Den and I are back at school!

I had been excited all day just thinking about going to school with Dennis.
I love sitting side by side as students.

So we are taking an 8 week class on Retirement, all the phases of it.  And at the end of the 8 weeks we are suppose to walk away with a legal will. 

The teacher...by the way her name is Spring Sun and she is from Paradise, Ca.   Yes, she said that's her real name.
She begins the class by talking about the oldest person on record.  She was a little French lady named Jeanne Calment.
She lived to 122 years and 164 days old! 

She outlived her only child, and her grandchildren.  Mrs. Sun, our teacher, explained that this woman lived capably on her own til she was about 113, and then she entered a nursing home til she died at 122.  


At this point, Den leaned over and said to me,  
"There was a guy who was interested in her, but he was only 110, and she considered him too immature." 

Now this may not seem very funny to you, and I don't know why it did to me, but I could not stop laughing.  Dennis has this affect on me often.  But in class, it made me feel like I was back in 8th grade, talking and laughing on the back row.  

 Oh, and here's something that doesn't make any sense at all.  

She smoked until she was 117!
She started at age 21, and she claimed it was just 2 cigarettes a day,  but still. 
That's 96 years of smoking!

Here are some other things we learned at our first class:


1.  Just as we are "The Baby Boomer Generation", our parents were called "The Silent Generation."  (I had never heard this phrase...'the silent generation', so I asked the teacher what exactly that meant and she didn't know either....Do you know?)


2.  Of all the things that start a mid-life crisis, retirement is #3. (Who am I to say, but isn't retirement age a bit too old for a mid-life crisis?)


3.  For the 1st time, in the year 2007, the number of people over 65 exceeded the number of people under 16.  (She didn't have the stats since 2007 but it's expected to be about the same...The baby boomers have taken over.)


4.  Retirement is the time to INCREASE your social network.  She suggested using Facebook to connect with others.  


5.  "When you retire, you switch bosses from the one who hired you to the one who married you."  Gene Perret


We were suppose to write down what we consider a "good retirement."  Of course I looked over at Den's paper. He had 5 goals written, but my favorite he wrote was,  "Doing Honey Dos." 


Can't wait til next Thursday!
And, can I just say, Den is the best student I have ever sat next to in class.