Retired: It's about movies on Sat. night!

When we retire we think things like "I can do whatever I want!" If you are a guy you are wrong. Simply a fact of life. Unless you live alone, and who can or wants to do that? Fortunately, you live with the girl, woman, female of your dreams. Second fact of life, there are no television shows worth watching on Sat night. This is where the movies come in. There are movies that can score you points on the home front guys, even when you are retired. They are called Chick Flix. I am going to provide you with the top five and the secret that makes this such a great guy thing. The secret first: you get mega, mega points for watching these movies more than once. It's true! Side issue: you may love some of these movies.

I say that because I am a sucker for two of the five right up front. "Notting Hill". I have seen this so many times I know all the words to the brownie scene! The other is "Milk Money" with Ed Harris and Melanie Griffith. Can't help myself re the soft hearted environmentalist and his kid and no one has ever called me a tree hugger. Then there's Ms. Griffith!

You might think I would have trouble picking the other three. Not so! Three is "Terms of Endearment" partly because I lived in Lincoln, NE when it was filmed and Robert Kerrey and Debra Winger were seriously cute together, plus he should have been President but that's another story.

Then we have the "chick flick" of nearly, and maybe, all time. "Pretty Woman" is a gal's take no prisoners chick flick that needs no explanation. This brings us to "When Harry Met Sally" where they managed to get the near perfect mix of chick flick and guy flick coupled with a killer diner scene!

So.....now it is time for all of you who think I overlooked a Ghost, a Working Girl, going without sleep in Seattle, a Tootsie roll and a ship sinking. Let's hear what you think are the best of chick flix that could be Pretty in Pink, do Dirty Dancing, work Nine to Five, and Say Anything. Tell me, what are your favorite Chick Flix of all time?

Ponder and Post.

High School Reunion and Graduation--Oh My

The year I turned 50, my father died and my first granddaughter was born. This year I just attended that granddaughter's high school graduation and in August I shall be attending my 50 year high school reunion. Oh My! I have spent some time pondering about which of these events make me feel old.



I have decided that it is not the events that happen to me that make me feel old.



What does make me feel old is the amount of time it takes my joints to warm up and move about in the morning.



What does make me feel old is the amount of time that it takes my extra gained weight to come off now when I lost weight fairly easily with Weight Watchers just 20 years ago.



What does make me feel old is the amount of time that it takes me to retrieve information from the files in my brain when I know that it is "right on the tip of my tongue".

What does make me feel old is when I am filling out some form and they ask me to check the box for my age category and I find the last box they have listed is 50+. (Do they just automatically lump everyone from 50 to 90 in the same category?)

Oh My!

Retired and ready to___________________(you fill in your own blank).

Vacation Car Rental Benefits

Being retired in the "not doing a job for someone else" sense provides us with a lot of flexibility when the need to travel comes up. We have two "must do" trips coming up this spring and summer. Carol Ann has a major class reunion and our granddaughter graduates from high school. Both of these events are going to require us to fly halfway across the country and necessitate renting a car to have the mobility, independence and time control we need.

Since few of those we will visit are retired they have obligations that do not always allow time to transport us or loan us a vehicle, we feel it simplifies life for all if we have our own transportation. The thing is, it can be a very expensive proposition if one is going to rent for several days or weeks. There's not just the cost of the rental but I like to have some insurance coverage and don't get me started on the cost of gasoline right now.

I made a discovery recently that was a pleasant surprise regarding car rental insurance. Two of my credit cards have insurance coverage options available that greatly reduce the out of pocket expense. One, a platinum Visa, has collision damage coverage built in if I use that card for the car rental. The other, a platinum American Express, has a flat $29.95 fee for total coverage if I rent the car with their card. That sure beats the sox off of the $12.95 a day cost the young woman quoted me for a two week car rental with Budget recently. While I do not generally have much nice to say about credit card companies, these certainly are value added services.

Retirement savings and income being what they are, I look for all the shortcuts to savings on a car rental that I can find. I am not very loyal to any brand as I think all of the major companies are about the same. We rent most often from Enterprise but Budget, Thrifty and Alamo have all given us comparable service. I am not sure who can afford Hertz unless your company is paying for the rental. I have found that using a travel search site called Kayak.com will find me the best deals to compare and choose from to get the cheapest price for the most comfortable car.

Give a site like Kayak.com a try and check with your credit card company to see if there may be a "hidden" benefit like the ones I discovered.

"Retired and Ready" the Newletter has Arrived!

It's here! Our blog has given birth to a newsletter! Given our desire to meet, greet and share with more retired folks, we have published the first edition of our ongoing newsletter. We would encourage you to check it out at www.retiredandready.com as it has articles and information we can't really cover well in this blog. Subscribe now and it is free. We are sure you will be glad that you did.

Retirement: I'm not seeing things!

I've said before that one of the great things about retirement is that it brings with it the time necessary to ponder over some of the things we see. Today I picked up the Sunday Books section of the newspaper because I had not gotten to it on Sunday before the Padres game came on television. When I hit the final page, the bottom half was an ad from Sony but about what I could not tell. Beyond the word Sony, the only words I could make out were, "Fit 80 books in you carry-on." My immediate reaction was, "why?" I need to point out here that I was wearing a pair of my cheater glasses but I could not not read another word in the entire advertisement. But by now I was curious.

I got off the couch and went out on the patio to get help from the Sun god. With his help I was able to learn that this piece of advertising was for a device called the Sony Reader. The point of the ad was that this device can hold roughly 80 downloads of your favorite books and if you purchase a Reader before the end of April, $50 worth of downloads are yours for the taking at Borders. When I finished, I began to ponder what the devil Sony was thinking.

I think I know about four people over the age of fifty who do not require some type of assistance to read the printed word. I know one of them has had Lasiks surgery. So I know hundreds of senior citizens and retirees who if not curious like I was, would have passed right over the content of this ad. Was Sony thinking, we do not want to advertise to retirees and people with vision weaknesses? Was their intent to create the kind of curiuosity that requires all of these persons to seek bright light or magnifying glasses to find out what was being advertised here? The more I pondered, the more irritated I became because I concluded that they were not thinking. This is an ad for a "reading" device and the print is so darn small no one but a teenager could read the ad. I don't know about you, but I don't know many kids today who read much more than text messages unless it is assigned as homework.

The senior citizens and retired people I know do a great deal of reading. How many would be interested in this type of device, I have no idea. I am guessing that Sony doesn't know either!

Ponder that!