Birth of a Movement I am coming up on my 66th birthday next week. That used to be a relative nondescript milestone, but now, thanks to the shifting retirement standards of social security which make me a part of the first cohort to get pushed back on their retirement date by a full year. I am now technically eligible for “full retirement benefits” as of January 30, 2020. Those who are sixty now will wait…
Compiling Life In May we have the Silver Anniversary Ride of my motorcycle club. I founded the group with four others and we have had about sixty rides over those twenty-five years. Not everyone has made every ride, and members have come and gone, but there is a core group that still rides and a few others that no longer ride, but like to gather with us nonetheless. By my count we have had 80…
Lev and Igor’s Great Adventure When Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman we’re arrested by the FBI at Dulles Airport in October we all took mild notice. No one was surprised that Rudy Giuliani was associating with guys who looked and acted like thugs. In some ways, the mug shots of the two did little to help us take them seriously. Igor looked shellacked with his Gordon Gecko Brylcreamed hair and puffy Russian face. Lev was…
Let’s Get Physical With the move to San Diego there are many tasks and transitions needed to make everything flow smoothly. Kim and I have the good fortune to be in good health. I am in surprisingly good health given my size and my ongoing lifestyle choices. My family and I joke about how 23&Me designates me as being predisposed to be a performance athlete. I care little about that, but I certainly do prefer…
Il Brigante My son Thomas and I had dinner tonight at a favorite restaurant that was nearby the condo I owned and lived in for ten years. That was from when Thomas was nine until nineteen years old. It was the home he spent time with me from when he was in fourth grade at Little Red until he was a freshman at Big Red. Compare that to my older children. My oldest never lived…
Library Fines Every day I read the daily briefings from the New York Times (6am), Washington Post (1pm) and the Financial Times (in the wee hours). I subscribe yo the Wall Street Journal, but they don’t send me a daily briefing (I’ll have to look into that). I see articles from them all and more including USA Today, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and others through Apple News summary all day long on my…
Cleaning Up During my adult life (meaning post-college), a span of forty-four years, I have not lived alone for very long. I am what they call a serial monogamist. I don’t understand people who enjoy playing the field. I can only handle one relationship at a time, but I have a strong need to be in a primary relationship. I am on my third and last marriage. I can be so certain about that…
The Dolomites In 1969 I was living in Rome, Italy and there were only a few things I was about. Everyone went to school so while I was a good student there was nothing very differentiating about that. I had a diplomatic card, but enough other kids had parents either at the embassies or the UN agencies, that that wasn’t so different. And about all that was good for was avoiding traffic tickets (despite parental…
The Danger Zone Today I spent several hours with my lovely granddaughters, literally taking a handoff from my youngest son, their uncle. After a round of volleyball with a soft indoor ball (I enjoyed teaching the four-year-old how to use both hands to volley) we settled into GrubHub dinner and a showing of The Sound of Music. I was surprised when my daughter told me they had only seen Mary Poppins the day before and…
Kabuki It’s the early 1600’s and the city of Kyoto, the Imperial seat of the Japanese Empire, is all agog over a new dance drama that portrayed the comedy of private life. This was all too entertaining for the cultured members of the audience who needed to maintain their regal composure. Unfortunately, they were watching the performances in the red-light district with a diverse crowd of Imperial members, shogunate disciples and even lowly merchants. The…