Category Archives: retirement101

my first slacker year

Ant Patrol

Posted on April 8, 2019 by janet

It’s 2 a.m. and there’s an ant crawling along the edge of my laptop screen. Continue reading →

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Handiwork

Posted on June 26, 2018 by janet

Summer near the ocean brings balmy air that frizzes hair and seeps humidity into crisp dry sheets no sooner than you lay them down. But it’s nothing compared to what it does to the outside of a house. After a … Continue reading →

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Bolos de los Perros

Posted on May 7, 2018 by janet

As a girl, Vera Cruz native Daniela Rivera (daniela.riverodriguez@gmail.com) was inspired by her dad –an architect and carpenter- to work with her hands, and her interest developed in pottery and clay figures. She makes many types of pottery – cups, … Continue reading →

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William Burroughs, Gore Vidal, and Los Alamos

Posted on April 23, 2018 by janet

Perhaps the most antithetical place on the planet to mention on or around Earth Day is Los Alamos, New Mexico, site of the development of mankind’s ultimate destructive weapon for Planet Earth. Yet that’s where I found myself a few … Continue reading →

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A Dogs’ Graveyard

Posted on April 14, 2018 by janet

In the 1920s, two wealthy, avant-garde sisters from New York stopped in Santa Fe to get their hair done, fell in love with the landscape, bought several acres and created an artists’ respite called El Delirio. Amelia-Elizabeth and Martha White … Continue reading →

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Aviophobia

Posted on April 2, 2018 by janet

April 1. 11:17 p.m. We’re somewhere over Kansas and climbing. I watch the speed and altitude while I fly, wondering what cockpit chatter is about, trying to put myself there to understand. I’m a nervous flier. I question every little … Continue reading →

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This Is Not Us

Posted on March 25, 2018 by janet

When I see Cialis commercials or Celebrex ads, or other doses of retirement-is-carefree dopamine, to me the couples look like they are about 49 or 50 and have just been given silver hair for the commercial shoot. The images in … Continue reading →

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Retirement 101 (or how to live on half your income)

Posted on March 16, 2018 by janet

When I mentioned to someone I work with that I am retiring from my job, she said “Not retiring ‘from,’ but retiring ‘to’ – that’s the new way of thinking nowadays.” Well, I have to confess that retirement planning feels … Continue reading →

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