Retirement Day Two

Retirement Day TWO

I woke up at 4 this morning. Nothing unusual since I haven't been retired long enough to be out of the early morning wake up habit. However, this morning, not only did I awaken to the sound of Oscar, our mutt rescue, flying off the bed onto the floor from Angie pushing him, to try to stop him from attacking one of the cats, I also awoke in a PANIC!! SHIT! Today's February 5th! Tomorrow is Angie's birthday, and I haven't gotten her anything yet!!
Now usually I'm better prepared, but this being retired business has been keeping me busy for the past 2 days! To be honest though, we JUST go back from an amazing trip to Belize for our fiftieths combined, balled up with my retirement; and although we pretty much split this trip evenly, what more could a gal want for her 50th birthday besides the label- "World Traveler"?! A label especially snazzy for a girl who had never left Illinois until we got together, when she was 40! So, I grab my phone from the bedside and see I have a text already at 4 AM.... it's from Fulton Co. ESDA, notifying me we are under an ICE STORM WARNING until Wednesday at 6am. OMG!! More panic!! So, I quickly glance out the window- pavements dry, whew! So, I proceed with my usual morning "me time" routine and get the news on pronto! This Ice storm isn't supposed to start wreaking havoc on us until later this afternoon, like 3ish. OK, good, once I get her out the door to work, I'm headed to Peoria...for what though???? More panic!! I start racking my brain, what can I get Angie that's special enough for this half-a-century mark?! Binoculars (for the bird nerd in us)? No. More jewelry ('cause what girl doesn't LOVE bling?)? No. Work clothes/scrubs? No. No! NO! UGH!!! Then that Thomas Edison invention finally lit - she needs a damn suitcase! She had to borrow my brothers for the Belize trip because we only have one suitcase between us (hazard of not traveling until you're 40 I guess). We had our crap packed together in that suitcase, and my sister in law said "it's too full- you'll have no room to bring anything back- here- borrow G's old one." She saved the day and put to rest one of Angie's anxiety ridden mind fogs! Alright! Panic started to subside- but I thought- geesh- what a boring gift! It's needed- but not real fun; functional, but not exciting. And well hell, I needed a good excuse to go to Barnes & Noble anyway- I can find her something there- she loves to read! So, topic of late in our household is a familiar one with everyone I'm sure- M-O-N-E-Y. Enter another anxiety producing mind fog for Angie! She worries now that I'm retired, we will have no money, we won't be able to live the lifestyle we were used to, she's not bringing home enough money to support us.... Jesus woman! I'm making more money retired that if I was still working for Christs sake! Take a Xanax already! WE ARE FINE! Edison invention alert...we've talked before about the Dave Ramsay classes, so I'm gonna hunt up some book or work books for her by Dave! OK- I got my game plan now!
So that's exactly what I did on day TWO. She left for work, I then headed to Kohl's and B&N. Got a pretty purple paisley or something design suitcase for her, her favorite color...SCORE! It's also the type that will be easily spotted coming down the luggage carousel, if ya catch my drift. I then spent the motherload at B&N on 4 books for her, and one for myself, plus 2 leather bound journals- you know- to jot my thoughts down in so I can share them later. Sweet! Now let's get home before that ugly weather hits!
I'm 50, some would call that OLD; I'm retired, some also associate that with being old, and I'm driving to and from Peoria like a bat out of hell to beat the ICE STORM! Also equals old...oh God! Anyway...so, I'm driving, minding my own business, jamming to my tunes, smiling 'cause I accomplished my panic-stricken goal from this morning with ease and plenty of time before the ICK hits! I needed to change lanes to get around this OLD person driving the damn speed limit. Now, I hope I can explain this right, because this is going to be your learn something new moment for today, since it was for me. So, to put my turn signal on to change lanes, I simply hold it down half way to keep my little blinky light going. Not all the way, that's for when I am going to make an actual turn. So yes, halfway- a total manipulation of my finger on the turn signal sticky thingy. So, I do this, but my finger slipped off like a millisecond after it touched the sticky thingy. But, CHECK IT OUT, the turn signal went ahead and blinked like 3 times on its own anyway! WHAT?! So, I had to do it again to make sure my old eyes and ears ('cause it makes that annoying clicking sound ya know) were not deceiving me. OK finger, gently push up on the sticky thingy, but do not hold it there halfway. Done, and I'll be damned if it didn't do it again! NICE!
So, someone obviously hated to have to hold that signal stick for, what like 2 seconds, while switching lanes. Too distracting, I get it. The car manufacturers, at some point, added this nifty little feature where now, we don't have to hold that stick halfway for 2 seconds to let other drivers on the road know we are coming around them, and then back over in front of them, due to their SLOW driving skills! GENIUS! When the hell did this little invention drive the price up on vehicles I wondered; ergo my Google research, which wasn't as simple as a math equation. I didn't even know what this ingenious little feature was called, how the hell am I going to learn about it? Turn signal history is all I needed, along with reading just about every damn result Google threw at me, so I learned A LOT. Turns out turn signals can save lives! According to an article from Cars.com, a study found that not using your turn signal causes more accidents than distracted driving (You hear that Angie?!!)! Another study published by Autoblog.com revealed that the "eternal [blinker]" (the idiot who turns and doesn't turn his turn signal off cause his car's older than me, or his sticky thingy is broke) is among the top ten driving pet peeves.
The 3 blink turn signal is relatively new. If I've got all my facts straight, the 2011 Ford Fiesta was the first U.S. car to offer this time/finger saving detail. Just a little tangent here, I once helped some friends pick up a Fiesta and turn it sideways in an alley between two bars, it only took 4 of us! Now, considering the 1938 Buicks were the first cars to actually have tun signals, and that they didn't even come standard on vehicles until after WWII, it makes sense that this 3 blink feature is just now coming onto the scene, I mean turn signals are still in their infancy, well, maybe adolescent stage. But hold on, I also read somewhere in all of my top-notch inquiry that "smart signals" are coming soon! We won't even have to touch them sticky thingies; the vehicles will read our minds and signal before we even think about switching lanes! In the meantime, if your car is 2011 or newer, it should have this 3-blink feature! Hallelujah life savers! Oh wait- YOU have to be smart and actually touch the stick thingy until the "smart signals" come standard. Here's some added trivia for you, I'm not going to explicitly tell you this guy or gal invented the first turn signal. My investigation yielded at least 4 different names holding the "first" honors, and I don't have time to debate all of that. Richard Bowie Spikes is who I am choosing to give credit, because he came up with a lot of GREAT inventions. The best was in 1910, an invention loved and used to this day... the beer keg tap. He also invented the multiple barrel machine gun in 1940. But it was his 1913 Auto Turn Signal invention that led us here. So, I know you're all itching to go check to see if you have that 3-blink feature- so have at it!\