When you’re both working, you miss a lot of the little things people do when they are by themselves. Or you ignore them because you have more important things to worry about. Without the distraction of a job, you can put all your focus into identifying and correcting your partner’s flaws! Don’t. Just don’t.

You are with this person for a reason, so either accept them as they are or have a serious discussion on what needs to change. Dale is the silent type, while I like to talk things through until I am speechless and comatose on the couch. But we both agreed these picky fights had to end. To get there, he started to talk more, and I started to listen better, and now if we start to go down that path, one of us will say, no, we don’t do that anymore. It’s not worth arguing about. And we let it go!

We were driving to the Smart & Final the other day, a store that is in an area of town we don’t go to much. He was about to make a left turn into the parking lot, and I said, oh, isn’t this where we had the big fight about how to make left turns?

Dale said, yes, it is. And we both laughed.

We love to be with each other, but we also like our alone time. And suddenly, neither one of us had it. I started playing more golf. He doesn’t play, so that’s my thing. People always ask me what he does with his time, and usually I say, oh, I don’t know.

Dale has the gift of being pretty happy with not much going on. He reads, plays computer games and works around the house or yard, but his big hobby is dinner! Shopping for it, preparing for it, cooking it. I like to cook as well, and I thought, oh, great, we’ll be doing this together! But it took me awhile to realize the joy of cooking is mostly a solitary experience for him. Now I let him run the kitchen, and if I have the urge, I let him know I want to do dinner on a certain day.

I attribute our success to deep and open communications, but I asked Dale what he thought the biggest difference was and he said you stopped criticizing my driving. I probably could have skipped the soul-searching all together.

So, there you have it. To keep your retirement relationship strong, sometimes you have to talk, and sometimes you have to Zip It!

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

I’ve heard that some baby boomers feel like they should be winding down things on their to-do list, and I just want to emphatically state that it’s not going to happen in my world.

What? Winding down because you don’t want to add any new tasks or goals to your life? You want to coast the rest of the way? You don’t need the distractions?

I call bullshit. You do what you want but I think it’s important to keep adding things to the list rather than letting it atrophy. I’ve got places to go, new things to learn, more books to read, people to meet. I want to expand the to-do list not shrink it. If you’re finally at a place where you can do some of the things you always wanted to do, winding down the to-do list is totally counterintuitive.

Make no mistake –– I’m not against occasionally sitting back and contemplating my navel. I’ve earned that privilege. Maybe an end-life of contemplation made sense when life expectancy was a lot lower age than it is today, but if you’re going to live to 100 do you really think it’s rational to loaf all the way there from age 65? That’s a lot of downtime.

I thought baby boomers were going to be different when it came to retirement. Golf and shuffleboard were on the way out and personal improvement and a more hyperactive lifestyle were on the way in. No gold watch after 30 years of service with the same company, and that was okay because our varied worklife was more interesting and rewarding. Once again, boomers were going to make different choices from what our parents did. Slowing down was not going to be the goal of our retirement.

While the idea of just wasting time may sound like a plus if you’ve been a striver all your life, this striver thinks it’s exactly what it sounds like. A waste of time. You could be trying to learn a new language, taking a welding course, fusing glass, or getting better at Scrabble. In fact, it’s time to create a bucket list, not time to shorten your to-do list.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Dale and I both like pretzels, although he gets extra salty, and I like extra dark. We usually keep them in stock, but somehow both kinds mysteriously disappeared from the drawer where we keep them. I was away Monday night for a golf outing, and when I returned Tuesday, I noticed a bright new bag of extra salty pretzels but none of the extra dark.

Here we go again.

I said, “I noticed you replenished your pretzel supply. Why didn’t you get me any? You know I like the extra dark.”

He went into this harangue about how he doesn’t pretend to keep track of what I eat from day to day, and I’m always changing, and how can he be expected to know whether I want them or not? I said I’ve been eating them for six months and have never complained, so one would assume I still enjoy them and might appreciate a bag if you are already at the store anyway … buying some for yourself.

In the end, I caved. I agreed he can’t be responsible for knowing what I want. He is not to buy pretzels for me unless I specifically request them. He said perfect, that’s the way we will proceed. For the record, it was not a nasty conversation. We’re both a wee bit argumentative, but we come by it naturally.

Part of the problem is Dale was an award-winning debater in high school, and I was quite successful as a persuasive speaker in both high school and college. We met in the military, we were both leaders in our careers and we both like being in charge. However, our energy for the duel has waned with age and retirement, and we have gotten better about quitting before one of us gets a sword through the chest.

The next day he says he’s going to the store for pickles and will buy me pretzels while he’s there. I said, did I ask for them? I thought we had an agreement, or was it a dream? I mean, we went through all that only so you can ignore the new policy? He said no, you didn’t ask for them, but I’ll get you pretzels anyway. I said, no, that’s not what we agreed to. He said OK, no pretzels.

A few minutes later I heard his keys jingle and asked, “Are you going to the store now?” He said yes.

“Will you please get me some of the extra dark pretzels?”

I could hear him laughing all the way down the stairs, and it didn’t stop until the front door closed behind him.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

There’s a disturbing new trend among rich baby boomers. No, not that they are getting even richer. Apparently, according to architects and home builders, wealthy boomers are not downsizing. In fact, they are making their master bedrooms even larger so that they can live in one big room while the rest of the house remains vacant…waiting for the next party or set of house guests.

The kids are out of the house but these boomers just don’t want to part with their furnishings. The solution is to expand the master bedroom and rarely use the rest of the house. Builders of $10 million homes say that the buyers want wet bars, drawing rooms, dressing rooms and oversized bathrooms in their master suites. A 12,000 square-foot home in Aspen has an elevator that goes from the garage straight to the master bedroom that features an office, gym, fridge, sink and coffee maker. So a portable frig is no longer a big deal. Most of the house traffic is from the bedroom to the kitchen and back.

Which begs the question. Why not combine the kitchen and the master and just never leave that one big space. Nightstands could be replaced by beverage dispensers combined with convection ovens. The headboard could be a refrigerator-freezer combo. Groceries can be delivered by Peapod and with the help of Alexa opening the front door, the delivery person can bring everything straight into the master.

If the children and grandchildren show up, they can have the rest of the house, bedrooms and living room to themselves. The boomers can remain in their stand-alone apartment and only come out when the mood strikes.

Brokers are comparing this trend to the European penchant for closing off large parts of the baronial estate. Only the Europeans have to rent out their estates for weddings and tours in order to cover their annual upkeep. Not so wealthy boomers. They can afford to cocoon themselves in extravagant master suites without ever letting the rest of the world in.

When you think about it, even not so wealthy boomers can emulate this trend. Just move into a suite at a luxury hotel and when the kids come, make then rent their own rooms. Done.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

I’ve decided to try a new feature. I say try, because I know myself all too well. As a Libra I tend to go with my own flow so setting any new discipline for myself usually falls by the wayside. In my advancing decrepitude I’m learning to cut myself some slack, though. I spent too many years in the corporate workforce to allow my retirement to follow those old rules and regs concerning being a winner. I won already, ok? I made it through commuting, single parenting and climbing the ladder to come out relatively sane. All this is to say I may or may not continue this as a weekly feature. It depends on my mood, energy, and motivation. Here goes.

• TELEVISION: Anything about Roman history. I’ve almost memorized all the emperors in date order, although it gets a little fuzzy after Constantine. Last night a friend and I were talking about this and he asked me which emperors I preferred. I didn’t really know how to answer, because they all were a bit dickish, but I rather like Commodus, and I’ve always liked Claudius. Caligula was bad, but I think some of his bad press was propaganda, and I sort of feel sorry for Nero, probably because he never was emperor material, being a musician and poet. Might be why he cracked up in the end. I think he might have fared better if his barber had given him a better beard.
• FOOD: Sometimes a girl just has to have her black licorice. And not Twizzlers! Hate those. They do weird color changes to your, well, trust me. Certain things should NOT come out Nyquil green. Because our local grocery quit carrying Scottie Dogs, I have to resort to the Red Vines brand. I would buy Panda, but the local health food store went out of business.
• DRINK: Coke Zero. Because it’s too warm for wine and beer makes me feel bloated.
• MUSIC: Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of 70s music, mostly the stuff that came out of Laurel Canyon.
• PC GAMES: Yes, I play them. Last week I was into building games (Ancient Rome 2 — go figure), but this week I’m liking match-3 games. Current favorite: Classic Jewel Quest. By the way the links point to a great place to download absolutely free, safe, full games.
• WASTE OF TIME: Daydreaming of just where I’d choose to live if someone offered to enable that for us. I confess I’m still rather hung up on Woodstock, NY, but I’m still dreaming of England. Last week I wanted to live in Wellington, New Zealand, but then I learned that country’s situated on two huge tectonic plates, and a “big one” is expected at anytime. There’s also tsunamis and volcanoes to consider, plus we’d never see anyone ever again so this week it’s a toss up between Woodstock and England.

We’ll see if I continue this silliness.

SK Waller is an author and composer. Books One and Two (With A Dream and With A Bullet) of her rock and roll series, Beyond The Bridge, takes places in late 70s London. Read more at SK Waller SKWaller.com.

Anti-social or just getting more picky? Baby boomers are less socially engaged than people the same age 20 years ago according to a Stanford Center on Longevity study. How do you define social engagement you might be asking? The Center defined it as something measured by involvement with family, friends, neighbors, spouses, as well as work, volunteer or community activities.

Are we deliberately pulling back on social commitments or is it due to lack of time or other pressures. Baby boomers are the sandwich generation after all, and they may be caring for elderly parents while their children may still live under their roof. The need to continue working for financial considerations is also a factor. Boomers have also moved frequently during their careers and that has limited longer-term interpersonal relations.

I recently had a discussion where a group of baby boomers agreed that while face to face socialization and bonding over common interests might be desirable, the same connection via the internet might be more satisfying and even more efficient. A hypothetical group of stamp collectors might dislike each other’s politics if they met in person, but the internet interaction helps to keep the focus on stamps. So even polarization has been a factor in discouraging more face to face interactions.

Texting and email have definitely made it easier to stay in touch with “your people.” Is that a bad thing? I don’t believe it is, but some of the Stanford researchers are concerned about what’s lost when boomers back away from meaningful engagement. Keeping to ourselves may not be good for our communities that need volunteers, mentors and civic minded participants.

I don’t foresee boomers becoming so isolated that their communities suffer as a good percentage of them will continue to be socially engaged. We may be trying to find that happy medium where we maintain quality real time people interactions along with social media interactions. Bottom line, it’s too soon to label boomers and people who don’t need people. In fact, we need people more than ever but we’re redefining how we maintain those relationships.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.