Vacating

I'm working hard on 'winding down'. Not sleeping well....probably the heat.

Day 2 of my vacation has me lunching in Livermore with a dear friend...whom I have not seen or heard from in AGES. I finally called her last week and left a 'hey, I'm worried about you' message on her voicemail. She called right back - she's fine...just busy living her life. She reminded me that she always feels 'in touch' with me 'cuz she reads my blog....sadly, she does not blog; therefore, I can't say that I 'fee' in touch when we haven't spoken. We are remedying that by lunching today.

I am working on a to-do list - I highlight things as they are done - so far, I've highlighted 5 things on a list of 14....not bad for those things being done on Day 1 (yesterday).

I'm also working on getting a decent 'base tan'....which is harder with age. The days of slapping on some Bain de Soleil (remember that thick orange, coconut-y smell goop that we all lived in during the 70's and 80's?) and sitting outside by the pool all day. Now, it's 20-30 minutes at a time MAX and I still come in with my skin looking like low-quality tanning leather. Argh! Still, while I'm not 'dark', I know I'm getting some 'tan' 'cuz I have minutely faint 'tan lines'. So that's progress. And it's true what they say - tan fat looks better than white fat. It's a fact.

I love being off in the summer 'cuz it's so much 'slower' at work - no schools in session which lowers the emails and voice mails considerably. I don't feel compelled to check emails constantly. And the Blackberry eliminates the need to log-in to work at all if I choose. A quick glance will show me emails pending and I can choose to open them or not. It's mostly 'not' so far. Someone tried to rope me into a call yesterday and I wrote back and said 'sounds like this is something that can wait until I return on the 6th'. And so we're waiting. Easy as pie.

Our Governor is now proposing changing the PERS (Public Employee Retirement System) formula for those hiring on from this point in time forward. This pisses me off for a lot of reasons...it won't affect me. But it's really not who it's affecting that bugs me - it's just the entire concept. That system is paid for by the employees (who contribute 7% of their pay - mandatory, by the way - you can't opt out. If you are employed by a school district or a municipality or as a safety officer, you MUST participate in PERS and pay the 7%) and by their employers (who contribute close to 10%). That means for every single employee drawing a pension on that system, 17% of their salary has been contributed annually to the fund to pay the pension benefits upon retiring. The Governor's proposal is to delay the point at which a member can draw benefits by moving the 'age' from 55 to 60. I don't really know what his motivation is, but I know it is driven by cash flow. Moving that age 5 years slows retirees down a bit which is less of a draw on the PERS system....which is coming from the State's coffers. Only problem with that is: we've all paid into that system. So why does the state need to use our money? Because they don't have enough cash to have that outflow. Which means (implies, to me at least) that they've been using our cash to float their boat. And now they can't do that anymore.

It pisses me off when I hear people bad-mouthing the state's teacher and non-teacher retirement plans. The plans are paid for by the people who participate. The state doesn't contribute a dime to those plans. Just the employees and employers. So why are they messing with changing that system? PERS is well funded. Good investments have resulted in good returns. Sure, it's taking a hit now - what pension fund isn't? But it's solvent. The state isn't going to have to do a thing.....and yet, he's proposing changes.

I don't get it.

That's my crazy for the day. Off to lunch.