Kitty - I have a tank, I could DO that! I'm in 9b, and we did get some nippy weather last winter (my first here, so not sure it's customary), I think we had 18 or so days where it got down to 28? No horrible storms after a big wind storm that hit the week before Thanksgiving and did lots of damage around the county, but none at my house, TG! I was relying on an online weather site to tell me how cold it was, aside from COLD, but I got myself some thermometers, so I'll see just how cold it gets here at MY house, not a mile down the road and up the hill. Last winter was quite the learning experience, as I lost a lot of plants - sob, wail! I replaced some of them, and this year I've moved some stuff into the house, and walled the cats away with chicken wire. REALLY hope it works and they don't mess with them, or eat them (and poison themselves!) Other stuff I've resigned myself to not having again while I live here.

Thanks, pesky. I figured it would be the retread-narrative issue...it worked my nerves a fair bit, definitely (although I have to admit I've never seen Fern Gully--now that I read the synopsis I'd say I definitely agree. Wow.) Maybe it's just my wish to rationalize that made me able to see how the retreads were reborn by the particular plot structure, with the interaction of actual hard science (represented by Sigourney Weaver, one of my favorite actors -- gotta give him credit for putting an older woman in a position of rational authority rather than a man--means a lot to me as I enter menopause) rather than fairies, and a multinational/multiplanetary corporation that's above the law. The story that's most cited so far in reviews I've read is Dances with Wolves, and I can really agree on that one as well, with small twists. Despite the retreadness, I found myself thinking that Cameron is simply, undeniably, a brilliant guy and I wanted to thank him for doing what he did. Every aspect of the world is so completely thought out, and the technology so significant that I decided that criticizing the dramaturgy would be meanspirited, ungenerous, would be demanding too much of just one person (that's just me, and I'm realizing my opinions are colored by nearing 50 rather than being an insistent young critic as I was earlier). Of course Cameron is arrogant, etc. but he has *inarguably* moved film ahead drastically by his passionate imagination.

It seems that some of us are retired but many are not quite there yet. A couple of tips from my own experience: - DO a budget. Even if you're terrible at that kind of thing (I am and we are). You need a good idea of what your real outgo is and what you are spending month to month on your personal 'splurges', which we all have. Accept that housing is an expense you will always have, whether you rent or own a home. Property taxes go up, water heaters go out, roofs leak, cars die of old age. Always assume you're going to live long enough to encounter major expenses of some sort. - ALLOW for inflation. Never mind the CPI, you know how prices increase and new taxes are passed that hit your pocketbook even if they never get included in the official statistics. - PRACTICE living on your retirement income. Don't assume your expenses will go down in retirement. That isn't automatic. Our expenses went up drastically in the first year, when we traveled extensively around the West. There were new casual clothes and shoes to buy, travel accessories we hadn't needed before, and a lot of very happy poor people got our expensive work clothes from free donations. We didn't even get a write-off: the standard deduction was bigger than our charitable totals. - ANALYZE the biggest risks to you NOT achieving your retirement goals. Is your health impaired? Does your family medical history send up red flag warnings? Have you budgeted for long term care costs? Is your home suitable for universal access, or would a broken leg make it impossible for you to manage by yourself for three months? Do you have sufficient retirement savings? Pensions or annuities? Social Security and Medicare eligibility assured? Did you work for any company long enough to be fully vested - because if you did, they should have sent you a letter at age 50 telling you how much you'll receive in a monthly annuity they purchased on your behalf, for which you are eligible at age 65....but they have to be able to FIND you to send you the letter. - MAKE new friends. Boomers are really the first generation to have defined themselves by their work, and to have made most of their friends in the workplace, not from community or church affiliations. It has been shown the happiest elderly are the ones who not only retain good social ties, but who develop new ones to replace old friends that move away or die. - IMAGINE worst-case scenarios. The Boomers I know who retired (or meant to) and got into financial troubles, didn't stress-test their assumptions. Playing ostrich with your retirement planning almost guarantees life will slap you in the face with a wake-up call at some point! Everyone has risks in their daily lives. It's your retirement, and therefore your responsibility, to figure out how to mitigate some of those risks. You can't eliminate all risk, but you CAN, and should, research how to lessen the bigger risks. For example, our biggest risk was the death/disability of a spouse. Being in our late 50's at retirement meant a sizable financial hit if one of us died or was disabled by serious illness/injury. Therefore, we mitigated that risk as best we could, in several different ways. Anticipating things going wrong means you will feel better prepared and more able to cope, if something does go wrong. Like being aware of the "Exit" signs in a theatre or on a plane, having a mental plan is very reassuring.

Share oh so glad for you! Wonderful news that your father is well enough to be released and that your son is improving. Such a relief to hear. Hugs again to you and your family. Tears are standing in my eyes as I read about the losses of Kathyg's, and Kathsgrdn's friends and everyone else. So horrible. Seems so unfair and so wrong. I find numbers to be very confusing anyway and now I am told that perhaps our numbers here in BC are incorrect . It has something to do with private companies testing their people and that skews our numbers? They were particularly talking about the movie industry but I would imagine that could be any company with large numbers of people using private services to test them. All this to say our numbers are probably much larger than we know. Anyway I am very sad about it. To battle our rising numbers here in BC we are in restricted movement again. We can only have our own household in our homes. We are now for the first time mandated to wear masks in any indoor public space. That includes offices and stores. I have been wearing a mask inside anywhere since almost the beginning . It doesn't include schools as that is not considered to be public place. Makes me a little nervous when I hear of the people congregating after school after all the care everyone takes in school. We can't go anywhere but local and we're asked to go as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately that's not possible for people like DH and myself who work and have since the beginning of this crisis. We try to minimize our trips to shops but there is some necessary shopping still that we have to do.