Life goes on - for some

 A few posts ago, I wrote about my new car, a 2023 Kia EV6. Going all electric with matte paint just felt right. I also decided, for the first time ever, to go with personalized license plates. I chose LND LPZ. It should have been LNDL PZ, but I wanted it to look traditional with three letters on each side.

Since then, the dealer has sent me several items, mostly just partner promotions. Today I received the Luther Advantage card, which offers 10 cents off a gallon of gas and $6.00 off any car wash. I believe this is typical, but to me, it was amusing for the following reasons:

1. The Kia EV6 is an electric car, and I have no need for gas. So the 10 cents per gallon off will not be used.
2. There was a specific instruction not to use a car wash as the soap and the brushes are not good for the matte paint finish. So the car wash discount is worthless.

You would think they would have known this and not mailed it to me, but then again, I believe it’s similar to my past experiences with Luther Automotive. They follow a script to make themselves appear professional, but put little effort into personalizing the experience. It’s always been like a well-defined process at every step!

A goodbye performance

This past week has been filled with many emotions related to Shelley. Her aunt Karen decided decades ago that when she felt her memory was declining and she believed her quality of life had diminished, she would begin voluntarily stopping eating or drinking (VSED). VSED is a deliberate, self-initiated effort to hasten death in cases where suffering is refractory to optimal palliative interventions or when someone finds prolonged dying intolerable. She started it nine days ago, and last night she passed. 

Additionally, on Monday, her father was admitted to the hospital again due to a blood disorder. He has had health issues since he experienced sepsis a year ago. After four days in the hospital, she decided that hospice was the best option and moved him back to Suite Living.

Jon looks so lost and gone

Between Karen’s passing and her dad's deterioration, she cried a lot last night. I had a long discussion, and she knows it is all for the best, yet she has had very few experiences with death. I see life differently than she does, especially as age creates problems and people pass away. I have experienced several deaths of acquaintances under 10 years old and well over 50 for those under 50. 

So, when Karen calls it a life at 83 years old, and her dad may not reach 87, I claim they are so lucky to get to live long enough to experience those issues. Many are not. Additionally, as the pastor said at my nephew’s passing at age two, God has a plan, and if it is two years, live it while you can. Dwelling on it only takes away opportunities to enjoy the life we have.

Carry on my friends, carry on!

Life goes on

Shelley has been retired for 8 months. I just celebrated my 2nd anniversary as a retiree. Shelley now feels she lacks a sense of purpose, or at least a feeling of relevance. She loves the arts and tends to immerse herself in them and other activities to feel relevant. Sometimes, this significantly increases her stress, which I believe diminishes her enjoyment of retirement.

I, on the other hand, have eagerly crossed that Irrelevance Cliff and realized early on how small my career is in the grand scheme of life. I have many retired friends, and I find it interesting how little we talk about what they did for a living. With many of them, I don’t even know what their jobs were. It doesn’t matter anymore.

I see retirement as simply a chance to live longer. A time for myself! Unlike Shelley, I genuinely enjoy just being me without feeling the need to be needed, relevant, or important. The stress relief from that lifestyle is unmatched.

Since she retired, I've noticed that my enjoyment of retirement has decreased a bit. That's because when she was working, I could do whatever I wanted on a whim. Now I feel obligated to keep her informed and then guilty about leaving her behind. I'm also guilty of not doing the activities she wants to do, even though I have little interest.

Additionally, I stopped using social media a few years before I retired. She, however, still gets drawn into social media. We find ourselves debating politics more and more, and she only knows what she reads on social media, failing to do any research. She wanted to join a group opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. But the group blocks neighborhood streets to keep ICE officers out, preventing them from entering. 

I, on the other hand, ask her how blocking access to the neighborhood is acceptable as a means of protecting illegal activity from ICE. ICE is working to secure our borders and remove people. They want to keep illegals out! Again, the protesters' goal: to prevent ICE from doing its job. While I do not support the ICE process, they have all the legal authority to enter areas, but the protesters want to keep them out of places where illegal residents might be.

Then she disparaged Tom Homan, the ICE Director. But what she did not realize was that Tom Homan was appointed by President Barack Obama as the executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2013. By 2014, under the Obama administration, Homan argued that separating children from their caregivers would be an effective way to discourage illegal border crossings. Additionally, under Obama, Homan advocated for the deportation of illegal immigrants and opposed sanctuary city policies. There was no issue in 2014. In fact, in 2015, President Barack Obama awarded him a Presidential Rank Award for his effectiveness in deporting illegal immigrants. 

Homan established his policies and beliefs during the Obama Administration and remains consistent now. I get irritated when people protest aggressively against actions taken under Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama. If they care so much, where were they over a decade ago? Below is a chart showing departures over a few decades. (SOURCE: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University)

So far, the Trump Administration has not come close to what the Obama Administration did without any protests. If I were protecting a process rather than enabling illegal activity, I might agree. The current process is flawed. However, it shows a huge bias to be outraged, remove illegal individuals, and it was acceptable under Obama. They should protest the current harsh process, not help and support the illegal residents.

That's my recent rant. If this continues, who knows, it might lead to two people who haven't argued about anything for twenty years stopping talking to each other. I can’t support the strong positions Shelley is getting from Social Media, and she believes my research and facts are wrong.

I just want to enjoy retirement and my desire to be irrelevant!

Carry on my friends, carry on!