Holding patterns

 

There are a couple of people I know who wonder why I'm in such a hurry to retire.

I don't know, it just sounds so attractive, especially the closer I get. I don't understand people who want to work until they're 75. (It's another matter if you have to). Also, there are several former classmates of mine who are already retired and I don't know if I've been more envious in all my life.

Perhaps you need to be my age to understand. The job, like many others, ain't getting easier. In fact it's getting more complicated. Some of that may be just because I'm not able to process things like I once did, but I think a lot of it is the nature of the current world. And the older you get, the less enthusiasm you have for all of the adjustments, which seems to be the No. 1 thing work is all about these days.

 

Also, I feel my brain's ability to retain new information waning, even on some basic levels. An example: Yesterday, I looked at my fuel gauge and realized I was low on gas. The closest station is a brand new place that opened up a couple months ago. I drive past it all the time but have never stopped there. So this was my first stop. I pulled up to the pumps, popped open the gas lid, pulled out my debit card, and in the time it took to process how to pay at/operate the new pump at the new place, my ATM code -- that I use constantly and have for years -- whooshed out of my head.

This is not a good sign.

I had to drive away from the place and then returned after work when the code had floated back into my brain. (I know people carry passwords around with them for such situations like this, but then you always have people telling you not to do that, so I memorize them to be a good digital-spending boy and then this happens).

So maybe, just maybe, when I retire, there will be a few less new things entering my brain, knocking out the valuable old things. Of course, I'll be older and my body probably will operate even worse.

Anyway, until that time comes, I'm in a holding pattern.

It's one of a few holding patterns I'm in now.

Another is a familiar one: the spending holding pattern. It arrived after Christmas.

I've purchased exactly one card since the first of the year. It hasn't arrived yet. I usually don't have issues spending at this time of year, even though it's a well-known time for cutbacks. But now I've joined those people.

Thank goodness, folks are still sending envelopes and packages to me. Nice people.

These are just three separate envelopes of a few cards each, but I bet you appreciate it now after all those w-o-r-d-s you just read.

These cards arrived in an envelope from Jeremy of Topps Cards That Never Were just yesterday.

All three are parallels, meaning I needed each of them (but do we really need parallels?). As usual I had to spend about a half hour pondering, cross-examining and searching on TCDB to determine that I actually needed that Machado parallel. (It's the diamond parallel). Sorry, I have an old brain that still is under the assumption that there is only one kind of card unless there is a serial number on the back or obvious color change on the front.

So with that properly cataloged, I then looked at my other Machado Dominators card and realized that was the vector parallel and I had filed that wrong, and after some adjusting, now everything is right in the world. Until somebody gets adjusty again.

These showed up from Max of Starting Nine. All new cards for me from 2022 Topps Fire. It suddenly occurs to me that the "Flame" parallel card of Turner looks a lot like 1995 Fleer and that is not something we need to be duplicating.

For a long time I let these cards sit on my card room desk without even realizing the Turner cards were there. They were tucked behind the Robinson card and I didn't think/have time to inspect the penny sleeve, most likely because a deadline was changed at work for the 47th time.

Or maybe I was too dazzled by this, which arrived with the other cards. I like this very much, so much that it may get snuck onto the tree next year. But my wife likes Mookie so it just may stay there.

 

 

Last envelope I'm showing came from Jon at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts and My Kind Of Nonsense. This is my first trade with him!

All of these fantastic 1967 cards are needs, either upgrades or plain didn't-haves. So very nice to get vintage during these times of everyone chasing MY CARDS.

I've got one more work night to get through, hopefully with no alterations, surprises, shake-ups or dust-ups. Then it's two days of recovery, you know how that goes.

The spending holding pattern will probably break in a week to two weeks.

The other holding pattern? I need to sit tight on that for a few more years. You can do that, brain, I hope.