4Q Readers

I may not have many readers, but I do hear from them. (Which may be a little like saying I may not be overdue on too many bills, but I do hear from them.)

Anyhow, this picture came from my friend Robert, whom we will be visiting in about six weeks. He wrote:

Since you are on the old retired person I have added a rest stop at the quarter mark so you can rest ( see picture) before having to go to the rest stop at the half way mark. For your readers if you use this in your blog, the whole trip means walking around the pool in the back yard.

Thanks for the use full information on how you are getting along in retirement. I'm sure LK will have no problem making it all the way as she is not as old as you.

Robert

Isn't that sweet of him to be taking such good care of me? But I think he has misinterpreted my problems at the bowling alley with my walking. I have been taking walks now for almost the full eight months I have been retired. I see no problem in getting halfway around the pool before I have to rest. I am just wondering why I would walk around the pool in the first place unless there's a bar on the other side.

Speaking of bowling, which we did at Jason and Laura's wedding, Jason came by Sunday and told us Laura was happy to be in the blog. I am happy to oblige although I have no idea why anyone would be happy to be in the blog. I know most of the time when I write about someone I tend to get a slightly more negative reaction.

Such as with Caroline, for example. Last week she stopped over and after a while she let loose on me about how nasty I was to write that I seldom listened to anything she said. I asked her to repeat that (joke, Caroline!) and was feeling bad that I had hurt her feelings. I do tend to make jokes about the people I like, and I assumed I had gone too far when I posted about her.

I looked up the post, though, and found that - for once - I was innocent of the charges. Here's what I wrote on January 20:

But the night before, before I moved the wine from just right to too much, Caroline told LK and me that we absolutely had to get a Wii. She had played on one over her holidays and she was smitten with the game console. I don't always do what Caroline suggests. For example, last night I ignored her and opened that last bottle of red, and I didn't even ask her about the black Russians. But with the Wii, her suggestion made sense so it was off to the mall this afternoon to get myself a Wii.

Now, it is a mighty leap from "seldom listen to her" to "I don't always do what Caroline suggests", especially when I was writing about having that one bottle of wine too many. So Caroline, I do listen to you -- really. But when it comes to having one more bottle of red, I think there's very little chance of anyone's suggestion being followed unless they propose one more for the road.