Geriatric inflexibility

These eight years of retirement have warped my brain when it comes to people messing with my schedule.

Most days, I like to pick up the mail at the post office as soon as it’s ready – usually 9 a.m. – then head into town for my morning coffee, blogging and web surfing. It really annoys me when someone or some thing interferes with this routine.

Like this morning, when I got a call from my wife asking if I could shoot some photos at the new Mexican restaurant just down the road. Now, I actually enjoy a photo assignment now and then and usually find that some kind of minor magic occurs when the shooting starts. And I’m usually kinda proud of the results and enjoy seeing them in print.

But I hate, just freaking hate, having something like that on my schedule – blowing a hole in the middle of my day and messing with my routine.

And, of course, my irritation was aggravated this morning by the discovery that for maybe the third time in the 15 years I’ve owned my Honda del Sol, I left the lights on overnight and wiped out the battery.

To the consternation of thousands of del Sol owners, the ‘94 model does not kill the headlights when the ignition is turned off and does not have a dinger/alarm to alert you when you get out with the lights still on. So when I got home yesterday afternoon after driving in the gloomy rain, I apparently had something else on my mind and failed to notice the headlights were still on.

Fortunately, my next-door-neighbor is a friendly helpful guy and he gladly wheeled his monster pickup truck over to give me a jumpstart.

So now I’m comfortably ensconced at Hastings, getting ready for my second big cup of Rio Azul. I just got a call notifying me that the photo gig is set for 1:30 p.m., so I have a couple of hours to hang out.