Imitates art

At times life sure does imitate art.
In my new career as a retired person I have tried to learn Italian. After a year of classes to say I can carry on a conversation would be a gross overstatement. It has been hard to fire up the language development portion of the brain after years and years of other language neglect. I am not deterred however and I have taken to another strategy, I have been watching Italian movies on Netflix. The combination of the visual, the subtitles and my limited knowledge have shown some progress.

This morning I was watching The Salt of Life a film about a guy forced into retirement who lives on  a pension, looks after his ailing mother, realizes that the younger generation hardly notices him when he is out in public and takes solace in cooking, especially Eggplant Parmigiana.

While not forced into retirement I decided it was time to go. By all accounts and in talking to former colleagues I made the right decision. I'm on  a pension but I guess it is more than our Gianni, our  "hero".
With no aging mom to care for I find myself with more time than Gia. But like him I can't help but observe the old guys in the gym and realize that this will be my fate. For Gia it is a small group of guys who don't go to the gym but who wear valour gym suits and sit in front of the cafe hour after hour day after day small talking. Perhaps the funniest coincidence is that I made Eggplant Parm. last week!