Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Channeling Your Inner Child

Last weekend, I watched the movie, Crank, as a refresher for renting & watching Crank 2: High Voltage. My friend, Stewart, joked that it appeared to be created by a 14 yr old boy with ADD. I guess that describes it pretty well. I must admit I had to avert my eyes a couple of times during Crank 2. A bit intense. But all in all, a pretty crazy ride that the fourteen-yr-old-boy in me seemed to enjoy pretty well.

Then on Tuesday, it was time to address that 12-yr-old-girl in me. A friend of mine invited me to go along to a Mitchel Musso concert. Not having any very young ladies in my daily orbit, I wouldn't have known who he was. If the name still doesn't ring a bell for you, think Hannah Montana's best friend Oliver. With successful hits on Disney Radio, his band's tour brought him to a major venue in her town and she was excited to have an opportunity to show her support.

Her family has known Mitchel's family since he was just a little guy, even before he and his brother were the cousins in Second Hand Lions, before he was the voice of DJ in Monster House and way before Hanna Montana. She told me some great stories of when they were little kids and it's obvious that they were born performers.

The average age of the crowd was probably around eleven or twelve and entertaining to watch. My tolerance for squealing pre-teen girls is pretty good since I remember that somehow, squealing was a natural and spontaneous form of expressing excitement for a girl at that age. I remember that well, but for the life of me can't understand why it's true. We heard three bands and were still out of there at 9 o'clock. I've joked that I could be the grandmother to the mothers who brought their young daughters but we had a good time.

While we were waiting in line at the meet-and-greet, she had been telling me what great kids Mitchel and his brothers were and sure enough the first thing the star-of-the-hour did when he saw her was ask about her family. The band-on-tour life and life of celebrity has to be pretty hard and grueling at times, but from a bystander's viewpoint, this young man (and his parents who I also had the opportunity to meet) appeared to be handling it pretty gracefully. I wish them all the best.


Mitchel Musso and yours truly.

Monday, September 21, 2009

My Blogoversary Is In 41 Days

Just noticed that it's coming up on my fifth anniversary of blogging. Sheese, a lot has changed in those five years. One being the fact that I'm retiring in just a few days. I've heard you're busier after retiring than you ever were working a job. I hope there's some kind of sane balance there.

I would like to have time to blog more. I know I get some occasional readers, but to tell the truth, someone who really enjoys reading my blog is ME! I like to go back and read and look at pictures. I fell into the journal type of blogger. And that's fine with me.

On the way to work last week I saw a china berry tree that had leaves turning red. Tomorrow is the official last day of summer folks.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Last Friday An Ending. Thursday Week A Beginning.




My fellow Guiding Light watcher, Barrie, gave me a ballpoint pen with this lighthouse on the clip. After the demise of the pen, the little lighthouse found a home on the corner of my computer monitor. I've pried it off and reglued it to each new one for more than ten years now.

In just a few minutes, I'm going to pry it off again and put it away for safekeeping until I decide on it's new home.

The end of TV's longest running soap opera, Guiding Light, (which I started watching as a tot at my mothers knee) came last Friday. Just so happens that the end of GL coincides with my retirement from a place I've worked for more than 25 years; and I've been coming to this campus as a student or worker for more than half my life.

I've got my basic plans about what I'll do, where I'll live, where I'll work part-time starting Oct. 1, but the rest is unchartered territory. When I find a new home for my little lighthouse, it will carry on as a reminder of the light of encouragement and hope among friends and family.

The central character in Guiding Light's original radio days was Reverend Rutledge. Here is an excerpt from his Christmas sermon which Aunt Meta recited in an episode from 2000. Seems perfect for unchartered waters.


"There is a destiny that makes us brothers.
None goes his way alone.
All that we bring into the lives of others
comes back into our own."

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

09-09-09

Another fun date day!

Friday, September 04, 2009

Eighteen Workdays To Go

I never dreamed I would retire this early, but at a fairly young age I got a job on a college campus, stayed with it and am now eligible to retire. The situation requires that I continue to work at least part-time for a while. But once I found out I was eligible, so many things came into play that I couldn't not go for it.

I accidentally said to a co-worker friend the other day, "when I graduate ... I mean retire...." We had a good laugh about that because after twenty-five years in higher education (plus my student worker days), I am truly finally leaving college.

I just celebrated the birthday that provides the correct number for the magic formula of eligibility -- age plus years of service must equal X. On my birthday each year, I send an email to a birthday-twin & campus friend. In this birthday email, I mentioned that I was retiring at the end of this month.

He in turn returned the wish and asked my plans for retirement. I told him about plans to spend more time with family and work part-time at a museum, ending by asking him what he'd been doing since he retired six months ago.

He replied that he and his wife will be traveling to Germany and Hawaii this year. They'll spend time with grandkids. They both have books being published early next year. He's still doing consulting and research in the business world. And their next trip is volunteering at a school for disabled Native American students. I'm impressed with his interesting retired life, but especially inspired by what he said at the end.

He closed by saying, "Enjoy reinventing yourself--and stay in touch."
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