Back in college, Barry, Eric, and I, along with a changing cast of characters in and out of Apartment 22Z, would often sit around the formica covered dining room table, talking of our coming futures. We were pretty mature for our ages -- Barry and Eric studying hard to get into medical school, and I enjoying my English studies to get girls on a budget (Mateus Rose, a French bread, and parking on the Rickenbacker Causeway with some Blake poetry was my M.O.). I also worked kind of hard to get into law school, but not as hard as they did.
Anyway, we thought we had stuff figured out pretty well. Complete grad school, get good jobs in decent paying professions, meet nice girls to marry and start families, and then retire to enjoy the fruits of our efforts.
Boy, did we leave stuff out! A main example is not thinking about caring for declining and finally dying parents. Forty years on, of the 6 proud Ashkenazim who had produced us, only one remains: Barry's Mom Beverly, and she suffers terribly with advanced Parkinson's Disease.
OK - parents. And kids we continue to adore and support -- 3 daughters and 3 sons, and now 5 grandsons for Eric and me -- Barry hopes to join that club, too, but will have to wait a bit, as his oldest is just marrying next year and youngest enjoys man about town status -- no marriage in even distant sight.
So it turns out we also left out another HUGE chapter in that instruction manual of life: caring for spouses as they age. Turns out that's a big one, too.
Anyway, it was a busy day yesterday here in semi-retirement village. I had a LOT of clerical stuff to do with my wonderful consuegro Ricardo -- signing online documents and getting Wifey's SUV title to the FedEx office. Ricardo is amazing -- he sold that very seasoned vehicle, as D1 described it, for over $22K. I think I had a little to do with it, as I charmed the nice young appraiser who was here the day before to inspect it -- Haitian American fellow D1's age. We hit it off right away -- he's a hustler, this young fellow, and asked me how I ended up with the huge house behind the vehicle he was inspecting. He seemed truly interested in my lessons -- all about connections that lead you to success.
I had dropped Wifey off at the vet with the special needs Spaniel and strange rescue dog. The nice young Cuban vet who took over the practice from the nice older "Miamuh" vets reported both pups are well, though Vienna gained 4 pounds and earned herself banishment from all table food. I guessed correctly he was a Gator, since UF has the only vet school in the state, but assured me he NEVER went to a Gators game when he attended grad school, he was a Miami boy who loved his Canes and FIU Panthers. I knew I liked the guy...
I shared some emails with our old friend Tere, our next door neighbor in the Honors Dorm, and now a semi retired Radiologist in San Diego. She started having kids late -- oldest is married, middle kid newly graduated and looking for a career in Portland, Oregon, and her youngest in the middle of his college stay -- also in the Pacific Northwest. I invited her to attend our Friday Zooms, and she said she would.
Meanwhile, Eric and Dana shared their tales of the Bourbon Trail, and Eric made some Old Fashioned on camera with a smoke gun. He remains a Chem major at heart. They signed off, and later Barry FaceTimed.
D2 welcomed her three UF besties to town yesterday -- the "Women of Yellow House" so called since they shared a yellow house in Gainesville for 2 years together. Two flew in from Atlanta, and one from NYC. The plan was last night at D2's house, while Jonathan was, I'm assuming, trying to hide, and today checking into the Ritz on Key Biscayne for a grown woman Spring Break.
I know those 4 likewise spent a lot of time figuring out life together. Maybe they did a better job than my friends and I -- hey -- they had access to the internet!
It warms me to know the next generation are also adrift on this ocean, but doing it with dear friends. I'd be curious to see how their Instruction Manual differs from ours.
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