19017 - Free OLLI Member Events

What if retirement didn’t mean cutting back, but actually expanding your life or simply adding something better?

Across the U.S., many thoughtful, financially responsible people are facing a difficult reality: rising costs, uncertain healthcare, and a growing sense that the life they worked so hard to build may not stretch as far, or feel as fulfilling, as they had hoped. But there are other options.

In this engaging and informative presentation, journalist and author Zélie Pollon shares how relocating abroad can offer not just a lower cost of living, but a dramatically higher quality of life.

Drawing on decades of global travel plus interviews with families and retirees living and working internationally, Zélie will explore common questions she has encountered over the years. She'll discuss visas, healthcare, common fears and how to navigate them, finding community for LGBTQ and people of color, and the emotional and psychological shift that comes with redesigning your life.

Ultimately, she’ll show you how living abroad can significantly reduce expenses without sacrificing comfort. This is not about escape. It’s about intention and choosing where and how you want to live in the next chapter of your life. Whether you’re seriously considering a move or simply curious about what’s possible, this talk will leave you with a clearer understanding of your options, and a renewed sense of possibility.

Zélie Pollon is an award-winning journalist, author, and global storyteller who has spent decades understanding how people live, adapt, and rebuild their lives across cultures. From reporting in Iraq to documenting survivors in Cambodia, to leading New Mexico newsrooms and now helping women relocate abroad, she’s built her career around one question: How do we create better lives under changing conditions? Now she helps others do exactly that.

She is the author of two books Hit the Road! A Badass Mom’s Guide for Families Who Want To Travel The World and Retire Richer: How Moving Abroad Can Save Your Golden Years. Learn about her upcoming retreats in San Miguel at www.travelforabetterlife.com. Also follow her on Facebook and Substack.

Talking, or even thinking, about end-of-life decisions can be difficult and emotional. However, the more we know, the better we can plan for what we want. Having a plan and sharing it with loved ones is vital if we can no longer express our wishes. This discussion is an overview of Advance Healthcare Directives, why they are important, who should have them and what are the components, along with resources to help determine a person’s choices.

Advance Healthcare Directive Workshop (August 20)

This workshop is a small group discussion for people who have taken the August 6 session and would like a follow-up or anyone who is having trouble getting started on completing or tweaking their own directive. Registration one week before the workshop is encouraged to make sure we have enough leaders and materials.

Beginning in the third-century CE and continuing for about fifteen hundred years, the narrative of the Fall in Genesis Chapter 3 became the subject of many visualizations in western art.  This essay studies the iconography of the Fall as regards the assigning of blame and as regards the presentation of Eve and the serpent.  When visual artists address the issue regarding responsibility for the Fall, they could validate the position reflected in early Christian commentary, or they could contradict it, depending on how they chose to present the iconographical elements of the Fall:  man, woman, tree, serpent.  In Genesis 3 the serpent is zoomorphic, that is, an animal or a beast.  In Medieval Art, however, there were two interrelated developments in the iconography:  The first, what became known as the hybrid serpent, a serpent from the waist down but with a human head and sometimes a human torso; the second, almost always female, the hybrid serpent sometimes resembled Eve.  While the zoomorphic serpent continued in visualizations of the Fall throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the hybrid serpent became prominent in the visual arts for about three hundred years, beginning around 1200 CE.  The hybrid serpent reflects an even more focused commentary as regards blame for the Fall by emphasizing Eve’s closeness, literal and figurative, to the serpent.           

Discover the world of craft chocolate in this interactive and flavorful lecture. Together we’ll explore how craft chocolate differs from its mass-market cousins, from the sourcing of cacao to the artistry of small-batch production and local resources for high quality product. Through guided discussion, you’ll learn to recognize the subtle nuances of cacao and what distinguishes craft chocolate from the ordinary. Best of all, you’ll put your new knowledge to the test with a hands-on chocolate tasting that engages your senses and sparks conversation.

Were you this child? Why do we hang stockings on Christmas Eve? Why is there a ginormous apple – and an orange – in my stocking taking up space where there should be toys? Would Santa really put coal in my stocking? Why? Why? IS THERE REALLY A SANTA CLAUS? Are you this adult? Who thought of putting a tree in the house where it can shed on the carpet? Am I irreverent if I write “Xmas”? Should I leave milk with the cookies or would he prefer a bottle of Coke - or a beer? Join us for an exploration of the plum pudding that is Christmas and its customs – religious, secular, and even “pagan.” And, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Who the heck is Virginia?