Universe Speaks

I have been feeling pretty sorry for myself ever since I retired. I guess the universe got sick of it and said, “OK, if you insist on moping around, lets give you something to mope about.”

Last Wednesday, the day Ohioans will remember for its 2-mile truck and car pile up on the Ohio Turnpike, I had my own pile up.  While driving home from Rocky River on Detroit Road (OH Rt 254) for no apparent reason at all – no turning or braking or anything – my car spun out into on-coming traffic with two cars approaching.  I turned the steering wheel and luckily the car responded, went back into the right-hand lane, but jumped the curb and continued sliding sideways into a utility pole.

When the car came to rest wrapped around the pole, the pole was right outside the drivers side window.  If the door could have opened the pole would not have allowed it to open.  The glass in the window was gone but apparently it slid down into the door as there was no broken glass. I was just sitting there behind the wheel uninjured in total silence. No cars stopped and no one came to see if I was OK except for the woman who lived in the house.  She asked if I was OK and then reached in, took my hand and prayed to god, thanking him for sending a guardian angel to protect me. I am not a religious person but it was very sweet and comforting.

I used my cell phone to call Ralph and the Rocky River police and crawled over the console to get out of the car.  I was stiff and sore for a couple days but I swear my worst injury is a strained knee from getting my right leg over the console.

Insurance company confirmed today that my beautiful red Honda Prelude is totaled.

I want to thank all my friends for the messages expressing happiness that I didn’t get injured and condolences for the loss of my much loved car.

“I didn’t get dumb. I just retired.”

Several years ago shortly after my husband retired, he said those words to me.   I didn’t know what he was talking about or why he said that.  But now that I have retired myself, I know how he felt.  In one day’s time I become totally irrelevant.  Colleagues at work who claimed they didn’t know what they would do without my  participation figure it out pretty darned fast.  They don’t call with questions.  In fact they don’t call or email at all.

If it was just the work people it would maybe be understandable.  But it is not. It is everyone.

I happen to have a non-work relationship with former work colleagues. At those events they greet me  with words like, “It is nice to see you again” as though I were a dottering old aunt who came uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner.  Then they turn away to continue their conversation.  My input is not relevant.

I had lots of girlfriends.  One group is five women I have known since 5th grade.  We get together several times a year for lunch.  For years they were asking when I was going to retire so we could meet during the week instead of Saturdays.  When I announced my retirement date I expected them to be cheering but they were disappointed.  I think one of them commented that there would be no more stories about or souvenirs from business trips.  Now I am just ho hum. I don’t even have any illnesses to talk about.  How much more irrelevant could I be.

I used to drive myself downtown to work everyday and to most other places I needed to go.  Since I have retired my husband thinks I need to be driven everywhere.  If I say I am going to a store, by the time I come downstairs from putting on lipstick and getting my purse, he has his jacket on and his car keys in his hand, waiting to drive me there. And when I am at the cash register he rushes over to watch me pay.  I guess he thinks I got too dumb to handle my own money.

But the saddest is that my family used to be proud of my accomplishments.  I could hear it in their voices when they spoke to me or about me.  Now I don’t have any accomplishments for them to be proud of. I am the dottering old aunt who came uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner while my family rush about in their important lives. #

A couple months ago I had the opportunity to talk to a more successful blogger than me.  She has 2500 or maybe it was 25,000 readers where I have only 25.  She told me I needed to establish a theme and suggested that anything I thought or felt about retirement would be shared by other retirees.  And if I found a clever, humorous way to write about it, I would get more readers.  Well Stacy, I don’t like retirement and I don’t find anything humorous about it, so this is going to be hard to do.  But next Monday I am starting a Case Western Reserve/Siegal Lifelong Learning course on Satire.  Maybe I can learn how to be more clever and to write in a more humorous way.

See the Latest Movies with Ultimate Coziness

We went to see Monument Men this evening.  I really wanted to see it because my friend Mary and I had read Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece by Noah Charney last year at the Cleveland Museum of Art Art and Literature book club.  It was a fascinating book, as were some of the materials in the CMA library, including a voluminous list of art pieces that Hitler instructed his people to find.

But that is not what this blog is about.  It is about the renovations made to the theater and how difficult and humorous it was for two old retired dinosaurs to master the new stuff.

The add in the newspaper for the Westwood Town Center theater read: “Now you can see the latest movies with ultimate coziness.”  We know now that meant, “Dottie and Ralph, go to the Regal Cinema at Crocker Park.

The lobby and refreshment area had a totally different configuration.  Right by the door was a desk with a perky young lady sitting behind a computer.  I asked the ticket taker what that was about.  He said it was “Customer Service.”  If I had questions or needed something she was there to help.  Well, other than sell me the winning Power Ball ticket, I couldn’t imagine what she could do for me.

But that was just the beginning.