Barbara J. Hamby

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Fatigued or Lazy

My recent bouts with fatigue have inspired me to make an appointment with my doctor to discuss my medication. It’s pretty pathetic that I can stand in the swimming pool, doing exercises, and yawning my head off. Naps are my favorite occupation in recent days.

Today I drove to Vancouver, Washington where I lived for twenty years before moving to this part of the Portland area (Tigard/King City). My tax lady, who is close to my age, I believe, is still at the downtown H & R Block office there. Every year we have a short chat to catch up on changes in our lives and she braves the maze of railroad retirement idiosyncrasies to compute my income tax figures. My income is low enough that it should be simple for me to figure out taxes myself, but I maintain that no one besides railroad retirement employees understands their complicated systems (and sometimes I wonder if they do).

Anyway, I drove by several former residences of mine in Vancouver and am glad I’m not still in any of them. The town is growing like Topsy. It was fun to walk into a Mexican restaurant in a former neighborhood and be greeted by name by the owner and remembered by a waitress. I also stopped by the psychology clinic where I formerly worked and learned my job-sharing partner, who is considerably younger than I, will finally retire this month. It seems impossible that I’ve been gone from there about seven years.

Yesterday I attempted to make plane reservations online for my upcoming California trip and finally gave up and called Orbitz. For a small fee, the very helpful young lady on the other end of the phone did all the online maneuvers and had an email in my inbox with all the details, before I went to bed.

I think my problems with online manipulations are due to fatigue of this ancient hardware. Since all new personal computers offered for sale undoubtedly are loaded with Vista, the new operating system, I want to wait awhile to replace what I have. There are always kinks with new equipment and I’d prefer not to be involved in helping straighten them out. Lazy of me, I know. But lazy is my modus operandi these retired days