Planning Ahead - Beyond Ripe Fruit

My idea of planning ahead is buying a banana that won't be ripe til Tuesday. But I'm open to suggestions. I love the Dennis Hopper ads, urging Boomers to get a plan. I'm basically a Boomer still casting around for new prospects, still checking out monster.com and the Peace Corps every once in awhile, still daydreaming about a pied a terre in the city, still hoping to get organized some day down the road. I pay bills when I think of it or find them in my car. I go to the post office at five minutes to five. I invite ten people for dinner two hours before meal time. I like things this way. But now in my dotage I'm loosening up, losing my touch for pulling it off quite as smoothly as I used to. My ADD kicks in, and a touch of mad cow. I forget the stamps. I forget the dessert. I get flustered. I'm willing to consider some modifications to the laissez-faire approach of my youth, in light of some disintegrating executive skills that could use a boost.

John Lennon sang that life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. My youthful response to this was to waste no time planning. I knew all about what paved the road to hell and the things that happen to the best laid plans. So I placed my bets on the moment. Be here now. Carpe diem. Too bad old habits die so hard.

They say that the ability to plan ahead is a mark of intelligence that separates us from the lower beasts. Enthusiastic studies have shown that apes can plan ahead and gather tools for future use. I can barely grocery shop. I come home with meat and no vegetables, cereal and no milk. I think maybe there's some at home, but then there's not. That may be more a function of memory, but memory and a plan have to go hand in hand, at least part of the way. How can you plan ahead unless you remember what it is you need to accomplish?

Some people might think it's a sad state of affairs that I am proud of myself for buying a couple of greenish bananas. But no! I feel in control, responsible, curiously glamorous, and I imagine that the cashier, or maybe that handsome guy behind me, looks on admiringly as I place my ginkgo biloba and almonds up there with the oatmeal and blueberries. Back in the day, when I first got my driver's license at age 16, I made sure to run errands for my mother, and clunk my keys around loudly at the check-out stand of the grocery store, showing off. Now I plop those green bananas out there with just as much attitude. Look at this all you people out there...I can think ahead with the best of them! I've got a plan! So mind your own business.

I am wondering if those folks at Ameriprise are all as cool as Dennis Hopper, and if they have any ideas about what I should have for dinner.