It’s been a while since I’ve been here so I thought I would breeze by and say hello.

Hope everyone is doing well.

I am now married to Martha, wife number three. Pix on Facebook.
Daughter Sophie now a doctor. Son James Professor of film at The New School. Son Peter running a cancer research lab on Long Island. I celebrate their successes and happy to share the credit with ex KathyK

Martha and I watch the late night comics’ Trump rants next day at lunch on YouTube. Both funny and very disturbing.

Fully retired. I don’t miss work but do miss some of the people I saw every day.

Still in the big old red house in Maine. Martha’s adult daughter lives with us and is a welcome wiz in the kitchen. We lost our dog but still have a couple cats.

I’ve reluctantly given up my former passion, gardening. Weeding is like a series of deep knee bends and that is not easy for me now.

Here is something I would recommend for any of you with a spouse or partner. Martha and I have a regular “date night” every Wednesday, when we go out to dinner, and invite any of our kids who happen to be available. Most often we go to the same local restaurant, where we are well known, and I can get the oysters and martini I love.

Other than persistent and annoying tinnitus, my health remains good.


Jonathan

Hi Jonathan, I stopped by here on a whim as I'm now on the new wtf site and don't regularly check in here.

Congratulations on your marriage and on the successes of your children. Wow!

I'm retired now as well. My plan was to continue working until I reached 70 but the company went through a slow death and is now defunct. I was very lucky in that my full retirement age was 4 months out from when we first received word that my employer might be folding. Lucky for me, they stayed open for another six months getting me past my full retirement age. I'm glad it worked out this way as I'm really enjoying retirement.

I recall your beautiful red victorian house. Gorgeous. Sorry to hear you've had to set gardening aside. You were very good at it from the pictures I remember seeing.

All the best.

Geez, you guys are all retired? what a bunch of old geezers.

OK, actually I enjoy and appreciate the updates.

I sort of retired for the third time at the end of last year, but I’m still working a day or two a week as a board member, which includes flying back to California once a month.

Other than that, I go to my ukulele groups, French classes, the gym, and avoid reading the newspapers these days. Why French classes? My oldest son moved to France almost 3 years ago now and plans to stay there permanently. I thought it’d be fun to learn something new but my brain isn’t totally agreeing with the idea yet.

thanks for the update Jack!

You need to come over to the new WTF forum - that’s where we are all hanging out now.

https://wtf.coffee-room.com/

quote:

Originally posted by Bernard:
Hi Jonathan, I stopped by here on a whim as I'm now on the new wtf site and don't regularly check in here.

Congratulations on your marriage and on the successes of your children. Wow!

I'm retired now as well. My plan was to continue working until I reached 70 but the company went through a slow death and is now defunct. I was very lucky in that my full retirement age was 4 months out from when we first received word that my employer might be folding. Lucky for me, they stayed open for another six months getting me past my full retirement age. I'm glad it worked out this way as I'm really enjoying retirement.

I recall your beautiful red victorian house. Gorgeous. Sorry to hear you've had to set gardening aside. You were very good at it from the pictures I remember seeing.

All the best.

Thanks Bernard.

Well, I will be retired as of summer of 2026, at age 69, about to turn 70 two months later. Then I will begin to collect social security, unless Musk has destroyed it by then. My wife is already retired, though she may go back to part time work in the future as long as it doesn't tie her down to a fixed schedule.

Congratulations, Jack Frost.
Thanks for sharing your many good news!

Life sounds good, Jack.

Coincidentally last night Mr Pique and I embarked in our first weekly date night. We went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant and had a grand time. Came home and it felt like we'd been on vacation. So... good suggestion!

I only landed here today by accident--touched the old icon for the link to WTF out of habit. Hope to see you at the new location.

I'm mostly on the other site now, too, although I read more than I talk.

Quirt and I moved to the NYC suburbs last summer, and the decision to do that was a planned slide into retirement for both of us, to varying degrees. He's still working remotely 24/7 for a Manhattan law firm, but now he can take the train on those rare occasion when it makes sense to be there in person, as he's doing tomorrow. We chose the town for that reason, but also because it will be a nice place when we do retire. Muffin is easily reachable by public transportation, and so are fun things in the city.(On the spur of the moent, we decided to take the train in saw a great Broadway play on Saturday, for example. One of the Quirtlets is in Boston, as is my sister. His mother is just over an hour away. It's a good spot for us.

I'm retiring from the university this summer after ten years, but I'll still be writing books. I've picked up a nice micro-gig running a book group at The Center for Fiction that this spring. I'm hoping they will want me to do more of that in the future, and I'm also hoping to line up more speaking engagements, writing workshops, and such, so if you know people looking for that, point me in their direction.

But I'm also hoping to learn how to do leisure better. A community choir and a tai chi class meets literally across the street. I've joined a writers' group. But I also have a book proposal out and three more in process, so we'll see.

I'd edit that post for typos, if I could get the cleverly hidden edit button to work.