Who's counting anyway?

OK look.    We are only in Day 5 of this whole scenario, so it is a bit too early to say if this is the good news or the bad news.  We remain uncertain at this time.  But here we go…drumroll…

Ladies and gentlemen!  Mr. Plath has retired!

He has left the building.  He is not going back into the building.  No.  Of that much we are certain.  He is staying home.  With me.

And therein lies the tentative nature of our relationship.  After 25 years of marriage, will retirement,with its enforced togetherness, its mandatory glee, be the end of us?

Back in the day – last week, to be specific – we had a comfortable, if one-sided, routine:  The alarm went off at 6 AM and the coffee pot beeped; we turned on the news and had a bowl of granola. 

He got in the shower at 6:15, a warm and gentle human being.  Then, as though the shower stall were some futuristic contraption designed for making Men in Suits, the disheveled and groggy guy who stepped in came out seven minutes later sleek, focused, and standing at the boardroom table – mentally anyway – a working man with his working face already working. 

Hair drying, for him a 20 second operation, was sufficient to whisk all thoughts of life outside the corporate campus from his consciousness.  He barely acknowledged me as I watched his transformation. 

Only moments ago he had been in his dream world of duck blinds and hip waders, but now, as he buttoned himself down, his expression changed with his internal dialogue.  I imagine it went something like this:  “That’s right Joe; we have to trim the fat!  If we want to increase our net end-of-the-year functional profitability equation matrix, something’s got to give!”

But what he’d say was, “Love ya, Honey!  Home around seven!”  And with a whoosh and swoop, I had the house to myself.

How I spend my days is not open for scrutiny just now.  See, I could tell him whatever I wanted.  Maybe I went to movie after movie and ate popcorn all day.  Maybe I had a mani and a pedi and one of those face mask thingies.  He was never the wiser.

So long as the house was clean and dinner on the table, what did he care?  More accurately, how could he care after a 12 hour day of meetings wrapped at both ends with a glorious 40 minute commute? 

At the end of those days, he was just glad to take off his shoes.

So he made his Victory Lap, going to farewell party after congratulatory luncheon.  He played golf and smiled for the camera and got cards and cakes and slaps on the back and affectionate ribbings. 

And when it came time to turn in his laptop and security badge, he had not a moment’s nostalgia.

And now he’s home and there are no more secrets.  No more ethereal answers to, “How was your day, Honey?”  He’s right here.  He can see exactly how my day is.

Suffice it to say that, having retired four years ago myself, I have thoroughly relaxed out of my own time-served in the institutional life. 

Oh, I get up and do things, but leaping out of my cozy Tempurpedic after it has molded to my body creating the best possible sleep experience, disturbing the cats and launching into activity is not the way it goes at 6-the-bleep-thirty, thank you very much.

I expected the worst – a watch-tapping version of my father, to-do list in hand and disapproving gleam in his eye.

But to my amazement, Mr. Plath does not wake up without the alarm.  I can pull out my book and read for a good stretch until … OMG!  Is he going to sleep all day?!

No.  No he’s not.  There he is!  Mr. Sleepy Head.  So sweet. 

We have had five leisurely mornings with coffee and the Today Show.  Granola in bed.  Repeated reveling about this lovely new phase of life and the great big beautiful world around us.

So we reside now in what you might call the Honeymoon Stage of his retirement.  Like newlyweds, we are happy!  So very happy!

And they said it wouldn’t last!

A dog in the house

We’re preparing for a puppy.

Ha ha ha ha ha!  It’s so naïve! 

You can’t prepare for a puppy!  Everyone knows that!

And yet, we at the Plath household are engaged in a zombie-like ritual whereby we go through a set of steps designed to accomplish some kind of magic – we seek an impossible readiness for the destruction of life as we know it.

It’s a sun-god ceremony.  A rain dance.  A ceremonial procedure in which we prime ourselves for sacrifice.  We are making everything new and nice and perfect so that it can be dribbled on, chewed up and thrashed past utility by a guileless little heathen who will live with us for the next decade or more.

It all began with the passing of Beau, our happy black Lab of thing-fetching fame.  After 13 years of repetitive behavior, we humans were as locked into his routine as he was. 

We continue to flinch at feeding times.  We carefully lock the gate.  We park in front of Pet Food Express when we mean to go to Raley’s.  We wipe phantom nose prints from clean sliding doors.

We miss the grizzled old boy!

And just when the heartache ebbs, something new will touch off another round of nostalgia:  I Googled our address for no particular reason and clicked on “street view” only to find that the internet mappers had passed along our alley with their cameras mounted high enough to look over our fence. 

It was totally unsettling and creepy and sure to be the topic of a future column – but I couldn’t dwell on that because there, in the frame of our yard, was Beau, on his side next to the house, his grey muzzle lifted to the sky, his mouth forming an ‘O,’ no doubt howling to his people, his tribe, the ancient wolves of suburbia. 

I’d give him credit for barking at those possible intruders, but let’s just be honest.  In his declining days, he chased all manner of imaginary villains in his sleep and left the real life ones to their own devices.  But, oh!  How sweet to see him!    

And so with broken hearts we knew the only balm in this Gilead would be the same as the comfort of a new mother when the baby is placed in her arms.  Contractions?  Agony?  No!  We will forget the grief, the chewing, the pee and the hair, hair, hair. 

Only a puppy can save us.  Only a puppy’s big belly and sweet face can restore our souls.  A puppy! 

And the march has begun.  Like Wrangler on the Today Show, our puppy will grow up to be a working dog with manners and skills to match the specific demands of the field.  So since before Thanksgiving, we’ve been on waiting lists for litters .

But even so I didn’t quite appreciate Mr. Plath’s level of anticipation until I asked him the other day if he had given any thought to what he might name the little terrorist who will soon disrupt our lives and ultimately join him in the duck blinds.


Oh yes.  He had devoted himself to compiling a list of contenders.  Quietly, when I thought he was reading the paper or marveling at Francis Underwood in our House of Cards marathon, he had assembled a roster of names for his new buddy, coming soon to a place in his heart.

Our new little guy will be Duke or Dewey or Buster or Louie – or Blue.

Here are his dishes and place mat.  Here’s his little doggy bed and a plush toy with a beating heart for his first nights in a new home.  Here are his chew toys and look!  A little squeaky duck thing! 

But let’s be real.  It doesn’t much matter what we have put in place to corral him or where we picture him sleeping.  He’ll make this place his own in short order.  We will adjust our thinking, our plans, our barriers, our strategies and systems – to him.  His creativity will out match ours.  He will win.

In fact, he has already won.  We just can’t wait to meet him.

And that’s true for just about everyone in the Plath household, except, of course, the cats.

Iron Mike Tyson on Broadway

“This is…what [I] decided to do after I gave up using drugs and being a pig and stuff…”  

That’s Mike Tyson speaking to Ann Curry on the “Today Show” about his upcoming collaboration with Spike Lee.  He’s going to do a one-man show on Broadway.  That’s right.  Limited engagement.  Six nights only with a metaphorically naked Tyson.   

It’s the new Mike.  The improved Mike.  You have to love a guy who gives up being a pig.  Not to mention drugs and stuff.  Don’t you? 

While we all have room to grow, Iron Mike’s margin for improvement dwarfs that of the average schmo.  God love him for embarking upon a plan of self-improvement. It must be staggering.  He didn’t break it down into short-term, long-term, personal or professional goals.  “Today” only has a two-hour timeslot.  But apparently it’s a general overhaul.   

I’d love to see his notes on the brainstorm.  “Let’s see,” he must have said to himself, licking the tip of his pencil, “where to start?”  The “stuff” category offers the greatest range of opportunity.  No more wet towels on the furniture, for sure. 

Mike says he’s a vegan now.  He won’t eat anything with a face.  Birds, fish, insects and mammals across the globe exhaled in relief at the news.  Too late for Evander Holyfield, of course, but it’s a step on the personal growth highway. 

One wonders, after such a prolonged period of porcine existence, what triggered the change?  Did Mr. Tyson have an epiphany?  Was there a crystalizing experience?  A flash of insight or inspiration?  Well, yes.  There was such an event for Mike.  During his interview with our cultured and genteel Ms. Curry, Tyson revealed the moment he realized he wanted to live a cleaner, healthier lifestyle: 

"I just threw up the white flag," he said.  "There was too many prison cells, too many jails, too many lawsuits, too many bankruptcies, too many women, too many venereal diseases, too many everything.”  

OK, stop.  We get it.  Ann has leaned away on her stool, clutching her notepad.  No need to go into greater detail, is there?  But it seems there was a need.  Tyson pressed on, “I got tired.  I really got tired of, you know, like every time a prostitute –- I would head back from a trip -- I had to sleep with her.  So I just said, 'I'm going to live a different life.'” 

Not unlike others who’ve turned themselves around, right?  (I’m searching for a comparable example here.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Anyone who overcame those odds, that background, that ingrained behavior?)  

But my mom used to tell me, the time to make up your mind about people is never. 

Is it too late for Mike Tyson?  Can he redeem himself after decades of decadence?  Were there too many prisons and prostitutes for us?  Does his prison time, paying his debt, satisfy our need for justice after such heinous crimes?  Does bankruptcy on the grandest scale, losing $350million, truly wipe the books clean? 

Are we willing to let him start again?  Could he ever become a kinder, gentler Mike Tyson?  More than that, can he become a successful song and dance man? 

If you saw him in “The Hangover II” you already know he can’t sing, and dancing in the ring does not equate.  But there was that one thing - he seemed willing to laugh at himself.  I don’t think the old Mike would have done that. 

As for Tyson’s Broadway debut, which will feature Iron Mike offering a personal look into the highs and lows of his career, including his addiction to drugs, alcohol and women, Spike Lee says, “What Mike’s going to do is [display] the same courage he displayed in the ring.  I think [it takes] just as much courage to go on stage [and] bare your soul to the audience.”  

If you’ve been a pig the first step in recovery is taking responsibility for the sty. 

“I have to be careful,” said Tyson, “because I can’t stay on some subjects for a long time.  I can’t stay … for a long time because I might cry, something might happen,”  

What will happen, if he pulls it off, will be an object lesson in redemption. 

Buy Underwear! Eat Dessert!

Did you know when you buy new underwear, you’ve signaled Wall Street to boom? Oh yes. Heard it on the Today Show. Financial analysts report that our economy is showing signs of recovery. What are those signs, you ask? Leading indicator: Surges in sales of new underthings!

According to this theory, when things get tight (beg your pardon for the pun) we tend to hold onto our shabby undies. As economic conditions improve, we replace the grayed and stringy in favor of pastel and springy.

In a troubling side note, this also seems to indicate that economists know the state of our lingerie. Somewhat creepy. But what can you do? It’s like pretending that all your personal information is secure on the internet. It’s not. They already know. But ragged BVD’s linked to a sagging GDP? Really?

Guess what’s another leading indicator of an economic upswing? Dessert consumption! I am all over this one! Matt and Meredith said it this week: Eating dessert after a meal in a restaurant is evidence of consumer confidence. Appetizers too! Following the Undergarment Theory of Economic Cycles, the ingestion of these delightful, but superfluous luxuries reflects optimism, which in turn harkens to the economic rebound we’re seeking. And for the first time since 2009, dessert intake is expanding. It follows logically, so say the analysts, that our economy is expanding too. Not to mention our waistlines and the accompanying elasticity of our underwear. But I digress.

Hallelujah and hooray! At last, something I can do to help. Underwear, appetizers and dessert! It’s been such a long time. I am energized just knowing the powerful impact of these three small but profound contributions! Having new underwear is almost as much fun as having new shoes. Appetizers and desserts? You know you’re living the life!

Finally, in a downward economic trend, tee times wane. We don’t play enough golf. I’m certainly guilty on this count. I can’t remember the last time I skulled one into a water hazard. Actually, I can. So can the poor coot that was in my line of fire. Rolled over like a foundering sailboat. (Coots' feet are green!) But now, duffers from Walla Walla to Washington D.C. are teeing up again, and the economy senses it.

Observe the multi-tasker among us, heralding a healthy economy: Nibbling nachos as she waits for her tee time. She hits a bucket of balls in her brand new Fruit of the Looms. After nine holes, in the clubhouse, she chooses not beer, but cherry cobbler. A la mode, of course. Done and done.

Hey…wait a minute. Could it be the other way around? Could it be we can control the economy with our attitudes toward, and purchases of, underwear? If we detect a dip in the market, can we create a turnaround by ordering jalapeno poppers or tiramisu? I think we could be onto something here. To paraphrase a great motivator: The only things we have to fear are stretched-out elastic, calorie counting, and divots on the fairway…I’ll work on that.

And by the by, why didn’t they tell us this stuff months ago? We could have staged a nationwide campaign to boost the economy out of the doldrums. I can see it now. Picketers with posters chanting at the entrances to Chili’s and Outback. “Eat your cake! Eat your cake!” Emotions kick up quickly in these scenarios: “Un-American” scrawled across the door to Jenny Craig’s.

Schoolchildren add to their list of responsibilities for good citizenship: Vote; pay your taxes; and wear fresh new underwear! Of course they’ll eat their desserts – right after a round of Putt Putt.

We’d have public service announcements on prime time TV: Who would be our spokesperson? Steven Colbert? No. Paula Deen? No! Oprah Winfrey herself exhorting earnestly from the fairway, “Uncle Sam needs you to keep our country strong. Do your part. Have chips and guacamole tonight.”

Power to the People! For the good of the country: Eat! Play! Buy new skivvies!

I’m going to write a screenplay and see if Julia Roberts will sign for the lead.