Or at any rate, the immediate post retirement.

• They finally got around to turning off my email access at the Institute yesterday morning. I got the usual notifications that my crons ran early in the morning, but later the iPhone complained it couldn’t get my Institute mail, so I went in to Settings and turned that account off. Supposedly they will send me email when they need to contact me about anything, to one of my other addresses I gave them.

  It’s okay. I don’t need to be hearing what’s going on there anymore because my head will get wrapped around all the work I don’t need to do anymore. I need to train my head to stop going down those rabbit holes now.

  There will be other rabbit holes for me to fall into I’m sure…

• I figured I’d just take everything in the office back home and sort out what I want to keep and what I don’t later. But my office was, no kidding, a home away from home that I’d built over the years. First the microwave, then the mini fridge, then various other office do-dads and toys, then the coffee maker. Books books books. Dishes and utensils. Salt and pepper grinders. An assortment of coffee mugs. iPhone chargers and spare headphones and ear buds. A plush Grumpy Cat and a plush Opus the Penguin. Some artwork from my Southwest road trips. Disney posters, cartoons, and framed service awards. Now that it’s all in the house and my first day of retirement and I had some time to breath and take a look at everything.  What I’m seeing is it’s going to take me months to integrate the office office into the home office.

  But I’m not even wanting to call it my “office” anymore. It’s my den. It has books, a nice chair for reading with a couple reading lamps next to it. It has my camera cabinet, my computer desk, and eventually the shortwave radio for listening to the world at night. I’m retired. That room doesn’t need to serve business purposes anymore. It’s my quiet thinking space. First thing this morning was I took a look at everything on my dryboard and saw that it was all Institute stuff and erased everything on it. It was all stuff I’d either already done, or stuff I didn’t need to do anymore.

  I just took the mini fridge upstairs and found a good place for it in the office because the office has all my camera stuff and the plan is to use that fridge to store film. But that entire second floor is all on one 15 amp circuit, so I’m going to need to run a few tests to see if the fridge doesn’t trip the circuit breaker if I also have one or more of the space heaters on, plus the lights, plus the ceiling fans.

  The house is a mess! I was so embarrassed when I had company over to see my artwork. I’m probably going to spend most of next week sorting through all of it and trying to get things back under control here. Plus trying to get ready to go to California. But that depends on the weather.

• As if to put a period on the day I transitioned to retirement, I finally got notice that my application for Medicare part the B is going forward. And the bill.

  You pay for part B based on your income for the previous two years, and I’ve been making pretty good money. The letter I got tells me that I will pay the standard amount, 170.10, plus an income related monthly adjustment of 170.10. So, 340.20. That, plus my STScI employee health plan which I get to keep, at 115.11 a month, gives me a monthly health insurance bill for the next two years of 455.31. But that is health insurance that covers me completely in my retirement years, including drug costs, and yes, I know I’m lucky to have it, and the ability to keep paying for it.

  I’ve worked all this into my monthly budget spreadsheet and it’s okay. The part B premium actually was 20 bucks less than I’d anticipated, so it’s all good. And it will go down next year, or the year after.