Hedonism and Reunion

 (Not to leave readers hanging, no - my hair guy is not retiring. He just no longer wanted to pay the fees to the credit card processing service. Phew)

Life has rolled right along, yoga, dinner with good friends, and today a game of pickleball, this afternoon Mahjong. I’ve been retired long enough that all this pleasant smooth sailing feels like second nature, but every now and then I realize that I haven’t been properly appreciating this stress-free life.

          Fine, My Guy and I have our creaky moments and those days of long or short trips are over, but we’re housed, fed, and without impending financial or medical woes. I’m no longer worrying over lessons, students, and grades. There are very few places that I have to be, and nobody I need to answer to. The good life. 

 

          Today, it being a glorious 68 degrees at 8:30 a.m., a friend and I went to the new town pickleball courts. I’ve been avoiding them a bit because dropping by and playing with strangers makes me nervous, since some of those strangers are powerful players. But she and I seemed to maneuver our way into friendly non-threatening foursomes. In fact, as it turned out, all our foursomes were composed of women. One pair we played with were sisters full of good-natured sibling rivalry. Another pair were two friends, one of whom spent much of her time providing ‘helpful’ pointers to better our play. Tiresome.

          But what I’m still smiling about is one person, Yvette, who looked very familiar, but I couldn’t place her. After our game, I asked for her last name, which did ring a bell, but which bell?

          I said I’d been a teacher, so perhaps that was the reason, and named the schools where I’d taught English. She asked me for my first name again, and I said that if she’d been a student, she wouldn’t have known it but I told her ‘Marty.’

          At that, her face lit up. Back when I worked for the local cable company I’d spent a couple of years in a high school where the company had installed a TV studio as part of their contract with the city. I basically taught television production to the teachers, who then taught the kids.

          Thirty-five years ago, she’d been one of the kids. Amazing.