If I Had a Million Dollars

I've got a ticket for tonight's Mega Millions drawing, so naturally, I'm thinking about what I would do with my winnings. The jackpot is something like $51 million, with a cash payout of $32 million. I would certainly take the cash payout, because why would I want the state to hold onto my money and pay me over 20 years? I can't even be certain at this point that the state will be solvent long enough to pay out the pension I earned from them, so I am for sure taking the cash.

$32 million. Half of that, let's say, goes to taxes.

$16 million. Now, if I won, say, $50 thousand in the lottery, I would keep it all and use it. But by prior agreement, a big lottery prize gets split with my sister, right down the middle.

$8 million. At this point, I get some really good money manager who understands how to deal with this magnitude of money. I arrange for $2 million to be put in accounts for each of my kids. (Lucky me, I have two kids. My sister has four to split hers up for.) Leaving me with

$4 million. Dollars. American.

I think if I put aside $1 million into whatever banking mechanism the financial advisor tells us to, that should generate enough income for us to live nicely for the next 20 to 30 years, assuming that we even live that long. Not that I understand finances in any way, shape, or form, but I think that should do it.

$1 million for a new house and whatever goes into it. Maybe toss in some more if we want to put in solar power and all kinds of other green technology. And I would really, really like some way to heat the sidewalks and driveway so that the Hubs never has to shovel snow again as long as he lives. If that technology doesn't exist -- and I'm pretty sure it does -- we'll invent it or figure it out. I really want that. And the new house will also have a well-designed and fenced yard so I can get a DOG.

$2 million left. Or let's even say $1.5 million.

$1 million to give away. I have two local charities in particular in mind, one an excellent children's cancer hospital and the other a soup kitchen/homeless shelter/training center. That leaves

$.5 million. For incidentals. You know, pay off current outstanding stuff, get a couple of new cars, take a trip or two, have a really big party for anyone I've ever known. Hire someone to clean out my basement.

*sigh*

Meme

I think I'll do the meme from The Saturday 9.

1. Where did you grow up? Where do you consider home?
I was born in the Bronx, New York City, and moved to New Jersey when I was two. We lived in a garden apartment complex with about a million other WWII vets and their families. We moved to Fair Lawn, on the west edge of Bergen County, when I was 8, and I've lived here, more or less, since then. It's where I consider home.

2. If you could paint your car any color with no loss in value, what color would it be?
My current car is black, which is actually okay with me. But a red car is nice, or a dark blue. I've always wanted a dark blue car but somehow was never able to get one.

3. What do you think comes after death?
I picture it kind of like the Nexus in the Star Trek Generations movie, where at any given point, you're living some happy memory from your life, with the people you want to be with from that moment. If that's it, then my first moment after death will be walking down the stairs to the den in my parents' house, I'm 8 or 9, and Grandpa is sitting on the yellow sofa, setting up the Meet the Presidents game for us to play. In fact, I think that life after death is just living people remembering you. As long as your memory is alive somewhere, you're living after death.

4. Name a TV show that should NOT be renewed for another season.
I'll go along with The Jersey Shore or Jerseyliscious or any of that crap.

5. If you could have a free subscription to any online service, which would you like to have?
iTunes. Unlimited free iTunes access would be pretty nice.

6. Where did you think you'd be at the age you are now?
Funny question. I don't think I ever pictured where I am now. I pictured where I'd be in 2000 -- age 47 -- and possibly retirement at age 60. But now, retired at 58, I'm in a place I didn't quite envision. Having said that, I would have thought it to be pretty much like it is, but with more money.

7. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I always wanted to be a teacher. It was the only thing I ever considered seriously. During my childhood, I occasionally re-thought what I wanted to teach, and then I landed happily and permanently as a school librarian. I could have been happy teaching English or history as well.

8. If you were to suddenly become famous, and were forced to change names, what would you choose as your stage name?
My nom de plume, selected decades ago, would have been Robin Samuels. Not too flashy, I know. My grandpa's name was Sam Robin.

9. What is the first book that you can remember reading by yourself as a child?
We had no hardcover children's books in our home, other than a hardbound set of Grimm and Andersen's tales, and we had maybe a dozen Little Golden Books. My sister read these to me, and I had them all memorized. In August, 1958, my father sat me on his lap after dinner one night and said that I was a big girl and would be going to school soon and so it was time for me to learn to read. He took my favorite Golden book -- I think it was called Baby's Book, with drawings by Eloise Wilkin (I looked that up; I didn't remember the illustrator) -- and he took his mechanical pencil, which fascinated me, out of his shirt pocket, and showed me how the letters that spelled the word BABY had sounds, and the sounds made the word, etc. Within a few minutes, I was reading the whole book, sounding out the words, solving the mystery. It's the first book I read by myself that I was really reading. The first book I took out of the library, a month or two later, was The Five Chinese Brothers.

Hey

Nothing substantial to report here, just rolling along. Saw the surgeon on Tuesday and that went very well. He said I'm healing on schedule or ahead of, took off the remaining bandages, and said I can eat anything that doesn't make me sick and do anything that isn't painful. So, no crunches yet, but I can start other exercises. My incisions are actually only sensitive to the touch (like when jeans, which I am back to wearing, rub against them), and otherwise I have no pain at all. And of course, the weight that I lost, a big 7 pounds, is starting to come back as I eat more.

I'm considering mall walking. It's not a bad thing in terms of giving my days some structure, and it's good exercise. I have to decide which of the two close malls to use, the smaller one with the skylights (Paramus Park) or the bigger one with more walking distance and a choice of two levels (Garden State Plaza.) I wonder if they both have a Dunkin Donuts, or a Starbucks? And where the bathrooms are? And which one doesn't play its muzak too loud so I can hear what I'm listening to on my earphones. Something to investigate. It may also be time to look into the kettlebell. I have one -- two, in fact -- but I'm not sure if I have a good DVD to go with them. They're supposedly the hot exercise item of the moment, good for everyone and a good workout. Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

I did order my recliner last week, but it's back ordered, so I won't have it for another few weeks. I also got a terrific sleeping bag from Amazon, cotton and very roomy, and oh so cozy to sleep in. And even brown, which is the color of the recliner and essentially of the whole room. And I picked up a floor/reading lamp at Target yesterday that I can stand behind the chair so I'll have a nice, focused reading light while I'm lying in the lap of luxury there.

I've started reading some SF time-traveling novels by Connie Willis, which I'm so far enjoying. So far, I've read about late 21st century historians going back to witness the London Blitz and medieval England during the Plague. An interesting concept, a pleasant writer. Oh, I also just finished A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines, a book that's on every high school reading list but I never got to before, and it was excellent.

And that's my story for today. Oh, I had a birthday on Wednesday, which went by very quietly due to the snow that day and not having a car at hand (not that I would have driven frivolously in the snow anyway.) The Hubs persistently gave me a lovely plant, which I immediately relinquished to his care. He says he's going to keep buying me plants until we find one that lives.

Rant Alert

I can't imagine that there is anyone who doesn't think that yesterday's shooting of the Congresswoman in Arizona was appalling, repulsive, and completely the opposite of everything America stands for.

For those who like to cite the Constitution -- I'm one of those -- here's the first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

We can all see that what the Congresswoman was doing -- what she did most weekends, I've heard -- was peaceably assembling with her constituents, as was her and their Constitutional right. Yes?

Here's the second amendment:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I have never understood why this is so hard to understand, or how on earth it justifies any idiot with a grudge from getting his hands on a gun. In colonial times, everybody did have a gun, mostly because they hunted for their food, and in times of national emergency, these people came together, brought their guns, and defended the country. As part of a well-regulated Militia. So how does this sound?

Let's really tighten up our gun laws so that people who want to hunt or legitimately use guns for recreation (skeet, target shooting, etc.) can still get guns for those purposes, but without creating arsenals. Let's make guns either really expensive, or hard to get, or something. Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, but look how nicely cigarette smokers are being turned into outcasts. That kind of strategy might work with guns, too.

But here's the really important part. Theoretically, we will still need a well-regulated militia. Anyway, I think we do. What's the difference between a militia and the armed forces? I believe that over time, the distinction has come to be that our armed forces are deployed around the world. A militia is deployed here at home. In colonial times, they thought militia before they thought standing army because they were only fighting here at home. Where is our militia now?

You know where they are. Each of our states (I believe) has its own militia, generally known as the National Guard. They serve many functions. If there is a natural disaster, the National Guard is sent in to help citizens in trouble. I remember that during the riots in the 1960s, the New Jersey National Guard was widely deployed in our cities to keep peace. And now, National Guard units from all over this country are deployed in the Gulf. Who is protecting us at home?

So, let us have some nice new laws, and perhaps a new amendment, that makes it illegal to deploy National Guard troops outside the United States. In fact, no Guard troop should be deployed outside its state without the special permission of that state's governor and/or legislature, for example, to assist in a crisis in another state or even in a nearby country. (Each state would have to pass its own rules and legislation for that.)

A well-regulated militia, then, firmly established in each state. The armed forces of the country could still be deployed elsewhere, sent off to war, if Congress so decides. What if there aren't enough of them? Well. Maybe someone will think twice before invading anyone if we don't have enough troops to get it done. More to the point, maybe someone will think twice before invading us if they know we have plenty of troops to defend the home front.

Honest hobbyists should be happy to continue to own guns legally, once the militias are established. The Second Amendment would stand, fulfilled.

What the hell is wrong with that?

(As for that other little detail in the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, well I may get to that later on today or tomorrow. It deserves its own rant.)

Am I Crazy, Or What?

Perhaps too open-ended a question.

Anyway, I've been sleeping on the couch for the last few years, basically because I sleep better that way. But the couch is shot, and I've been considering what to do about it. I decided to get a recliner to sleep in.

There's a nice one at a good price at JC Penney which I will go and look at and sit on and such on Saturday. If it's good, I'll have it in a couple of weeks.

I have sat in recliners before, short-term, and may have taken a nap in my father's recliner once. (He didn't become a recliner-head until after we were married and out of the house. In fact, it's the first thing he put in my room after I'd left it.) Sleeping all night raises certain questions for me, especially about bedding. How does that work? I don't want to sleep right on the recliner fabric every night -- ew -- and I don't want to be fighting to keep my feet covered. How does this work, all you recliner sleepers out there?

I fell asleep last night pondering the problem, and woke up with this in my head: sleeping bag. So I went downstairs and checked out what we still have. I think we had six or seven at one point, not counting slumber party bags, which is interesting when you consider that even with the cats, there were never more than 6 of us. But R, who was big into hiking and camping at one point, probably had three, depending on the weather and such. I can't explain the others.

Anyway, I found a nice purple one -- bonus -- that was still in the plastic from the last time I had it cleaned. I took it out and it smells fine, not icky, and currently, it's airing out in the bedroom. (I wanted to check it today to see if it needed to be cleaned again.)

So, crazy. Yes, no? Better ideas are welcome. It's the only thing I could think of.

Welcome to 2011

My resolution for the year upcoming is to have none of my internal parts exposed to anything external. I'll go as far as having a mole or two removed, if needed, and I've got a tooth I'd like pulled out, but I'm ending it there. (All that breast reduction I'd been thinking about it out, unless I can get it done without surgery or recuperation, i.e., by magic. Which seems unlikely.)

So now I'm living retirement to the fullest, at least for the next week or so, and staying in the house, lying around on the couch watching TV. But not eating bonbons, or much of anything else yet. My current haute cuisine is cream of rice, with an occasional side of vanilla yogurt or jello pudding. I hope to be up to scrambled eggs by the end of the week, and in fact, I'm taking a trip to the supermarket with the Hubs tomorrow.

My only complaint at this point is that the incisions are sore (of course) and my throat is still sore, but not hellaciously so as it was in the hospital. Otherwise, no pain or discomfort. And the tape marks, the tape marks will never come off my arms and hands. I'm not even considering when they'll come off my belly, probably in a year or two, since I know I'll be reluctant to scrub.

So, I'm coming along. The pathology on this thing, btw, was exactly as anticipated, benign. No worries on that score.

That's that. Just another Saturday night for me.