Rock bottomMaybe it is a winter thing. Maybe it is an age thing. Maybe it is both. Fact is, I'm not having any fun right now. I wake up as if in a gulag. It's dark, and the man on the radio gives temperature readings below zero. I know I will check blogs, write some drivel and then take ten minutes to put on enough clothes to walk Ansel for another 10 minutes. Then...then I sit.

Stiff from inactivity and bored, I've lost my motivation to get up and get out. I've read, exercised in the basement, done class prep and then...then nothing. All this has spurred talk around the house about getting out of here. I don't know if it's talk or if this time something will come of it. Part of the problem, of course, is where to go.

First off, get out of Milwaukee county and realize a full 50% drop in property taxes. If you have never lived around here, you can't know what the taxes are like or that we have the highest health care costs in the nation (that's no typo...but I digress). Retirement money doesn't stretch very far around here.

Well, if we did pack up, why not move to more moderate weather? Nice idea, but I am not anxious to start life over from scratch in a place with no friends and no connections. Besides, other than the great lakes (which all share the same climate), there are only the oceans, and we can't think of anyplace on them where we would care to live? Florida? Maybe, if it was the northern part. I don't want to substitute boiling summers for freezing winters. More over, my daughters live in the midwest and so will my grandchilren. No way I leave them.

Maybe what Lady Linda's folks once did: sell the house and use the money to get a small apartment here and one in a warm place. Then, where does all my stuff go? Can I hang a few kayaks in the dinette? I think not.

Okay, end of pity piece. I will make some coffee, wait for first light and do the dog-walk thing. Then...then, I don't know. I'll think of something. Maybe a ritual bring-back-spring dance.

Paddle safe...
DS