The First Day (of the rest if my life)

OK, not a great start. I'd planned to sleep late, on this, my first day of retirement. No, some idiot forgot to reset the cell-phone alarm. No big, though.

So I make biscuits, dig out the choke-cherry jelly, and nosh at the computer. I email my buddies at the office, and get caught up on stories, grandkids' soccer, weekend plans. Then I get sucked into some kerfluffle over a client wanting changes made to a job after I'd sent it to the print shop. A client who is a PIA, but not a PI-my-A any longer. Not my problem. Walk away, dude. Hey, I did walk away! So walk away again.

I know they can do this without me.

I may need counseling.

The chickens are grousing about the day's lean rations. Earl and I prepare to head out to Deer Park to pick up some stuff with chicken pictures on the sack. Wait – the car is totally crammed with boxes from my office.

My cubicle was full of 26 years of books, papers, strange decor (Kung Fu Hamster, African masks, full sheets of fusing glass, a tooth off a backhoe bucket, a tractor seat, my favorite thrift-shop find: a painting of Walt and Shirley – or Delbert and Peggy – in square-dance finery, a big pink stuffed squid...), work samples, paper samples, CDs.... I spent five hours Sunday packing this crap and mopping dusty and crumbed surfaces. Em and Richard, bless their hearts, came up and loaded the car while I finished.

I haul a couple of wheelbarrow-loads of office stuff into the house, and Early and I head for the feed store. He is an excellent traveling companion, except for occasionally licking at my glasses when I'm trying to drive. We pick up some layer crumbles (sort of like chicken nuggets – but not). We even score some rather dubious amaretto for the warm and warming beverage on the cold nights.

C. and I empty the rest of the office gear into my studio, and we head out to our mushrooming spot on the north side of Mt. Spokane. Now this is retirement. The woods are dark and sodden, big old cedars looming over forest litter – and hundreds of mushrooms. A medium-sized creek rushes by below.

That's C. down near the creek, snipping some of the interesting red-brown ones into a bag. 

(These are phone photos, so excuse the poor quality. I didn't plan on taking pics, so didn't bring the camera proper. I did plan on playing Scrabble while I waited for C., though, so the phone came along.)

Here's some of our bounty. Yes, we will carefully look them up and take spore prints and try small samplings before making a meal of these lovely things. 

I'll close with a couple of gratuitous guinea shots.

I know it's not summer any longer, but I finally figured out how to get photos off the phone!