Betting on the future

More than one comedian has used the phrase, "he's so old, he doesn't even dare buy green bananas." In my experience green bananas ripen and then overripten in a matter of a couple of 7 to 10 days, a life expectancy that is indeed short.

A friend gave Carolyn the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow during her recent hospital stay (with some hesitancy, I might say). For those not familiar with the book, Mr. Pausch had pancreatic cancer and was promised less than a year to live. He uses that time to develop and present his "last lecture" laying out what he feels are the most important things that he feels he has learned during his relatively short life. (I think he was in his mid 40's when he died.)

Contrary to these examples, Carolyn and I are betting on a long future. At least 10 years and, hopefully, 20 or 30. Today we mailed off our applications for passport renewals. We've been thinking about doing that for several months and I had even picked up the simplified application that is possible to use if your previous passport was issued less than 15 years ago. (Ours were issued 14 years and 3 months ago so we still had 9 months to go.) But something always got in the way and we didn't REALLY need a passpoft.. This morning we were buying some labels at Office Depot and saw their sign "Passport Photos - $5". The clerk was available and we had the time so we got our pictures.

Going online, I discovered that the forms I had picked up from the post office over a year ago were outdated. But I also saw that we could fill out the form online, print it, sign it, and send it in along with our old passports and $75 each. According to their website, the State Department is now turning around passport applications in about 3 weeks during which time you can follow the progress of your passport online - sort of like tracking a FedEx package. At the end of 3 weeks we'll have an investment of 10 years to see where we can go. That's a little better than green bananas.