I’m a died in the wool US of A meat, bread, and potatoes guy.  Tonight, feeling adventurous, K and I decided to try one of our neighborhood restaurants that we’ve so far…er…avoided:  Cafe Istanbul.  Yep, Turkish cuisine, and I must admit, I was impressed.

K and I shared two dishes.  The first was “Iskender Kebap”:

This is a beef and lamb dish served over pita bread with tomato-butter sauce, yogart (which I thought was sour cream), and rice.

The second dish we shared was “Karides Sis Kebap”:

This is charbroiled skewered shrimp, tomatoes, peppers, and onions served with rice.   It was outstanding!

After dinner we walked VERY slowly (so as not to melt in the extreme heat), over to our prefered sidewalk bench to sit and toe-tap to this evening’s sidewalk band.  Along the way I noticed this oddly colored Ferrari (REAL Ferrari’s are RED, although I must admit this yellow looked pretty nice):

I also spotted several of our local waifs who looked lost:

Poor pitiful things.  They even had to wear dresses they obviously outgrew years ago.

After that, a little more music, and now we’re home for the evening. (We blew off the fireworks because it was just too darn hot!)  G’nite all…

S

PS…check out K’s new “do”:

Nice, huh?  

Here’s the deal….I LOVE fireworks.  I think I must be a closet pyromaniac.  And I like to sit right underneath where they explode, too.  The falling sparks, feeling the concussion…love it!  Tonight Addison, a suburban Dallas “boon town” just south of us is having their annual fireworks show, called “KaBoom Town”.  (Get it?)

My dilemma is this:  If we go out to eat first K might get sick from the heat sitting outside during the fireworks.  And if I don’t get her some food first, she’ll still get sick.  I never know what to do…take care of loving wife or just let her heave and enjoy the show?

It’s 101 degrees out right now (5pm) and should still be in the upper 90’s come kaboom time.  What should I do?

S

Ummm, this is a joke.  You realize that, right?

I know you can eventually, but in only 30 minutes?  I went to our pool today (and NO, I didn’t look at the blond, 5′6, maybe 125 pounds, blue bikini, designer sunglasses, reading the Sandra Brown novel lying 5 chase’s down) and soaked up some rays.   It felt good.  For about 30 minutes I lay on my stomach, with the bottoms of my feet facing the sun.  Now I’m back home and my feet are very tender on the bottoms.  I thought I had pretty tough feet, but I guess not.  I did have to do the “hotfoot” for a couple of seconds to get over to put my Crocs back on, but I didn’t think I burned myself.  What’s the deal?

S

The recent passing of my 95-year-old cousin reminded me of “retirement”, something she enjoyed for 30 years.  She retired from an insurance company with (I assume) a small pension, and later received social security, and probably some benefits from her deceased husband’s SS, too.  In all, she had a fairly comfortable retirement.

According to The Economist, that’s something few of us can probably expect when we reach the magic “65″. When social security was initiated in the 1930’s it was for people 65+.  The kicker was, the average person lived to only 62.  There were something like 7 people working and paying SS taxes to support every retiree….not a huge burden.  Today, however, due to people having smaller families (read: proportionally fewer workers/taxpayers) and with more people now living to an average age of 76-78 (?), those numbers are upside down.  Now it’s 3 workers per retiree. Now SS taxes on workers are very onerous, and when the day comes (soon) when there are only 2 workers per retiree, that tax burden will be crushing.  Somethin’s gotta give. 

Understand this: Social security to this day takes in more than it pays out.  The excess goes into a big SS savings account.  Trouble is, with our @#%*#$%^&* congressmen shoveling money to all their favored constituents (Big Bidness, Big Agriculture, those on welfare, pork) the Gubment takes in too little $$$ to pay for it all.  Then they found the SS piggy bank just sitting there and decided they would help themselves to a few billion (trillion?) dollars and replace it with an Uncle Sam IOU.  Soon SS will be paying out more than it takes in, and they’ll be asking Treasury to convert some of those IOU’s back into cash.  

“Ah, Houston…we have a problem.”  Uncle Sam don’t got it.

Here’s what ticks me off:  Social Security is a one-way contract. They’ve told us, “You pay in now, and we’ll pay you back when you’re 65.”  But now they’re fudging.  ”65?  Er, let’s make that 66.  No, better make it 68.  Ummm…we’ll get back with you later on when you can expect your check.”  They can change the terms, but we can’t?   WTF??

My late cousin enjoyed 30 years of pleasant retirement.  I doubt many of us can expect any at all.  Because our Gubment watchdogs have been asleep at the wheel our private investments have recently been stolen from us, and now SS will soon have to admit they can’t pay us benefits until we’re….who knows what age.

Lucy, ’splain it to me again.  The Gubment works for us?  Really?

S

My very elderly (95) cousin died yesterday of natural causes.    She’s been in a very nice retirement home for many years, but a few months ago she began going down hill.  

Although she was a 3rd cousin technically, I was around her so much as a kid she felt like my aunt.  I hung out with her kids who were several years older than I was, which is probably why I “knew more” than most kids my age.  Good times.

Her viewing is Sunday evening, and the service is Monday morning.  As uncomfortable as her last days were, I’m positive she’s in a better place now.

Her later years remind me of a topic I have been reading about in The Economist:  retirement.  I’ll write some about that later.

S