The Retired Urbanite's Guide to Embracing the City Buzz with a Touch of Bridgerton

Retirement isn't all sunsets and crossword puzzles; in fact, it's the little rituals and unexpected conversations that weave the texture of my days. Take a seat by the window, and let's watch the dance of city life together as I, Marcy, share the reflective yet lively tapestry of my retired life—complete with Mother's Day musings, the subtle art of tipping at buffet brunches, and how my favorite TV shows like "Bridgerton" have become unexpected comforts. Then there's the Harrison Butker speech that's got everybody talking; I'll be unraveling my thoughts on why personal beliefs are like heirlooms—valuable, yet not always on display for everyone to see.

Clink your coffee cup to mine as I take you through the bustling heart of city dwelling from the eyes of someone who's traded in car keys for walking shoes. Craig and I dive into the ways our urban environment fosters intimacy and the little adjustments, like inflatable mattresses for visiting friends, that keep us agile. I'll also let you in on the secret corners of my digital world—'Marcy's Mind' on YouTube and my website, so you can continue to sip on my stories long after our chat ends. Let's wrap up with well-wishes for the fresh week of spring that lies ahead, and who knows, maybe you'll find those little moments of reflection and joy in your own ebb and flow of life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Inside Marci's Mind. Welcome to my podcast. I'm glad you're here and it looks like we've got another great episode in store. So sit back, relax and get ready. Inside Marci's Mind. I still find that a scary thing to say and a scary place to be sometimes, but I'm glad you're here. Let's see what this week.

Speaker 1: 0:32

This week went by so fast and I really didn't do anything. You know there's this whole thing about being retired and if you're still working you're not going to get this, but it's something to look forward to. Some weeks are super busy and some weeks there's just nothing to do. Watched a lot of TV this week. Bridgerton started Already, got through the four episodes of that, hacks is back on and if you haven't watched Hacks on Max, hbo Max it's fabulous with Gene Smart. Oh, such a great show.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Anyways, we also had let's see, we had mother's day. All right, mother's day. Let's talk about mother's day for for a minute here. So mother's day comes and it's all about moms and, as I've shared with you and on my old podcast and my new podcast I am I have been requested to have no contact by my oldest child, so there's a no contact kid there. Did they contact me for mother's day. No, they did not, but the other one did. So there you, uh. But um, last week's episode was all about tipping and um, funny enough, this came up on sunday.

Speaker 1: 1:53

So craig and I went to a buffet here at godfrey hotel, on the top level beautiful, it was a gorgeous day outside. Um, in order to make the reservation for Mother's Day, craig had to put a $75 deposit down, and so there was a $75 deposit down. I think it was. I can't remember if it was $75 each. That sounds about right. And the bill came at the end and they had taken the $75 off. I have to look at the bill, hold on. So, yes, so our bill comes Now.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Mind you, this was a buffet brunch, a buffet brunch. Nobody waited in line for me, nobody got my omelet for me, nobody got my chocolate covered strawberries for me, and there was not only a 21% service charge, so that was $27.30. We also were charged $18.49 tax. We also were charged $18.49 tax. So, on top of the cost of the brunch that was, we were charged another what is that? 18 and 27. I don't know, 50, some, anyways, we were charged a lot more.

Speaker 1: 3:21

So see, herein lies my point about this whole tipping thing. I mean, I drank water that was on the table. Craig had an iced tea. No one had to bring us drinks. They had a bottle of water on the table. Someone did pick up our plates when we were done, but nobody waited in line for me. Nobody did the service fee. What kind of service?

Speaker 1: 3:44

I had to put a down payment in order to go to this brunch, I don't know. See, this is where I was talking about last week. It's getting out of control. I just felt that it was a little crazy, crazy town for a buffet. Nobody helped me, nobody served me, I don't know Anyhow. So, mother's day, it was a lovely brunch, though it would have been nice if somebody waited in line for my omelet, but they didn't. Uh, we came back.

Speaker 1: 4:14

We had a beautiful day here in Chicago, got to sit out at the pool, hang out in the sun. Um, what else did I this week? I went to the gym four times, did my. My goal is four times a week for my aquasculpting class. So made it to all four classes and, uh, spent time with my friends, got a pedicure.

Speaker 1: 4:37

It was just a quiet week. You know, today's been kind of a great day. It's Saturday. Craig and his siblings are still going through the family home, so they had the day out there today. So I've been alone all day, cleaned the house, did the laundry and went out and spent two hours out at the pool.

Speaker 1: 4:53

And now I'm talking to you and you know a lot went through my mind this week of what to talk about. And since it's what's in Marcy's mind, I you know, I really thought about this Harrison Butker of Kansas City Chiefs graduation speech. I actually read the whole thing thinking we would talk about that. And you know what I don't want to talk about it. I, I read the whole speech. I am a little flabbergasted by it. I think that the media has forgotten that he was speaking to a Catholic school. He wasn't speaking to the country. He got a standing ovation.

Speaker 1: 5:38

I will say this I think it's wrong to take his job away from him. He didn't say to hurt anybody, he didn't. You know it doesn't affect his kicking ability, although his um, the people that protect him when he kicks on his team may not protect him so much anymore. But you know it's a personal thing and I, I really, I really don't think you should go after his job. We all say stupid things and we all say things that people don't agree with. But to go after somebody's job for saying that women should be happy to stay home and have babies, and he did make a comment about the gay community, which is uncalled for, but he didn't ask anybody to hurt anybody. He didn't do anything that deserves his job to be taken away. He may. He's going to have to pay for it through his teammates and, quoting Taylor Swift, he should have not done I guess I am going to talk about it Quoting Taylor Swift. He should have not done. She's the most strong woman in America. She is rich, she is smart, she is famous, she is kind, um, and she works hard outside the home. So, anyway, whether you agree or you disagree with what he has to say, I think my one point is um, I don't agree with a lot of what he said, but I don't think he should lose his job over it. I will say that much.

Speaker 1: 7:08

What else are we going to talk about? What else was in Marcy's mind? You know what I was thinking about a lot this week. How different my life is. I moved. If you don't know, I moved from Southern California, a very beautiful place called Cota da Casa in Southern Orange County, from a rather a decent size home and I moved to the city of Chicago, downtown, in a high rise in a one bedroom, one bath condo big change. But I thought I'd talk about all the good things about that change and let you know. You know it's way different living in the city. So let's just think about some of the things that are different living in the city.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Um, elevators, for instance. Right now we're going through an elevator renovation. We have four elevators in our building. We're a 56-floor building. I live on the 36th floor. Well, when you take down one elevator for renovations, does it never fail that another one has problems?

Speaker 1: 8:10

The first thing I'll talk about is when you live in your home, you can come and go as you please. You go out your front door, you go into your garage, you get in your car and you go. Well, not so much in a condo. When you're on the 36th floor, you require an elevator. Now there is elevator, just like there is traffic time on the freeways, there is elevator traffic time.

Speaker 1: 8:31

So, leaving in the morning and coming home in the evening, considering the fact that I don't have to be on the elevator. In those times I make sure that I'm not. You'll wait a long time and that's the way it goes. So today I had some groceries delivered by Amazon Amazon Fresh, that's another thing in the city. Um, deliveries are immense and our it puts our doorman. I do have a doorman, I do live in a fancy building. Um puts a lot of pressure on them. Uh, the amount of packages that come and go in this building is astronomical. But today I had my groceries delivered and um went downstairs and got them brought, brought them up, had no problems with the elevator. Well, when I brought the cart back down, one of the elevators went kapooey. So now we're down to two elevators and everybody's waiting, and that's just.

Speaker 1: 9:27

That's just the fact of life here. You have to have patience. You can't be in a rush to go anywhere. You kind of have to plan, you have to put in elevator time. So not only is there elevator time, there's also car time. So we do have a car.

Speaker 1: 9:41

So one of the beauties of living in the city is Chicago has been voted one of the most walkable cities, and it is. We walk to 90 percent of everywhere we go. If we don't, we take the train or a bus walk to 90% of everywhere we go. If we don't, we take the train or a bus. The metro system here is off the charts. It all works Feet, trains, buses, automobiles but our parking structure is nine stories. Now I don't have the fancy building that brings my car down for me.

Speaker 1: 10:11

There are those buildings here in the city. I do not live in one of those, but I do have a parking spot that I own and I actually pay property tax on. I do own the spot, so, but I'm on the ninth floor. Now this is a good and a bad thing. So the bad thing is you have to go nine floors down, round and round, before you get to the street. When you come home, you have to go nine floors up. But the bonus is we just take a set of stairs and we are on the P level of our building, which is the plaza level, and we can just take one elevator up to our condo. If you're on one of the middle floors, you have to take the garage elevator, go through the building and then take the building elevator. So I'll take the ninth floor and if you have to go potty when you're coming home, on the P level, right where our door comes out are the bathrooms.

Speaker 1: 11:01

So, do I have a patio? Do I have a deck? No, but does my building? Yes, a stunning deck on the 10th floor of the parking structure and it is gorgeous. They plant flowers. It's beautiful. I don't have to take care of it. We have over. We have 10 gorgeous stainless steel barbecues, tons of seating for anybody having gatherings, parties, barbecues. We have fire pits and we have one, two, three, four different couch, large sectional couch sitting areas. Then you go up one more floor and there is our outdoor pool that I was at today for two hours, gorgeous. So there's something. Um, obviously you can't use outdoor space here all the time in Chicago, so, having a deck off your unit, I'd rather have the square footage on the inside, um, I enjoy having the community deck. Craig and I go out there. Craig was just out there yesterday all afternoon working. We have wifi out there, um, and this time of year it's just gorgeous. So those are some of the things that are different living in the city Um, being able to walk to CVS, to get your groceries, to the post office, the DMV, the social security office I mean, I had some issues getting my social security in the beginning I got locked out of their website.

Speaker 1: 12:22

They say I did it. I had to go to the office. Well, no big deal, just a quick little trip over there. Got that handled. Last year I didn't get my registration for my car. Last year I didn't get my registration for my car. Walked over to the DMV, got that handled. So there's a lot of pluses to living in the city. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 12:40

I do not miss the suburbs at all. Do I miss my big house? No, I really don't Think about your home and think about the spaces you live in, no matter how many bedrooms you have, and think about the spaces you live in. No matter how many bedrooms you have, you live in your living area either your family room, bet you. If you have a fancy living room, like I did every time, very rarely do we spend any time in the fancy living room. Always the family room, the kitchen and our bedrooms. So here I have a kitchen, a family room and a bedroom. It seems to be all I need. We have one bathroom. Works out just fine for us. Craig gets up much earlier than I do when he runs.

Speaker 1: 13:19

This week was pretty good, craig went for his run Now. He either goes north up the lakefront or he goes south down the lakefront. So, to let you know, we only live a block and a half from the lake and the lake is the size of an ocean. So if you've never looked at Chicago, take a look at it on a map. It's pretty fabulous place. We have a big park, kind of like Central Park. We have lakefront for miles. Craig and I live what less two, two blocks, three blocks from the beach. I mean, if we tried to live in California three blocks from the beach, we couldn't afford it. But here we're, three blocks from the beach anyhow. Um, craig was running north. He go, craig.

Speaker 1: 14:06

I said how was your run this morning? Well, it was pretty good. I was running up by the zoo, he says, except for I got smacked in the back of my head. I turned around and saw a bird flying away with my hair in its mouth. I'm sorry that just killed me, couldn't stop laughing. Looks like some nest is made with Craig's hair. I'm sure that bird just saw that great head of hair and said, ooh, that's what I need for my nest.

Speaker 1: 14:32

But we live. We have bikes. I have an electric bike. We can ride them.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Right here on the lakefront, there are plenty of forest preserves and arboretums and everything around the city. I think people think of Chicago and they just think of crime. And you know it happens here, it happens everywhere. I hate to tell you, it happens in your suburbs too. So there's no fear level of living here. There's just a lot of joy and beauty, I will tell you. The tulips all bloom. They're taking those out and they're putting in all the spring flower plantings and there's trees here, probably one of the greenest cities as far as trees goes that I've ever seen. We have trees and plantings and it's just stunning.

Speaker 1: 15:18

So living in a city, what else can I tell you about living in a city? It's an interesting thing. I don't think it's for everyone, but I think those of us that have found it and love it really embrace it. You know, as you know, I have a group of girlfriends here called the pool pals and they age from 92 on down, and all these women live in the city. 92 year old Marilyn lives in the city with her walker, walks to the gym by herself, fyi, and Joan does the same thing, and they impress me. These are women that have chosen to live in the city. They can live anywhere they want these ladies. These are women that have chosen to live in the city. They can live anywhere they want these ladies and this is where they choose to live. So if you've ever thought about city living and you're afraid to try it, give it a try.

Speaker 1: 16:04

Get an Airbnb. I don't know, it's pretty great. We've got one car In California, we'd have two. It forces Craig and I to communicate a little bit more, which is probably a good thing. I think.

Speaker 1: 16:17

When you live in a big house, everybody kind of lives their separate lives. We got enough room in here for a blow up mattress when somebody comes to visit if they want to stay with us, or we've got a billion hotels right here for people to choose from. So that's what's been on my mind Every time I kind of walk or I go do something, I think God my friends in California would, or anywhere. I have friends in Oregon, I have friends in Texas, everywhere I've lived. I think you have no idea how different my life is just from leaving the house and getting in an elevator several times a day to walking everywhere and I don't know. Just a very, very different life. So that is something that I want, that's been on Marcy's mind, that I wanted to share with you.

Speaker 1: 17:09

Well, I don't think I have a whole lot more to talk about. We talked about last week. We talked about Mother's Day. I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. Oh, the other thing I wanted to talk about. This is okay, this is something pretty funny.

Speaker 1: 17:22

So when you move we've been here two years I finally settled on a news station that I like and it's NBC. I listen, I watch the NBC morning show, so I've kind of fallen into the NBC local, local news. And um, in California, if you live in Southern California you know when they do the weather, they give you the beach weather for seven days, they give you the desert. There's so many different climates that they do a seven-day forecast for each different area the valleys, the city, the beaches and the desert. Well, in Chicago, where I live close to the lake, the weather can be very different as opposed to outside the city, in the suburbs. In the winter we're a little warmer, in the summer we're a little cooler Excuse me, had a little cough there. And in the NBC weather they just give you a seven-day forecast and they say it'll be cooler. By the lake it'll be warmer, and it really frustrates me.

Speaker 1: 18:19

I want to know how much cooler, how much warmer, how much less snow, how much more snow. I think they need to be a little more specific. So this tells you my age and a million years. I would never write a news station, but I did. I'm like explaining to them how they do it in California and how, when they say, like today it was supposed to be 85, except for cooler by the lakefront, well, it's important to know how much cooler like, how much cooler by the lakefront. Well, it's important to know how much cooler like how much cooler by the lakefront. So let's take a look right now and I'll tell you in the weather it's 79 right now. Okay, then it's going to be 78. So we didn't make it to 85 or six degrees cooler. Well, I would like to know that and I think they need to be more specific. So I have let my NBC affiliate know here in Chicago that I think they should be more specific because it does matter, you know, a few degrees matters, especially when it gets to the winter and when it gets to snow, because we don't have as much snow here as they have in the suburbs, the buildings, the warmth. It changes things here. Things are very different and I think they need to be a little more specific.

Speaker 1: 19:27

So, with that being said, I hope you have had a wonderful week. I want you to know a couple of things. We should be on Apple next week, apple podcast. We are on Spotify, I'm on 13, google, you name it. I'm on everything except for Apple. I looked into my Apple and it should be approved for next week.

Speaker 1: 19:48

I also want you to know that on YouTube, you can find me at at Marcy's Mind, so you can listen on YouTube. So if you have YouTube on your TV or wherever you can listen to it, you can listen to YouTube. I'm on there, so that's at Marcy's Mind. You can listen on my website, at InsideMarcy'sMindcom. Any information that I feel is important, you can get it there. I think you can hear the fire department with my window open in my bedroom, and you can talk to me. If you have things you want to know, questions, please ask me questions. I'm happy to answer them InsideMarcy'sMind, at gmailcom, and send me your questions. I'm happy to answer them. I'm happy to get the answers for them. Um, you know it. Just, this is an open forum and hopefully I enjoy how it works. So far, so good. We talked a little bit about Harrison Butker, talked about living in the city this week and, uh, wishing you all a great spring week. Bye.