by Ed Tasca  

    For reasons I shall never figure out, there are many people who have chosen to live in “seismologically active” regions of the planet. (That’s what experts call earthquakes, to avoid scaring little children into thinking their pumpkin patch is going to gobble them up.)  So, it is extremely vital, if, for example, you happen to be a New Yorker moving to California, that you choose a spot that will always stay pretty much where you originally found it.

    One surefire way to do this is by visiting homes in various California neighborhoods. My rough rule of thumb is that if your neighbor’s living room and kitchen are divided by a ravine, you may wish to look across town.

    For those of you who have already purchased a property and have discovered too late that major appliances move about the house at will because of quake activity, there’s no need to panic and move yourself into an abandoned boat. I have spent a great deal of time in quake zones.  And I have developed a helpful six step system, which makes it possible to scoff at any earthquake, even host a dinner dance right inside its epicenter.

    My helpful six step system:

1. Identify potential hazards in your home and fix them promptly.  For example, move a heavy bookcase packed with books to a safer place. Placing it in the pool, for instance, will go a long way toward safeguarding your guests, and it can be an interesting way to introduce the children to Albert Camus.

2. Create a disaster plan. Demonstrate to your guests when they arrive how to zig-zag out of the house during a tremor. Be sure you know where it is you are zig-zagging to.  Zig-zagging without knowing where you are going will only wear you out and make you dizzy. And then you will forget why you were zig-zagging in the first place and wind up in Utah.

3. Make sure that each guest has a place to drop down to for cover.  If an entire table of twelve, along with the orchestra leader and his brass section, try to fit under the dining room table, there will be bad feelings. 

4. Never let any family member under the age of five care for the injured.

5. As the host, conduct a short educational discussion about earthquake science – the effects of P-waves, understanding local geological strata, etc. Alternatively, just hand out crash helmets.

6. Be sure everyone upon arrival has access to a bottle of gin, preferably in sturdy shoulder holsters, and preferably in break-proof bottles.

    The important thing to remember is that there’s no need to panic at the first sign of a tremor. If, on the other hand, you suddenly find yourself in the basement when you thought you were having cocktails on the veranda, tell everyone to start screaming and make a lot of noise. Someone may be trying to find you under the rubble.

My retirement brain in Mexico

Ed Tasca

    Let me say first-off that in most respects, my retirement brain has been a loyal and reliable servant, at least when it comes to my personal safety going up and down stairs after too many Margaritas, or trying to convert grams to ounces when preparing Margaritas. Or, even just remembering where I leave my Margaritas when I go off to Karioke.

    But what I have discovered is why the greatest works of art and the greatest scientific discoveries of all time have come from the brains of men and women under the age of 50, certainly under the age of 60 or 70. Beyond that, no one over age 70 ever makes it into history for anything, except maybe charity work.

    Now of course, you’re thinking we’re all so much smarter, sharper and more creative at retirement. This is true, but what I have found is this: while our brains after retirement remain totally fit and inspiring, it is our retirement lifestyle that is our undoing. Age makes us just a little too placid and ruminative, and this affects our brain chemistry. It may also be the principal reason retirees are often found on their miradors searching for chi energy.

    For example, I have learned that my retirement brain when left to its own devices can be a total fool, especially when it is at rest just before falling asleep. That’s when it starts thinking up crazy ideas, which, at any other time of the day, would give you a good laugh and thirst for another cerveza. Like last night, when I was lying awake proposing the theory that you can get more nutrients out of broccoli if you smoke it in a pipe. That’s right. This is my retirement brain at work.

    To illustrate why this is happening, I will give you a good, old-fashioned lesson on the normal working human brain (our planet’s most magnificent creation, when it is not out hazing college freshmen or performing alternative medicine).

    In illustration A below, you have the normal, alert pre-retirement brain (in perfect operating condition if you have maintained it according to your manual). As you can see, it is ready to jump right in there and think up clever and useful things to sell for exorbitant profits to less alert brains.  

     It is this superb specimen that is responsible for our greatest discoveries – the expanding universe, the double helix and, of course, the double martini.

    Now, let’s take a look at illustration B, the semi-conscious retirement brain. 

    As you can see, this poor creature looks a lot like an old boxing golve.  That's because I regret to say, it actually is a bit punchy.  After all, it has done nothing during retirement but sit around reading lakeside real estate news and eating tamales stuffed with quesadillas stuffed with churros, washed down with Tequila and a suck of lime. What’s more, the last thing this brain processed before waking up was the previous night’s entertainment extravaganza: The Brady Bunch Movie (in Spanish).

    Under these circumstances, the brain’s capacity for making sense of things has been compromised, and only the deepest and oldest part of this brain, the part that tells you what to do if you are attacked by Bengal Tigers, is still functioning properly.

    It is this brain that once convinced me that I had discovered a cure for anthrax poisoning, when I don’t even know what anthrax poisoning is. It was so convincing that it forced me to scribble it all down on a Kleenex and leave it on the night table:

Cure for Anthrax.

Some Echinacea  - not sure yet how much.

Gum Arabic – always works.

Something else, not sure if it should be coriander or that stuff that gets out rust.

    Mercifully, as it has for millennia, morning arrived; and three or four cups of coffee and some vigorous exercise swept away this mess I made of my brain chemistry. My new fully rested brain whistled itself to full alertness and tossed the mysterious anthrax cure into the trash.  

    My first conclusion was that we do our brains a terrible disservice by retiring at all, and sitting around reading articles like this one, which provide absolutely no cerebral stimulation whatsoever, and can only lead to more of the same foolishness.

    But then I reconsidered and concluded that maybe it is time we indulged ourselves in such surreal foolishness. Pre-retirement life tended to be one important, serious matter after another; and maybe our brain at this stage is just fed-up and needs to have some good, old-fashioned play time. 

    Although, the smoking broccoli idea still sounds to me like it has merit.