Way back in February Monica said to me, “Mark, as my gift to you for your 70th birthday and your retirement, after the dust has settled from all the planned activities, let’s get away – just the two of us – to see the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter.”  Well, this past weekend the dust finally settled – at least a little bit – and we made the trip.  Thursday afternoon we drove to Florence, KY and checked into our hotel.  Friday we toured the Creation Museum.  Saturday morning, we checked out of our hotel and drove to the Ark Encounter.  That evening we drove a little farther south for a couple nights in Georgetown, KY.  Sunday afternoon we made a few stops on the bourbon trail in Lexington, and then returned home on Monday.

I am not sure if my frustration is more with myself, the programs, or people in general.  The issue is the poverty I see all around.  And no, I am not talking about finances.

I spent last night at Weber’s Inn of Ann Arbor.  No – Monica did not ask for a “little space” or a “little time for me to be away.”  Retirement is going very well.  We (at least, I – I probably should not be proclaiming an assumption here … though we often complete each other’s sentences at home, I try to limit how often I do it in public) are enjoying our extra time together.  We are finding a pleasant balance of time together and apart.  We even enjoy going grocery shopping together – though we do not do it every time.  In other words, my view of retirement at this time is “beautiful”.

I am finally giving in – whatever that means.  My laptop, which has been warning me for over a year, now completely refuses to type the fourth letter in the alphabet!  This makes typing something like this – along with virtually everything else – nearly impossible.  Talk about frustrating!  The three options I have come to are a) an over-reliance upon spell-check (which, unfortunately will not help every time), b) copy the letter from a previous document to be pasted in place whenever necessary, or c) insert an “x” every time I should be using that letter between C + E.  A fourth option, which I could not include in the previous sentence for obvious reasons, is to consistently use vocabulary options that will not require the use of that certain letter.