Blather

Retirement is a process. Sure, there’s the event- the lunch and cake and good wishes but it starts somewhere else. Mine started when I was involuntarily assigned to a job I didn't care for. In my truculence, I responded by looking for a job in another agency but that process takes awhile. Sure, I got a few nibbles in the subsequent six months but I got tired of waiting and decided to pull the retirement plug. Turning 62 in June was a good point from which to make the decision.

At the end of this essay are my recent thoughts from October but I’ll begin with my views from July 2007:

Single digits and counting down!

Moi is down to single digits. Next week will be my last week. Friday July 20th I want to come to work and say good-bye to everyone. That night will be another session with my small son and his shrink, and then I'll spend the entire weekend with him.

The week of the 23rd will be my time to clean up the house, do the yard work, and see about getting my cars fixed. But the house comes first. If I move two hours away, I can always rent a car carrier and schlep my projects there, along with a U-Haul van for the other stuff. If nothing within two hours becomes a Good Choice, then I'll see about cramming it all into a 40-foot container and sending it to ... oh, Texas? Sadly, my crystal ball gets hazy beyond the next few weeks of house maintenance.

More mundane items: My truck's fifth gear went out. Took it to the shop where the guy opened up the transmission and showed me the worn shaft. He said I shouldn't tow in fifth because it's overdrive and the diesel motor puts out too much torque for such a small gear. The solution is an aftermarket splitter from Escondido’s “Gear Vendors.” I can leave it in fourth and hit the overdrive, and I lose only three miles per hour, about right for towing. When I'm not towing, I'll get 22% lower RPM, so my mileage will go up. All that's the good part. The bad part is it'll cost me nearly $7K to get this done. Since I intend to keep my truck forever and I intend to do a lot of towing, I think I'm doing the right, albeit costly, thing.

The '86 Volvo with 300,000+ miles lost its "rubber coupling," a rubber disk that goes between the transmission and the drive shaft. My big son found one at a Volvo-only store in San Pablo; we installed it last Monday. Now the Volvo is smoother than ever. That was a cheap $100 fix. But it happened right after my truck went out, so I used my son’s girlfriend’s car for a day or two. When you need a spare car, you need a spare car, right? My truck might be back to me next week sometime. 'Twould be good to give him a shake-down ride (in the new low-RPM mode) with my small son on the weekend.

Other stuff- It seems my life has been crammed with day-to-day concerns. I have little time for personal or educational goals, like reading. I follow the newspapers and watch PBS news, but that doesn't allow my mind to stretch. The last bit of worthwhile stuff I read was "The Art of War" by Sun Tsu a few years ago. Yes, a few years.

I have my spiritual moments- like when I'm in my garden. I also have some physical moments, when I feel both strong and very mortal. But those topics are in the metaphysical realm for which this may not be the right Blogger venue. I continue to put intellectual pursuits on the back burner because I feel swamped with other concerns like divorce, retirement, my younger son, and their concomitant factors like finance, time, and my own dwindling energy.

Today, I'm three months single and a week from being unchained to my job. I'm two weeks from pulling weeds in the rose beds, sweeping leaves from the yard and doing a lot of general sprucing up.

I find a bit of serenity here- I have a few good constants going for me. I have my mind, which is apparently, if albeit subjectively, in working order. I have some measure of health. I have sufficient financial resources to survive moderately for awhile: I have options. And options give you security.

Trepidation and anticipation are on my pre-retirement menu.

The Big Day approaches

My boss was her usual helpful if forceful self. Two days to turn in airport ID, immigration stamps and parking card at SFO, then one trip to Admin to turn in my creds and badge (plus a check so it would come back to me in Lucite), and a separate trip to turn in my receipt book. It felt like I was in over my head- no turning back. No deciding, “Maybe I’d better retire next year.”

But the biggest and most unexpected event was the day that I gave up my gun. Right after lunch, the avuncular range master came to the East Bay office. I had laid out my pepper spray, gun box, handcuffs, baton, PRD and safe weapon. He checked the numbers, reminisced and joked with me a bit then put everything into a bag. I was done. Sure, I still had the uniform, but I had nothing else. We shook hands and I went back to my desk.

I couldn’t navigate the floor.

Oh, I didn’t fall down, but the floor felt funny. Or maybe it was my feet felt different as they clown-slapped the floor. Perhaps a doctor could explain the neurological reasons for my walking oddly. But without the gun, I didn’t weigh the same. And my arms had nothing to keep my wrists from touching my belt. So my gait was awkward, like a newborn colt. Not quite falling down, but certainly not a confident walk.

I made it back to my desk, where I pretended to be busy at the computer, though my focus was in not falling down. Fortunately, I was clever enough to sit in the chair without my weapon. I may have spent ten productive minutes that afternoon. I put in my leave so I’d be in a pay status (though not at work) until the end of the month. Going home, my head buzzed with the trivial things I’d have to do the next day, my last day at work.

I observed to myself that I’d spent numerous weekends walking around without a gun and never had any trouble walking. So why should walking in uniform without a gun be different from walking in jeans and T-shirt without a gun? I’ve not been able to arrive at a satisfactory answer.

The next day, I woke up early without the alarm. Showering and shaving and a clean uniform seemed important. I showed up at work with no badge, gun or creds. Not even a lunch, since I anticipated going home early. I sat at my desk, went through the motions of doing some work, but mainly saying good-bye to everyone in the East Bay. I got all my emails to the retirement office printed out. I was a bit better at walking, though I had to pay attention to putting one foot in front of the other. Lunch came and I ate, though some of me wasn’t there during the meal. Then we had cake. I ignored my diabetes and had a piece. I got hugs from all the women, a very good thing, and some back-slapping and hand-shaking from lots of guys, nearly as good as the female hugs. Lots of people said they’d miss my expertise in everything. This could be true- even the Document Analysis Unit and Marine Division folks came to me with quandaries.

About one PM, my boss gave me the signal- “take off.” I dawdled for a few minutes, but then it was time to leave my workplace, my “home away from home.” In a sort of alert-yet-numb way, I walked out to my truck, climbed in and drove out of the parking lot. I looked in the rear-view and drove slowly, not sure of what was happening. I didn’t know if or when I’d see anyone again. That bothered me a bit. I got home, parked, and went upstairs to get out of my uniform for the last time. My big son and I had dinner with his girlfriend, and another part of my life began.

Retired a week

I recently received an email from a very smart and happily secure woman in DC. I got to know this woman because she wrote an article in the old Customs Today when it was a glossy magazine. I emailed her, telling her how much I liked her article. She replied and we got to know each other. She left Customs and married a great guy a few years ago. We’ve remained friends.

I emailed her to tell her that I’m feeling retired. Why? Well, I’m focusing on things that aren’t work-related. My truck got fixed. I was getting two dental implants. Being retired felt strange because I gave up my gun and creds, right? Well, that’s over. I have temporal pressures, but these are only indirectly related to work- if I’d kept working six and seven days per week, I’d never have gotten around to working on the house. ‘Tis a chicken and egg, iterative thing- as long as I work, I don’t need the money to leave. But as long as I work, I won’t have the time to do the work that’ll enable me to leave: I'd be working only so I could keep working. Sure, I could have prolonged this awkward situation. But I couldn’t have worked until the mortgage went away in another 29 years. So I’m my own boss, working for myself, trying to get things done so I can leave.

My “job” now is to fix up the house and rent it or sell it. Two levels of “fixing up” are involved. A lower, less expensive level to rent it and a higher, more expensive level to sell it.

My truck- Oh, that GV (Gear Vendor) over/underdrive thing works really well!! I pull up on the valve and it shifts higher, about a half a gear. In fourth gear with the Gear Vendor energized, it feels very much like 5th gear without GV. This is where I’ll be doing my towing- the robust fourth transmission gear plus GV. Not towing, I energize GV when I shift into fifth and cruise at 70 doing 1250 RPM.

It never rains but it pours dental situation: I’ve been putting off getting dental implants. Can’t any longer- my dentist says my bone mass is getting thinner and he’ll now have to do some bone grafts to get the work done on my upper left side. The bone on my lower right side seemed OK enough that two days ago, he did some clever artisanship there- sliced open my gum, drilled a 4 mm hole 11 mm deep, and used a leeetle tiny ratchet to insert the titanium plug into my jawbone. The plug is internally threaded, too, for a stud onto which he’ll attach a fake tooth, like a crown without the real tooth stem to attach it to. That was the easier tooth. The other one will require some bone grafts because it’s close to my sinus cavity. And I have a separate crown coming, right next to the pending dental implant. The couple of cavities I need filled seem hardly worth mentioning.


A week before Halloween

Had a great lunch with George and Linda a couple of weeks ago. They’re just as decent as when they worked with me, but much more more fun as retirees.

My finances are a bit thin. I have been emailing the CBP gal in DC who’s my retirement minder. I asked her when I could expect my first check. Remember, this is Ocotober and I stopped working in July. She asked for my SSAN. I gave it to her. Then she asked for my CSA number. Gave that too her as well. Today I got an email from her telling me that she’s been speaking with OPM and there was a delay because 1) I have a court order regarding alimony and child support and 2) I turned 62 recently, so OPM must calculate how much my Social Security offset will be. I guess the procedure is: “Don’t give him a nickel until everyone figures out how small that nickel should be.”

I’m retired. I wake up late because I watch Jay Leno because I like watching Jay Leno. I decide what to do each day. Some days, it’s yard work. Some days, it’s refinishing the floors. Some days I do small and insignificant things like getting new watch batteries for my watches that haven’t worked for awhile because I spent my days working. Yes, I know- just one more day in the CBP trenches would have paid for a dozen new watches. But I fix my watches because I want to, not because fixing them makes financial sense. Other days, I do important things, like getting my colonoscopy and CT scans. I’m glad I got those, because I’m certified in good shape- nothing wrong with me that a bit of attention to my diet can’t control. I’ve been diabetic for three years, so I’m OK with the diet.

I’m retired because I think about what I want to do, and then I do what I want. A few more months and this house will be finished. Not sure what the market will be like then, but I’ll fret about that when it happens. I have innumerable small hurdles. Should I use cherry or oak for the stain on the doors? Should I have a Churchill cigar or skip smoking today? Where should I put boxes of stuff from the house? Should I get new carpets before I do the walls? Do I want to keep the Pyrex saucepans, or should I just go with the copper-bottom Revere ones? Work on the Volvo today or mow the lawns? Go grocery shopping tomorrow or forage for leftovers in the fridge? The divorce isn’t quite over- two and a half years of alimony and child support, then a chunk of my retirement, but most of the ugly part is behind me. But these are not going to trip me, just eat an hour or a day of my retired life here or there. I have more to do, lots more. I’ll do what feels right.

I’m in the retired club- I’ve got my Lucited badge, a shiny plaque to put on my wall and CBP’s nicest Rolex clone. I’m not as affluent as I’d be if I hadn’t retired but I’m a lot more serene.