Thank you Mssrs. Lincoln and Washington.  Although Presidents day isn't as meaningful a holiday as Veterans' Day, it's still nice to have a day off from work with the house to myself.

First things first, Put some music on my computer and write.  Right now I'm listening to and loading Stan Getz' "Serenity"--Mr. Getz was a Sax great who came up during the be-bop era.   I so wish I had seen him play live.

Today is an unusual day.  The house is clean, I'm not in the midst of any household projects, (even the laundry is done) and the only thing I absolutely have to do is bake a cake by 4 this afternoon.   Lets see....seven hours to bake a cake...I think I can handle that.  I wonder if this is what retirement will be like, each day a blank slate to be filled in however I please.

I'm thinking yoga or meditation or tai chi will be a must for the retired me in 20 years.  No more aerobics for granny Carol.  Cooking and baking has been and will be a constant.  Maybe a class or two will help me expand my repertoir.  I'll still play piano and without work I'll have much more time to practice at my beloved Yamaha.  Maybe I'll even fill in at church when the musician is sick or on vacation.  I know that I'll never want for a time filler as long as my church is in existence.   Even though Unitarian-Universalism has no dogma or dictates it still has pot lucks, coffee hours, cards to write, landscaping,  and committee work.  

I don't know how people have the energy to retire.  I haven't even mentioned book clubs, card and scrabble games, theater groups, watching the grandkids, the symphony and opera on those great $20 senior tickets,  "early bird" dinners, hanging around Starbucks for hours drinking Vente Lattes.  Whew, I think I'll work until I'm 70.

Today, in my "aspects of retirement" day, I'll be content to watch the shadows move from left to right in my sunroom.  I'll be happy to learn one more line of Beethoven's Pathetique Piano Sonata.   I'll put  The Modern Jazz Quartet's "Last Concert" and Golijov's opera "Ainadamar' on my computer.  And I'll bake a cake.  I think of it as "retirement lite."