Mondazed?

November 2025

It’s a Monday. I can tell by the way the coffee tastes. I could tell by the way I made my bed. A little sloppy. I didn’t fluff the pillows nor perfectly sculpt and straighten the bed spread. I left it a little rumpled. I’m usually particular about this, almost ridiculously so. But not today. It’s Monday.  And frankly, I don’t even feel like pondering anything.  Well, maybe pondering Mondays will be good enough.

I’m not sure why Monday’s matter anyway. I’m retired so every day is a little like Saturdays used to be. Except that other people are scurrying off to work. My wife included. I don’t miss it. I still have a moderate level of PTSD from corporate life. Nonetheless, I still look at my email and Outlook calendar every day anyway. Nowadays my emails are all rubbish. Thankfully so. There is nothing in my inbox with a subject line that makes me dread opening it, or from a colleague that I loathe, asking for something I don’t know how to find. I just get emails from people trying to sell me something I don’t need. Easy to delete with barely a glance.

I still use my calendar.  It helps me remember things and still keeps me on time. Thankfully, no meetings pop up randomly for some topic with a problem that could be easily solved without a meeting. Or a meeting to “Align”.  A corporate term meaning “let’s make sure we don’t piss anybody important off”.   Nope, no more meetings like that.  And that’s a very good thing! Now I have notations for tasks like, “buy squash” or “make soup” on there. With the occasional lunch date or haircut. But not lately. 

I’m growing my hair out. I’m at that intermediate stage where it looks like shit no matter what I do. Somewhere between completely unruly and a rat’s nest. If I haven’t shaved, I look like I might be homeless. I want to give up growing it, but for some reason I am compelled to have a grey ponytail and play guitar like Willie Nelson. Regardless, until it reaches a respectable length and is more manageable, I have refused all lunches. I’m not fit to go out in public. Unless I wear my Tiger’s cap.

It’s a cold icy November morning. I’m gonna make that soup today. I bought a couple of acorn squashes at the market the other day because I love them. And because it was on my calendar. They make great soup. I make a lot of soups this time of year. The cold days are perfect for making and eating soup. When we get “souped out” I go to stews.  When we get sick of that, I go back to making soup.  It’s the winter cycle around here.

This weekend we had a coordination gathering for “Friendsgiving”.  Damn, I forget, I am not supposed to use that term.  I was told this weekend it sounds to “Woke”.  I don’t even know what that means, really, except that it is a concept that scares some people.  I didn’t make up the F term, but I thought it worked quite well.  Either woke or asleep for that matter.

For us, it is a gathering of a large group of our friends and family on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Each family brings some food or drink that is featured in their traditional Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Not leftovers but a dish to share.  Kinda like a potluck gathering on Black Friday.  By the way, how do they get away with that term in today’s world?  We are calling it Thanksgiving Friday now. Kinda lame but neutral.  Whatever that means!  Now, back to our planning get-together.

About 17 of us gathered to make certain we properly coordinated the event and, of course, drink a bunch of wine, and laugh, and sing, and generally, not plan anything.  It’s the third year we have done this and it’s as fun as the Friday gathering itself.  Maybe even more fun.  I made Greek food, and everyone seemed to enjoy that.  It’s also the third year in a row we broke the record for bottles of wine consumed in a night. I won’t record that number here.  But maybe that’s why this is such a tough Monday. Or was?

Yep, I just looked at my calendar and realized it’s Tuesday. Oh well.  The secret to being happily retired is not to care about such things. Now I need to go up and smooth out my bed and pillows. Maybe brush my hair.  And get that soup started.  So much to do, now that I am no longer Mondazed!