Carty announces retirement. Effective immediately.

A couple weeks ago Carty came down with what I guess was a flu. He had the shits, was throwing up bile, it was pretty rough. He had a trip to the vet where they did a x-ray. The vet saw that his heart was a little enlarged. They said once he got better that he needed to have a follow up to have his heart looked at to make sure that he did not have heart disease. I guess it's genetic with cats of our breed. So the last couple of weeks it was kind of the elephant in the room between us. We knew it was there but we never really talked about. He didn't bring it up so I didn't bring it up. So this past Friday he had his follow up exam. Everything turned up OK, all things considered. They said he has some mild build up in his arteries but nothing that looks serious at this point. She told him just to cut back on red meat and cigars and we'll take a look in another year. This came as a huge surprise to me. I thought they would say it was at least bad enough to have to put him on some sort or expensive medications so the Vet could get a kick back from cat pharmaceutical company. I was wrong. I guess they have souls unlike human Doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Anyway, Carty has been pretty contemplative since then and in order to reduce stress he decided to retire. Yes, I asked the same question you are asking now. What the hell does Carty do? When he told me he was retiring early, I was like, retiring? Retiring from what? All you do is eat, sleep, shit and eat some more? Then he reminded me a couple year's ago my Mama named him Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of her company. Art Jewels and Treasures By Jen(AJATBJ). I somehow forgot Carty was making all the critical strategic decisions for her company. I don't know how I forgot. It clearly explains that state of AJATBJ. They haven't made a sale in months, my Mama hasn't has a blog post since last June. I asked what decisions he could possibly be making to cause stress in his life? When I brought this up Carty got pretty defensive. He said it was all part of a long term strategy. He started talking about how companies that grow too quickly lose direction and end up losing focus on their core business. He pointed out how in order to avoid bad PR he moved the annual shareholder meeting from the Cornell Hotel De France in San Francisco where a rack of lamb and champagne were on the menu to the coffee table in my Mama's living room, where everybody got a 3 piece meal from Popeye's Chicken and a Pepsi. He said the company has $432.65 in it's bank account which makes it more solvent than %90 of all American corporations. It also has no debt. He conned my Dad into financing the venture. I was about to counter back how none of this stuff should be causing stress in his life. But I never got that far. He started getting sentimental. Talking about he was going to miss the rush before a craft show. All the great people he's worked with over the year's. Seeing the company from it's birth and selling like one necklace in it's first year to the record breaking 2008, where sales were around $500 despite the worst economic down turn in decades. Then he started tearing up, I couldn't bring my self to talk shit to him like I usually would. I just gave him a pat on the shoulder and congratulated him. I asked him what he was going to do with all this free time now. He said was going to do some searching to find out who the "real Carty is" whatever the hell that means.....Anyway this got to thinking about aging. The cat book my Mama has says now that I'm 7 years old, that I'm 44 in cat years. Personally I don't feel a day older than 34. But anyway age does kind of creep up on you. You start to notice the small things. Like, I hate kids just a little more than I did just few months ago. I'm becoming more interested in RV's. I Tivo'ed 60 minutes. I complained that my Mama served me to much food at dinner a couple weeks ago. When I take a whiz it takes just a few seconds longer to start and few seconds longer to stop. When I go to the casino to bet football, I'm becoming more and more drawn to the bingo parlor. I might even go in one day. We'll maybe not. But my point is something you already know. Getting old sucks.