Amy Lindgren

If you’re between 9 and 12 years old, you are a tweenager –not quite a teen, but almost. And if you’re a tweenager reading this column, holy cow — you’re also precocious and amazing.

Now go find your grandparents, because they’re the tweens who need today’s advice.

Or maybe the great grands? It’s hard to keep track of generations, but for folks somewhere between their mid-50s and perhaps their mid-70s, I’m devising a new moniker: Second-age tween.

Well, that’s not exactly catchy, which explains why I don’t write slogans for a living. Let’s just say that you’re in a tween state, careerwise.

When it comes to work, there is something terribly awkward about this span of 20 years or so, largely because of the elephant always tromping around the room: Retirement. Whether or when or how to retire tends to dominate career and work choices at this stage of life.

The awkward aspect of the second-age tween stage can be sorted into at least three categories: Personal, social and vocational. On the personal side of the equation, you may have mixed feelings about how much longer you want to work, or with what kind of intensity. If you can afford to retire, doing so can feel like an unwanted imperative; if you can’t afford to retire, you may be resentful about needing the income.

While all of this personal drama is unfolding, the social awkwardness kicks in. As you and your cohort age and some in your group stop working, lifestyles become mismatched. Pretty soon, organizing even simple get-togethers becomes complicated and friends start to drift away. Likewise, if your spouse no longer works but you still do, there’s bound to be complications and even friction around whose lifestyle takes precedence.

Perhaps the knottiest issue of the three is the vocational awkwardness that dominates this tween stage. For example, your skills or stamina may have diminished, leaving you unsure about what you still can do. Or your skills and stamina may be fine, but your interests may have shifted. In either case, your timeline has definitely shortened, which can complicate career planning.

There’s even a gender component to consider, based on traditional roles still followed by men and women. If you’re a 60-year-old man whose spouse has sometimes stepped out of the workforce for child rearing or caretaking, you may have been the financial mainstay of the family. In that case, you’ve probably worked continuously through three or four decades, making you more than ready for retirement.

On the other hand, if you’re the 60-year-old woman in this couple, you may be catching your second wind, professionally speaking. Having missed one or two decades of your career, you might still be on the ascent and not nearly as ready to quit the workforce. Or you may simply need more years to build your Social Security and retirement funds.

These patterns may change as the next generations hit their tween years, but for today’s tweens, the gender construct still matters. Even without gender in the mix, managing this last career stage is clearly not a one-size-fits-all situation.

If you’re in this phase of life yourself, there are at least four things you’ll want to assess as you consider your options:

Health / longevity: Those who are relatively healthy or come from a long line of centenarians might feel justified in making career plans even into their 80s. Conversely, those on borrowed time, so to speak, might decide that accelerating retirement takes precedence.

Finances: Now is the time to learn the ins and outs of Social Security, including what it will take to reach the maximum payout. Now is also the time to organize retirement accounts and learn the rules for required distributions. This information will naturally impact decision-making.

Bucket lists: The tween years are an excellent time to revise your bucket list. What seemed important in your 20s may no longer matter, while things you never considered in your youth might feel essential. The most pressing items on the revised list could end up directing your career planning now.

Purpose: Your sense of purpose doesn’t need to come from work, by any means. But understanding what you find meaningful can provide essential clues in the process of planning your tween years. Whether you choose a job that helps you achieve that purpose, or a retirement that lets you to pursue it, taking time to examine this question will pay off in the end.

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Ravens wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. has always operated with the premise that his season in Baltimore is about where it ends, not necessarily where it is in the moment. In his often contemplative way, it’s about the journey and the destination.

Over the past few weeks, the two have finally started to come together.

That merging has been significant. In his past three games, Beckham has found a rhythm with quarterback Lamar Jackson as well as a level of speed that he had yet to display since joining the Ravens, with 10 catches for 212 yards and two touchdowns in that span. That included 116 yards in Baltimore’s 34-20 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday night, the most he’s had in a game since Week 2 in 2019 when he was with the Cleveland Browns.

It was against the Browns on Sunday that Beckham also showed off his wheels, taking a short slant and turning it into a 40-yard touchdown. On the play, he hit 19.2 mph, according to Next Gen Stats, his fastest speed as a ball carrier since Week 14 in 2021.

The week before, in a 37-3 win over the Seattle Seahawks, Beckham had five catches for 56 yards, including his first touchdown as a Raven courtesy of backup quarterback Tyler Huntley after Jackson had been pulled amid a blowout.

With tight end Mark Andrews likely out for the rest of the season after suffering a severe ankle injury against the Bengals, performances like the ones Beckham has had in recent weeks will become more paramount. He’s finally having the kind of impact the Ravens had hoped for but weren’t sure he could deliver when they signed him to a one-year, $15 million deal in the offseason.

“Early on in the season, I was hurt, and I just couldn’t be myself,” Beckham said Thursday. “I didn’t have the explosion; I couldn’t move the way that I wanted to. I don’t think people really knew what I was dealing with.”

Initially, neither did the Ravens.

When Baltimore signed Beckham last April, it wasn’t even sure how well the 31-year-old receiver who tore his ACL in October 2020 and again in February 2022 could even run. The move was done in part to appease Jackson, who was embroiled in his own contract negotiations and had requested the team sign Beckham, and in part because the transcendent star was the kind of player who would sell jerseys and tickets.

Still, the Ravens liked enough of what they saw when they were one of several teams Beckham worked out for last March and hoped for the best.

“We saw everything we needed to see, knowing that it’s going to just improve,” general manager Eric DeCosta said in April. “That’s the thing — when a guy has a serious injury in general, it only gets better. It may take time; sometimes it takes longer, but it only gets better. What we saw was extremely encouraging.”

It’s also perhaps why when the two-time All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowl selection injured his ankle on the opening drive of the Ravens’ Week 2 game in Cincinnati and later exited for good in the third quarter, alarm bells weren’t going off inside the team’s Owings Mills headquarters — or in Beckham’s head.

“The best thing that DeCosta and [coach John Harbaugh] did [was when] we were playing the Bengals last time, and they were like, ‘It’s a long season. Just sit down,’” Beckham said. “That changed the entire trajectory of my season. I had the time to get my legs underneath me, and we’re just trying to go up from here.”

Still, the ankle injury Beckham suffered in Week 2 ended up keeping him out of the next two games. One of those was a loss to the Indianapolis Colts in which the Ravens led in the fourth quarter before losing in overtime.

When Beckham returned in Week 5 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he continued to struggle with his chemistry with Jackson and wasn’t explosive as the Ravens again lost despite leading in the fourth quarter. Beckham had just two catches on four targets for 13 yards, and he was unable to break free from rookie cornerback Joey Porter Jr. on a short fade route in the end zone in the fourth quarter that ended up being intercepted.

The following week against the Tennessee Titans in London wasn’t a lot better with two catches for 34 yards, as well as a dropped pass and a scuffle after the game with Titans defensive end Jeffrey Simmons. In Week 7 against the Detroit Lions, Beckham had five catches for 49 yards, but the next week he was held without a catch against the Arizona Cardinals. It was just the second time in his eight-year career that he didn’t record a reception, though he was at least the beneficiary of two pass interference calls and a holding penalty.

Then came the game against Seattle. Though it wasn’t Jackson who threw the touchdown pass to Beckham, the quarterback celebrated with the receiver after the play, which fittingly featured a route named “Odell” that the Ravens had put in their playbook last season. It also came on the receiver’s birthday.

“It’s just been a long time coming — a lot of hard work,” Beckham said. “It’s just a step in the right direction.”

And for the Ravens, perhaps just the beginning of the journey to where Beckham wants to ultimately help take them.

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Gather ’round the table, horror fans, because Eli Roth is finally serving up his long-gestating holiday feast: the seasonal slasher movie “Thanksgiving.” The idea for this film got rolling some 16 years ago with the 2007 Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature “Grindhouse,” in which Roth and his longtime friend Jeff Rendell cooked up a joke trailer inspired by their love of themed horror movies and a Massachusetts childhood spent just down the road from Plymouth, the site of the first Thanksgiving.

When horror fans first got their eyes on the “Thanksgiving” trailer, it sparked a fervent appetite for the whole meal, but with the full film finally hitting theaters, after 16 years of discussion and development, it proves the adage — also true for Thanksgiving meals — that there can be too much of a good thing.

A mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts, in “Thanksgiving.” (Pief Weyman/Sony Pictures/TNS)

“Thanksgiving” is an enthusiastic slasher romp in which Roth is clearly having a ball making his childhood dreams come true. But the problem here is the underbaked script, co-written with Rendell. The film has been reverse-engineered around the holiday-themed kills (Black Friday mob, electric carving knife, turkey roasting) and references to the original trailer and other classic horror movies. The script takes the shape of a loose take on “Scream” or “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” with our killer, known as John Carver, stalking a group of teens in a revenge plot. “Thanksgiving” doesn’t try to deconstruct the genre — its only self-reflection are the requisite references — but the characters are thinly written, lacking motivation, and the central mystery is hopelessly muddled.

Our heroine is Nell Verlaque as Jessica. She could have been easily swapped with social media star Addison Rae, who plays a vaguely mean popular girl Gabby (and they might have been at some point), both are brunettes with long wavy hair and similarly wan screen abilities. The plot starts on Thanksgiving when Jessica’s father (Rick Hoffman), the owner of the Right Mart big-box store, starts his Black Friday sale a day early. A mob, frothing for free waffle irons, starts a stampede after they’re taunted by Jessica’s snotty group of friends, who sneaked into the store early.

Mayhem ensues, lives are lost, etc. All that’s left is a haunting social media video and a sense of collective grief and trauma. Fast forward a year later and this John Carver character — outfitted in Pilgrim finery — has been hunting down everyone involved in the melee for a deadly dinner party. It’s up to Jessica to track down the killer’s identity (is he one of two boyfriends?) since the bumbling Sheriff Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) proves to be utterly useless.

Roth, a horror fan and dedicated student of the genre, can stage and shoot an innovative suspense sequence. The violence is sadistic and gory; the setups are inventive and engaging. But he rushes through them, and doesn’t let anything breathe. But it’s the connective tissue — the gristle — between the kills that is seriously lacking. Local color is sprinkled on top like a garnish, not incorporated as a part of the whole, and the story movement from scene to scene hardly makes sense. It’s only the prior knowledge of horror tropes and a curiosity about who’s under the Carver mask that keeps this moving forward.

There’s also the sense that this holiday meal just might be a little stale. Certain set pieces like a cheerleader on a trampoline might have played back in the wild west of the mid-aughts, but in 2023 it’s cringeworthy, and Roth seems to know that. He rushes through it as if he’s checking a box for the fans. His centerpiece of the table is a roasting sequence that reminds us why he excelled in the “torture porn” era, but overall, “Thanksgiving” feels incredibly juvenile, which is perhaps due to its genesis so long ago.

If “Thanksgiving” had to be any specific dish on the holiday table, it would be stuffing: made up of disparate chunks tossed together and baked, stuffing is a dish where old bread goes to shine, a cheap and easy crowd-pleaser. But this particular offering is missing a crucial element — the binder. Without it, it’s just a crumbly mess. It might taste good for a bite or two, but Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

‘Thanksgiving’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual material)

Running time: 1:47

How to watch: In theaters Friday

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