Words To Live By

"Today me will live in the moment unless it's unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie."

~Cookie Monster

Retirement and Tomatoes

If I spent as much time studying and monitoring and pruning and observing and tending to and fawning over and checking on and obsessing about my retirement fund as I do my tomato plants, well....

I could have retired when Duran Duran was still a Top 40 band.

My neighbors must think I'm a nut job. I'm on my bedroom balcony morning and night, following the progress of my four plants no less lovingly than if I'd birthed them myself.  I'm making sure the heavy vines have adequate support, pinching off dead stems, and watching for invasive bugs or hungry birds. The cherry tomato plant is already producing, but it's the heirloom ones that I'm lusting over. Come to mama, babies, come to mama.

As for my retirement fund? Gulp. According to the slightly crazy financial guru Suze Orman, I'm about 20 years behind the eight ball and can retire around the same time that North West is old enough to legally change her name. And so I've given Robin, my financial advisor, full reign to manage what chicken feed I've squirreled away. She's been a busy gal: I'm getting almost daily notices alerting me that she's trading here, swapping there, selling this and buying that. 

I just hope she's better at managing my meager monies than I've been these past few years, otherwise I'll have to plant more tomatoes. 

They may be all I have to eat. Come to mama, babies, come to mama.