I already have one very nice, quiet lady to share my home and help pay the rent and look after my do

It's been a rough week here at Time Goes By – mostly troubling stuff about Social Security payments if the government defaults next week, problems with the annual Medicare enrollment period due to the government employee furloughs rental cars in france and hard decisions we all face about living arrangements in our old age.
When I let myself think about the consequences of default, I can barely breathe. It is the most awful thing to face an abyss and have zero control. There must be a particularly deep circle of hell for Republicans who do this to the people of the United States.
It was way back in 2004 when I first published an internet fable about retiring to a Hilton hotel instead of a nursing home. It is such a delight that I've republished it again once or twice but I think I prefer the version about a retiring to a cruise ship.
At dinner through the Mediterranean aboard a Princess cruise ship, an elderly lady sat alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room. The staff, ship's officers, rental cars in france waiters, busboys, etc. all seemed very familiar with her. When a waiter was asked who she was, he said he knew only that she had been on board for the last four cruises, back to back.
[ EDITORIAL NOTE: On a past publication of this, Tarzana commented that Snopes discovered at least two people had actually retired rental cars in france to a cruise ship. You can read about that and the history of these retirement stories here .
Having been forced to find a new primary care physician (previous one became a hospital doc one year ago), I went in for my first appointment with my new doc - Dr G. She, too, is on the staff at the Kansas University School of Medicine; thus, I was first interviewed by a medical assistant (whatever that is) and a student doc.
One or the other of them asked a couple of questions that had not been posed to me by a physician, before. 1) Do you and your husband live alone (Well, yes...I absolutely refuse to have his mistress live with us?), 2) Do you have someone come in to help you with work around the house (Uh, no...I still saw down my own trees!)
Hmmm, might be an option at least on a temporary basis to nursing home care. ;-) My one and only cruise even though I did enjoy it did not leave me wanting more of anything except time on shore. Still thinking about it is amusing.
When I was much younger, I used to marvel at the stories of dignified elders who had retired to some of those older, smaller more respectable residential hotels in New York City! I always thought that was the ideal life to live.
Now that I live in Southern California near the coast in a 3-bed/2-bath nice large airy mobile home with no mortgage to support and no husband to nurse, I think I ll alternate between this and some cruises in the Pacific.
I already have one very nice, quiet lady to share my home and help pay the rent and look after my dog when I go off on adventures. But I do have one more spare bedroom if anyone would care to join us.
Certainly sounds tempting, if it weren t for all the negative press cruise ships have gotten in recent years. Never had any desire to go on a cruise anyway. But if I could get that kind of service up here near or in the mountains, I d be the first to sign up.