Apologies to Real Lizards

Entertaining, bug-eating friend.

As long-time science fiction fans, we call noxious prickly weeds ‘triffids’ and occasionally refer to people we don’t like as ‘pod people.’  A while back I read the results of a survey purporting to show that a substantial number of people believe our nation’s political and economic affairs are currently being run by lizard people. Instead of laughing, which I would have done 20 years ago, I thought, “Hmm, that’s a compelling image.” Okay, it’s not literally true, but metaphorically it seems right on target. Something rings false about a lot of what these people do and say.  It just feels like they might be members of another species–possibly reptilian.

The other day I spotted this lizard on our fence, and remembered that real lizards are our friends.  In some places they are invited indoors because they are efficient little pest control operators. They’re also fun to watch.  I now realize I owe the lizard community an apology for using their name to describe people whose bad behavior has cost them the goodwill of the citizens.

Semi-Retirement Is Getting Famous

In the last few years I’ve seen more and more articles and blog posts about different kinds of semi-retirement at different ages and for different reasons.  Here are a few links.

• More than a third of US workers say they want to gradually cut back on their hours instead of retiring all at once.

• Many retirement-age baby boomers lost money in the financial crisis and work at home to make ends meet.

• Writing at the excellent financial blog Get Rich Slowly, Lisa Aberle talks about semi-retiring temporarily to spend time with newly adopted children. Interesting links and thoughtful comments.

This is just scratching the surface of a complicated topic.  Okay, not complicated like quantum mechanics, but complicated like an important life decision. 

I’ve always thought of semi-retirement as the choice of people in their mid sixties or older who want to retire but also want to stay professionally active. Other, newer, definitions include young people who want to work part time to allow for other serious commitments of time and energy-- raising kids, mountain climbing, acquiring more do-it-yourself skills, or whatever.

Anyway, those are people with choices.  Not everybody these days is so lucky. (See this).  For people who need full time work but can’t find it, there’s no way to pretty up their survival-oriented lifestyle by calling it semi-retirement.