If this is what retirement is like . . . .

I may give it up before I begin. This morning I did sleep late and laze a bit over the paper and coffee, but then I did a grocery, hardware, jewelry shop (battery for a watch) run, unpacked groceries and spent about an hour and a half making salmon cakes and mashed potatoes for dinner. Oh, and I did two loads of laundry. I was really ready for a nap. After I napped, Jordan and Jacob arrived, all ready for the potato chip/beer party next door at Jay and Susan's. I took a small bottle of white wine, so I could sip out of the bottle like all the beer drinkers, but it was soon clear that Jacob was not enjoying the party--too many people he didn't know, too hot outside. So of course I was delegated to take him home and fix supper. I cooked all the salmon cakes (having been assured Jordan and her friend Arden would be back in an hour to eat), heated the mashed potatoes, cooked some broccoli, and added blueberries to Jacob's plate because he loves them. He ate one blueberry, spit it out, and said "It's yucky." Thereafter he proceeded into a screaming fit because he wanted Mommy and Addie--I explained they'd come back soon (good thing he didn't hold me to my word bcause at 10:30 I haven't seen them yet). I let him cry a while, then almost dragged him back to where I was eating dinner (darn it, I was hungry if he wasn't); he went back to the front door for some more screaming/crying (worse I've ever seen him do) and finally came to the back room because he wanted his pacifier (he's way too old for that) and froggie, his can't-live-without stuffed toy. He watched TV, I ate dinner and cleaned the kitchen, and then he came into th kitchen and said "I want my dinner." He ate all the blueberries and some of the salmon cake and said, "It's good." His mood improved considerably and, oh great triumph, he used the potty twice. We actually had a fun and pleasant evening, though he is fanatical about finding bugs on the floor and saying, "Get it, Juju." I will have to teach him about Alber Schweitzer. Also he found a plastic gun in the back of my closet that shoots stryofoam bullets, so I spent a lot of time talking about not pointing it at himself or others. Now he's sleeping (I have taken the gun out of the crib--sounds terribly uncomfortable to me), and I'm about ready to follow him. The girls are going to spend the night in the guest house, and I hope they're quiet about coming in.
Have I done a thing today that makes me feel like an author or intellectual person? Nope, except I'm still reading the mystery set in Norway--got to finish it before I go to sleep. And Lisa, with her mother born in Norway and the Norwegian relatives who visit every year, has got to read it. It's The Body in the Fjord by Katharine Hall Page. Full of Norwegian culture and food--the latter being why I started it.