 years, and I wish the company every success in the future.

I finally quit my job, and could stop dreaming that I might be Wonder Woman and know that I was! Then I thought, “How cool is this!”  I can’t tell you what a difference it made to me; it was as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.  I mean talk about an attitude adjustment, work late, I think not. <Grin> I mean what are they going to do, fire me?  (Please!)  I put in my vacations through the rest of my working days to take off every Friday. <Grin> Finally, a four day work week.

OK we are now further down the path to where I am today. Stay with me as we continue the the journey, and I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or "my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…

Karaoke night at Sun Lakes

Friday 9.26.14

 
I had to do an additional post this week, and out of sequence, but I just couldn’t wait to share my experience with you on Karaoke night at Sun Lakes

I will start off with the definition of Karaoke for historical purposes: Use of a device that plays instrumental accompaniments to songs with the vocal tracks removed, permitting the user to sing the lead. Karaoke apparently first appeared in the amusement quarter of Kobe, Japan, where it became popular among businessmen in the late 1970’s. It gained widespread popularity in the U.S. in the late 1980’s. It is usually featured at bars, where patrons can perform on a stage and sing popular hits by reading lyrics electronically displayed on a monitor. A video film often accompanies the music.

 So BFF Hubby and I, as a part of our quest to participate in the variety of activities at Sun Lakes, had committed to going to the once a month Karaoke night with BFF Hubby’s Mom.   We found to our surprise that they allowed outsiders, hey now, that is a big deal!  Sun Lakes is snobby about that.  We met some people from Banning, a lot of people from the Plantations and those that were simply guests of Sun Lakers.

The best I could ascertain from this experience was: “Apparently Karaoke divides people into two    groups - those who don’t want to sing and shouldn’t be compelled to, and those who do and shouldn’t be allowed too!” <Grin>  (Full disclosure, it was my first Karaoke experience in a public venue.  My only other experiences with Karaoke were with close friends and family at my daughter’s home and it involved a lot of drinking.)

For these oldsters, there is no halfway singing; they sang like they thought they were a star, country singer, crooner, or an opera diva.  At least that is how I heard it, and they would act out if they were singing something like a Neil Diamond song, doing Elvis Presley like moves.  It was very funny and entertaining to see a 90 year old shaking it while singing horribly off key. The people that intrigued me the most brought their own music for the DJ. These apparently are the karaoke stars, and compared to the others that sang, well let’s just say they could carry somewhat of a tune, or at least I think they did, it was hard for me to judge as I had never heard of the songs they were singing. <Grin>

These people sang songs from the 40’s, before this oldie moldie was even born.  The host, a friend of BFF's Mom, had asked BFF Hubby and I if we knew the songs, to which we replied with a resounding NO, never heard it before.  Apparently this got her ire up, as she said, “Oh come on now; you have to know these!  I’m 76 and I sang this as a kid with my Mom.”  To which I said, “Umm, you have me by 10 years,” and that shut her up. <Grin>

This made me realize as a kid I had a pretty hip Mom; she sang Elvis, Dean Martin, Sinatra, and Beatles, actually whatever tunes were popular and on the hit parade.  Now don’t get me wrong, she probably knew some of these songs, but wasn’t stuck in an era.  She did sing some 40/50’s songs, as I recall.  One of my favorites was a Doris Day song about a silly old ram that thought he could punch a hole in a dam, but he had had high hopes, apple pie in the sky hopes. <Grin>

Let me tell you these oldies sang some very strange country songs, like before Garth Brookes; who knew country existed on the radio before Garth. <Grin>  I thought to myself, maybe I had heard these songs as a kid and I just didn’t understand the lyrics!  I mean, have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song?  You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, “Life in the Fast Lane?”  That's what they're saying right there?  You think, why have I been singing “Wipe the Vaseline.” <Grin>

As the night dragged on, seriously, I thought my clock had broken.  But I must say I enjoyed watching two couples sitting at the table next to me, one of the men was 92 and his wife was 89.  They sang some songs, which they told me were from WWII; here is where I say that BFF Hubby’s Mom was also grooving to them.

Well finally, they were playing a couple of songs we knew from the 60’s.   Whoot, Whoot!  So hubby and I sang along with them, and we thought this might be fun after all.  We sang in tune, and were harmonizing; singing it the way it was meant to be, trying to help the singer with the microphone hit the right notes.  I mean if Karaoke were a sport in Sun Lakes we’d be gold medalists. <Grin>

Oh, oh, one of the more serious singers came up, and before he sang, he said feel free to sing with me on the chorus, but not the main song.  OHHHH, guess he was sending us a message, don’t mess with my 5 minutes of fame!  Apparently there is Karaoke etiquette, who knew!  I guess you are only supposed to sing along if the person singing invites you to.  <Grin>

Funny of the night for me was this woman sang a song, which we had never heard of, and the DJ says, “Lets hear it for tonight’s star, how many want to see it posted on YouTube?”  Well, first of all I was amazed they had heard of You tube, but then I was thinking aha, next time I will video tape it, and do exactly that; it would get a zillion hits as it is hysterical. But hey, these oldsters really know how to have fun!

This experience made me more determined to find the under 70’s people, they must be out there somewhere!  After all I keep hearing the statistics as to how many baby boomers there are retiring. If and when I find them, we will take Karaoke night over and make it a rocking 60’s night at Karaoke, I shall call it the Karaoke wars. <Grin>

Stay with me and I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or "my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’……..