The Less Social Experiment

 Ah, the wonders of aging. We truly DO change. For me -- it's being far less social than I once was.

It was a VERY social week for Wifey and me. Wednesday night I met Jonathan and his friend and co-worker Michael at Christy's for a cocktail -- and they left and I was joined by Barry and Norman -- a quasi-business dinner. Barry wanted some med mal advice -- more claims handling -- and who better than Norman, still a local Dean of med mal defense? Wifey was home hosting mah jonng...

Thursday night we met old friend Lew and Maria at Salvatore -- I wanted to thank Lew for his great consult about a finger cyst I had that concerned my Dermatologist. It wasn't nothing -- but Lew saved me the time, cost, and annoyance of another medical visit with a quick photo and history. Speaking of getting older -- we had made plans to meet at 730 -- even Wifey had it correct -- but I put it in at 6 in my phone calendar. Lew is punctual like I am, and so at 615 I texted -- where were they? Luckily, they left early and Wifey and I played video Jeopardy! while we waited.

Friday was a strategic social day. Wifey's delayed birthday lunch finally found a venue -- Mia Trattoria in North Miami. I dropped her there at 1, and spent the day with D2 and Betsy -- D1 and family were luckily over the flu and en route to Disney -- where we're getting, as expected, "I can't EVEN" level cute photos of their trip -- including Baby Man on his first ride -- all a-glaze with wonder.

Wifey got driven to Aventura, and we all met at Paul and Patricia's for a fine shabbos dinner. Their family friend Bobby was there -- he's a retired plastic surgeon -- and Barry, fueled by a triple bourbon from Paul, talked non-stop with him about their disparate careers. Barry joked that he, an introvert, was forced to talk more than ever --while I, typically the raconteur, mostly listened.

Yesterday we were both social-ed out, and I never left the house, except to fetch the mail after the second of two NFL Divisional games were watched in totality. We were gearing up for yet another event -- touring the old NIKE missile site in the Everglades with Joelle and Kenny and their boy Nathan, after barbecue at Shivers, but Kenny texted early this am -- the Park Service canceled our tour for unforeseen circumstances. I just hope Trump, ahead of today's inauguration, didn't decide to re tool the missile site to point some old nukes at Venezuela...

Wifey is sleeping, but I know she'll welcome a second day of vibing, as the millennials say. I owe a long walk to Lemon, D1's skittish Spaniel, who is bunking with us while her humans are at Disney, and then I may just watch some MORE NFL Divisional playoffs today. Next week are the NFC and AFC Championship games, and finally the Super Bowl -- so football draws near an end until August. The college champ game is tomorrow and I'll watch for the pure schadenfruede -- Notre Dame and Ohio State -- two teams we Canes loathe -- one of them will lose and bring us pleasure. I kind of hope ND wins, as they visit us this season, and it'd be fun to knock off the champs from the past season.

The Ds, especially D2 and her VERY social man Jonathan, are at the very social stage now. With D1, it seems each day has an event with the kids and other parents, and D2 and Jonathan, it seems, don't go more than a few days without a dinner or lunch with others.

I savored those days, often to Wifey's eye rolling. "Do we have to say "Yes" to EVERY invitation?" Often there was a business purpose -- taking out folks who might send cases to our very active firm. Not so much these days...

This said, I got an email over the weekend from Chabad -- the Jewish Learning Institute has a 6 week class on Talmud -- Wednesday nights beginning February 5th. Barry, Norman, and I took a great one last Summer -- on Medical Ethics and the Torah. Barry is IN -- I'm waiting to hear from Norman. So there will be at least weekly people mingling. We joke that we three are the 'cool guys" in class. One can imagine where that bar is set...

So I continue with, as I shared with Bobby on Friday night, more study in the field of human nature. And I guess the proper place to start is with my own.