July 6, 2025 – Keith Robertson

“Last Work Day”

Monday was my final work day. The technicians helped me reimage my laptop and phone to take away most traces of EZCORP. All of my important personal messages and pictures were carefully saved off to a portable SSD (Solid State Drive).

Tuesday was very much an administrative day. Figuring out how to sign up for COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) took a while. You would never know what this is from the name or acronym. It’s the ability for retirees and other folks with employment events to continue their employers sponsored (and much less expensive) healthcare for 18 months after departure. Getting Windows 11 to work the way I wanted with some applications also took a bit of work.

Later in the day on Tuesday, we met with Paul, our financial advisor, to make sure we really had enough money to retire. I know – great timing indeed. The good news is I don’t have to (at least in the near term) look for another job.

Kenny came over on Wednesday morning and helped change out the air conditioning filter – in way too tricky a spot for me to trust myself not to fall on that hutch with all the crystal glasses. We had intended to replace the can lights going up the stairwell, but our ladder is too wide and hangs over the nifty tool that Diana found for using ladders on stairs. That will have to wait until we can borrow a regular ladder.

A late lunch on Wednesday took us to La Petite Grocery. They had advertised a rhubarb pavlova (two of my favourites in one) for the summer and we were excited to try it.

You can imagine our disappointment when the waitress told us the pavlova had been replaced. “But that’s the main reason we came.” “Let me see what I can do.” We knew there was no way they were whipping up a pavlova just for us. Our main dishes were wonderful – I had fusilli pasta with mushrooms and peas, Diana a shrimp yozu sauce thing and an heirloom tomato salad. Then came a surprise – the manager brought us some limoncello cheesecake ice cream on top of a rhubarb and strawberry jam they had made with the last of the rhubarb. Apparently it was a very short season this year and the chef wasn’t happy with the most recent product. No charge for dessert and we were very happy with the extra effort to make us happy. Such a local gem of a restaurant.

We visited the Broadside on Thursday evening for a performance by Valerie Sassyfrass, followed by a showing of her documentary. Kenny, Kara, Thom, Denny and Jack joined. Most all agreed that we’ve maxed out on Valerie for a while.

I suggested to Diana that we celebrate July 4th (my 4th day of independence from the working life) with a burger. I suggested three options and she chose Toups Meatery. We hadn’t been there in years and so it seemed like a great idea. They run a summer program to feed kids that typically rely on school meals for nutrition – another good reason to support the restaurant.

We were very pleased with the burger – the pickles really made it. A crab salad added something marginally healthy to the mix.

In the evening we joined the rest of the Krewe for swimming and celebration at Greg and Colleen’s home.

Saturday was the 10th anniversary celebration for the Dirty Coast t-shirt company. I own a number of their shirts and they were donating the proceeds from a silent auction and ticket sales to guess who? The Toups Family Meal organization. The first band was a movie and TV themes cover band – very entertaining.

Those folks were followed by Where Y’acht – a “Yacht Rock” band. Here are a couple of samples.

Do you like McD’s yacht captain hat?

I started but did not finish “Mad Honey” by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan this week.

I just got far enough to read the first big bombshell of the book – not going to spoil it for anyone planning to give this book a try. I recommend doing that – at a minimum you’ll learn a ton about beekeeping. And hopefully even more about tolerance of differences.

If you do read this book, see if you can figure out which chapters the authors swapped on. Jodi writes all of Olivia and Jennifer all of Lily, but they swapped for one chapter.

Here’s the online summary:

“Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet she wonders if she can trust him completely.”

Lily is a talented musician. I smiled at this paragraph – not many people know that the first section of “Money” by Pink Floyd is in 7/4 time:

“I hate this song,” I mutter. He glances at me. “You want me to change the station?” I shake my head. “It’s in seven-four. It’s a weird time signature.” Asher doesn’t say anything right away. “So the time signature is what upset you?” I don’t want to go into it. “You know what else is in seven-four? ‘All You Need Is Love.’ The Beatles. And Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass.’ Soundgarden’s ‘Spoonman.’ ” Asher smiles. “I can’t believe the stuff you remember,” he says.”

An example of the interesting bee information to be found in the “Olivia” chapters:

“One of the bees starts moving in a figure eight, a crazy little rumba meant to tell the others where her food source is. Using the sun as a compass, her moves are a code: the direction of the dance is the route toward the food; the length of the dance is a measure of total distance. Several other bees watch, too, and then fly away, armed with GPS choreography.”

“This waggle dance is also used when a colony swarms. Some foragers will come back and waggle-dance to describe a new location they’ve found. The jazziest dances get the biggest response. If more bees are impressed, they join in the waggling. There may be several factions competing in this dance-off, each advocating for a different home, but once one of those groups has convinced about fifteen bees, democracy wins.”

Revealing the inspiration for the title:

“THERE IS ONE type of honey you should avoid at all costs. Mad honey comes from bees that forage on rhododendrons and mountain laurel, and it’s full of poisonous grayanotoxins. It causes dizziness, nausea and vomiting, convulsions, cardiac disorders, and more. Symptoms last for twenty-four hours, and although rarely, if left untreated, can be fatal.”

How Asher feels after acquittal:

“You cannot ever really go back to normal. You can approximate the axis of what your life used to be like, but as with an asymptote, all you’ll ever really do is get close and never intersect the sweet spot. It is true that the way the legal system works, once you are acquitted you are free to go home, but there’s a cognitive dissonance in the realization that the world has spun away without you. Even innocent, you will still be the boy who was involved in that murder trial. You are blameless, but stained.”