May 30, 2021
I'm on vacation from the day job, so of course, it rained yesterday. The temperature didn't rise above 60F, either. That's somewhat odd in our neck of the woods for the end of May but not unheard of. Checking the local climatological site, it shows our average low for May 29 over the last thirty years is a whopping hot 54F, with an average overall temp of 66F. So we struck an unhappy medium.
Rainy days are good for writing. Writing goes better with coffee. I sense a win/win pattern here. I completed a chapter and a half, tweaked the new cover, did a read-through to check the continuity so far, did a load of laundry, and shelved canned sixteen pints of chicken breast I processed on Friday. Not a bad day's work.
Different seems to be a watchword these days. This vacation is different. This is my last May vacation before I retire. I've been talking about my retirement for a very long time, and if not for the cost of health insurance, I'd have pulled the trigger on it a long time ago. For me to go through the "Affordable Care Act" and purchase the same coverage I have through my employer it would cost me over $1500 a month. Yes, fifteen hundred dollars a month. That's not a typo. It's not "affordable" either. My choices are to pay up or to work until I'm eligible for Medicare. The safe choice is to work.
This will influence my vote for the rest of my life. Way to screw over the middle-class Americans who work and pay for everything.
All is not lost, at least not yet. I have a little countdown app on my phone and it tells me I have forty-seven weeks to go. That's 240 workdays. For me, I need to subtract the Mondays since I don't work on Monday, and this week I'm off, and that leaves only 228 workdays. Take off the remainder of my vacation time and holidays between now and my last day and I'm down to 192 days. It looks more doable this way. When we get down to it next year, I may bite the bullet and COBRA out for a month or two. It would be worth it to be home in March and April to get the spring yardwork done early.
That was me thinking out loud. It's still too soon to write that chapter no matter how much I like the sound of it.
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KC Kendricks
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