Old Home Week, The Curse of Tolkien's Elves, and Moving On.

 I find myself back here very infrequently, but likely to be here more often in the coming months.  2024, for better or worse has been a year of change, some planned, some not. Most good, some not so good, but change none the less. Change is something I do not always relish. I have always found it hard to let go of times, places, people. I can make decisions and I can move on, but the tendency to stay the course is strong in me. Not sure if that is always a good thing, but it is a thing.  

So it is no surprise that a  year of big changes would be unsettling.  This year my youngest graduated from High School and now is safely ensconced in the BFA acting program at Penn State. Somewhat ironic, I was born and raised in central Pennsylvania, and apparently moved to the west coast, built a life and raised a family only to have my youngest back in Happy Valley, only 90 minutes from where I was born. 

Of course, that means we are empty nesters... and for the first time in 38 years I do not have a child at home. Something of an adjustment. This same year I was "retired" from my career of 23 years doing a job I created and came to love with people that I cared and still care for greatly. Not to be outdone, my wife had her contract paid out at her employment. So we both arranged to lose jobs this year. 

If you want more change, at the same time an old friend and boss immediately offered me a job at his very successful startup, so 17 years later I am back with my old team ( and a lot of them) at a new yet very familiar firm. I think I was actually unemployed for a day or so. Strange how that happens, I have lost two jobs in 50 years and both times was back to work in less than a month. Some skill, much luck. None to little Grace.

And do not cry for us, in both cases we were well taken care of by the firms and we have done well enough and are actually able to retire. Had been talking about it. It just is that it was forced upon us before we were ready. 

Hence the old home week. For me this new job is really like old home week, I am working with seven people I last worked with over 17 years ago and it is like it was yesterday. Of course, there are new people  too and I like all of them. This is not the "next step" in my career, given that in a week I turn 65. No, this is a chance to help out some old friends and stay in the game a bit longer till I can go on my own terms. 

The curse? Anyone who has read The LOTR and pondered even for a moment on the elves understands that the ones in middle earth were in their twilight. They were immortal, but they had their time. The elves had stopped having children or doing anything new. They were preserving, enjoying and remembering. Sounds an awful lot like some visions of retirement. Tolkien said as much, and that fact explains Arwen's choice. She loved Aragorn, yes, but she also did not want the twilight. She wanted the dawn again. She got it, as the appendix tells, but of course at a price. 

This thought struck me hard one day as I was driving down to work. Side note, we are actively contemplating relocating to the east coast next year to be closer to the majority of my kids, grand kids and family. We will probably buy the dream retirement house and craft a life there. More snow and cold, but with everyone in driving range, it seems the right move. It feels right. 

Back to the drive, as I was barreling down 101 with the rest of the commuting minions it struck me that at this moment, I have become the elf. I am preserving, remembering and enjoying, but not really doing anything new. That is a problem, since I am not immortal and I cannot take ship to the undying West. I have this time, before me, to use as best I can. To talk of after is in the realm of religion and God, and that is a much different question and discussion. for now, I need to grapple with what life is and will be. 

It is clear to me that just being the elf has its attractions, but I am not sure it is the right answer for me. Just chugging along at a corporate job is also not the answer. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying what I am doing now, but I know that it is also short lived. 

So that is the question. It is time to move on. Not today, but I am in that stage. I cannot stand still, I cannot go back, and I do not just want to sit on a porch or couch with my memories and a beer. 

What to do. 

And I spoke too fast.

 An old song that was some rock star’s speech  at his daughter’s High School Graduation once again has come back to haunt me. The line I always remember is “ don’t worry, it is never what you worry about. It always is something that comes out of left field at 5:00 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon”. That is how life changing news seems to come for me. One last great day, usually a weekend. Then at an odd hour, usually on a Monday or a Tuesday, it hits. That is how I found out my first startup was getting shutdown. That is how I found out my ex was going to leave me as she exited rehab. That is how I found out that my ex had tried to kill herself and that I needed to head right over, cross the bay and snag my daughter with her and bring her into my new home with my new wife and our new baby. 

And that is how I found out my current employer was letting me go. 

Yep, 1:00 pm Monday my boss, out of kindness, gave me a  heads up. 11 am Tuesday we have the official meeting where, after 23 years, I was declared redundant. 

I should beware Tuesday. 

Now to be fair,  they are taking care of me, and it is what I would have expected if I was retiring. To  be even more fair, my wife and I have been both very successful and smart, so we are in great shape. Do not cry for me Argentina, we will be more than fine.

And finally, it is not like I did not see the possibility coming. I am really good at what I do, and I am very well respected, and also, given my situation, for a certain kind of firm, I am an obvious target for this kind of thing. Not going into too many specifics, I can certainly look at an org structure and locations and see how things can play out. They say work hard to work yourself out of a job and good things will come, but in some cases all that comes is a pink slip.

So I have been expecting something like this at some point. Frankly it is a bit of a miracle that I have dodged this particular bullet for so long. Still, it did seem that I was going to be able to time my own exit, and I would be lying if I said I was not both a bit annoyed at the way it was done and somewhat startled. I expected, even signaled ,that if this became something the firm wanted there were adult conversations to be had and a graceful exit. I am a professional. 

So of course, the question now is, what do I do? 

I have time, actually a lot. I have talked to my wife and I have been reaching out to a lot of people. One thing that is clear, going for a new full time job is probably not in the cards. I have one friend that may want me to come on board at his firm. He has a specific need that is up my alley and I know him and his team and they know me. I have never consulted, but there are some opportunities there. Frankly it may make more sense to consult and help people who need my experience. It would be a lot of work and hustle, but several people have indicated this is a solid path for someone retiring but wanting to stay busy. 

Or I could just retire and focus on hobbies and charity. Maybe. Not sure about that. 

Part of me wants to keep bringing in money and have my own little firm… and when I go it will be on my own terms. Part of me would like to try that and see if it could become something greater and really go out with a bang. None of me wants to just saw wood and garden and start drawing on the nest egg. 

But another part knows that might just be what has been dealt.

Another thought. Ever since I left the Navy, this has been the sword over my head. Practically every year or at least every two years, for the past 34, there has been a layoff or a purchase or a restructure and some how I was potentially in the cross hairs. Yes I dodged it, and thrived, but the angst of being under that pendulum has taken its toll. If I am going to do something, it needs to be enough of mine that no one, save Our Lord, can arbitrarily take it away at 5:00 pm on a random Tuesday afternoon.

The last thing. A final part  me wants to dig in and understand why this happened. But I know that is futile. I may get some answers, but not sure what if any of that is truth. It was always going to end in some version of this. I think playing the what if and woe is me game is a waste of life. 

Learn. Move on, make lemonade.

Pacific Storms

 I am a circumnavigator. Not the "I took a jet to Delhi and then flew back via the pacific" kind (thought I have done that too),  but a real live took a ship around the world kind. Did it on the USS Texas CGN-39 back in the early 80's. Wound up spending a lot of time in the Pacific, not just then but on subsequent deployments with the fleet. God blessed member of the Order of Magellan. Then I spent the last 34 years of my life living out here in the Bay Area. Bottom line, a lot of my life has been in, around or right next to the Pacific. If you grew up inland, or on the gulf or the east coast, it is hard to get your head around just how vast that stretch of water really is, and just how much it drives the climate, and the life, of those in it and next to it.  Maybe I am waxing a bit mystical here, and some climate scientist will want to debate, but for me it's existence has always felt huge, insanely powerful and all together a much more impressive beast than the Atlantic. 

The last two years we have seriously felt it. Last year was one for the record books for storms, rain and even snow, all courtesy of vast storms spinning off the coast. This year, while it started slow, is no different and as I write this there is the second of two huge storms driving atmospheric rivers smashing into the west coast. But we cannot complain, because with out them, CA would be all desert. 

Tonight I am home alone with the dog. My wife and youngest are off on a 10 day forced march of final auditions for 20 some BFA musical theater college programs. The youngest, who was a munchkin when I first wrote in this blog, has grown up to be a very talented, brilliant and beautiful young woman, HS senior. She is a triple threat, sings, dances and acts. I would be with them, but one of us has to keep the fort and the dog. There is one final audition at the end of Feb back east, I will be the duty parent for that one. 

How the time has flown. 

Tonight I spent some time reading through my old blogs. I have, at one point or another, kept three, including this one. I also had a blog-ish set of Facebook posts, during and after the pandemic. They cover almost 20 years, though very intermittent. Clearly I write when I am inspired by life, usually when most challenged, and put it aside when the need to process becomes lesser than the need to get on with things. What is the old saw, there are those who do, those who write, those who teach and those who critique?  I mostly do, and write when I need, but as soon as the need is gone I get back to the doing. 

Much has happened in 20 years, mostly all good. My oldest is married with kids (yes I am a granddad), the next one is newly married and pregnant (about to be a granddad again). The middle girl is grown up and working as a therapist in Boston. And now the youngest is auditioning for BFA, finishing up High School and next year off to college, probably back east. I am only a few years from retirement (well earned and comfortable) and my wife is working her last gig, and with luck will also be ready to be done when I am. 

So now what? Realistically, we have another almost year of getting the youngest launched into University, and that is our focus. But it is becoming clear that this phase of our lives is coming to a close and a new one is about to begin. We have some ideas, moving closer to the bulk of the kids and family, which implies leaving CA for the other coast. Having more time for each other and less stress around being primary parents while learning to enjoy being parents of adults and grandparents. Beyond that, hard to say. I am sure that every parent goes through this, though in our case we are facing two things at the same time, empty nest and retirement. I think most get to do this in two steps, at least my parents did. Lots of existential questions around both, and now both happening at the same time. 

Also, all my previous life changes had aspects of bad (something bad happened, like a divorce) and something good (finding a new partner, starting a new life in a new place). Or losing a job and finding a new job and career. This time, there really is no bad driving me or us. Yes, it will be weird having the youngest move out, but it is part of a great next phase for her, and it is not like she is exiting our lives. One things about this time is that there is really nothing external driving us, change is happening and we can move with it as we want to, in our own time. 

Of course, for a task based guy like me, maybe that is the hard part, or at least the part that gives me pause. Usually, life has driven me to moves and decisions, actions that were  clear and related to choices I had to make. This change will be based entirely on what we want to do, not on what we have to do to get what we want. For a guy who is primarily externally motivated, that is different. 

So for tonight, nothing bad. Yes there is a storm swinging in from the vast Pacific, but the house is on solid high ground, it is well maintained with very good drainage. It will rain, and it will pass, and the garden will be very happy. Change is coming again, but it is of the good kind. We are solid, we are in great health and well positioned for anything that comes. We just need to figure out what we want for the next 20  or 30 years. 

Finally, a life change that is not an existential crisis. 

Boston

 It is one of those cities I have found myself in over the years. Visited here when I was in college, visited with fellow officers when I was in Newport RI at Surface Warfare School. Visited an old girlfriend when I was at Prototype. Came here some times on business, because as we used to say, we could only sell something if we got on a plane to the east coast (as opposed to the Silicon Valley, where we resided). When it came time for Charlotte to go to college, she found Suffolk and then Leslie, and so spent her undergrad years here. I dropped her off and visited a few times. Then she came home for a while and then back for grad school.

So with a minor procedure in the works for her, I came out for the week to visit and help out. Yesterday she took me on the ghost tour bar hop that is her side gig, and I learned a lot about the haunted history of Boston. It was fun, even more so in that I could spend time with her. And like so many times in my life, here I sit in a coffee shop in a city with my own good company. In this case, waiting for her to be done, because with COVID I cannot really go up. The Dr. will call and I will go pick her up. Well, it is better than being masked in a waiting room. 

It is raining lightly and it is cold, very early December for the east coast. Yesterday was just cloudy and cold, the city decked in Christmas lights as we strolled round the sights and sounds of Beantown. This is my second surgery vacation, October was my mom’s eye surgery. I suspect this is one of the patterns of this stage of life, helping your young and single adult kids who still need family and your elderly parents, who are at the point where help becomes necessary. We are at the point where we are most able from a resource standpoint and still very hale. Not complaining, and very blessed, all of my family’s ailments are manageable 

My son and his family are moving to New Hampshire. Lots of reasons, all of them good. Seems the clan is migrating east. He landed a great house and a great job. Not surprising, really. CA is no longer the golden state, costs and crime and dysfunctional government, taxes and drought and fires, and a political class that really only cares for itself and cynical woke platitudes. As a point in fact, there is no human poop on the streets of Boston. 

Behind me is an interview in progress, something around brain tumors and a Prof and a kid. This coffee shop is medical central. The prof. Just shut this girl down, seems girl wants to study brain tumors and she is out of tumors and into nerves? I am glad to no longer be in that kind of entry process. Ugh.

Also, this prof is LOUD. I can clearly hear everything. We need to get her a Portable cone of silence.

Then again, this is interesting. In the past six months I have been experiencing intermittent pins and needles in my right hand and lower arm. I ignored it for a while, blaming some unknown trauma, but it may be time to have it checked out. I guess is it is a pinched nerve or some repetition damage from flying, well actually gripping the stick too hard. 

Not much else to report. The new drama in pandemic land is omicron, which seems to possibly be an example of overreaction and media “if it bleeds it leads” thinking. What is lost in the panic and noise is the statement by the South African Doctor who reported on this. She says it is new, but so far mild, and does not understand the panic reaction. I suspect we will see. Politics is a never ending goat rodeo, thanks to too many lunatics running the asylum. Trump may be nuts, but Biden is a perfect blend of arrogance, ignorance and incompetence as one can find. I cannot bring myself to comment on it, just as one never comments on a turd in a bowel. 

Butterfly Gardens

 Run walk today: 2.5 miles. Did 10 yesterday. I am getting back to serious mileage.

Beer of the day: The Therapist. Because we all need one.

I am shutting down my Facebook Chronicle and restarting this blog again, hopefull this time for good. The Chronicle is over, just like Cataphract Musings had an end, But this project has never really talked off, so let’s do the time warp again!

I ended Facebook for many reasons, but one was to purge the trolls. They may make their way over here, but hopefully not and with luck the readers that actually enjoyed my musings will follow. But if not, that is ok, in the end I write for myself.

This weekend I finished planting the butterfly gardens. Two patches and a tub. Good dirt, a large mixture of seeds of flowers for bees, hummingbirds and butterfly's and milkweed. Then I set up irrigation. With luck I will have a riot of plants come spring. 

The backyard is very Fall. The maples are red, pomegranate trees are yellow. It is warm enough to sit out in shirtsleeves, but you can feel the snap. Of course I also have no end of citrus and CA oak, so not the fall of Pennsylvania. 

My kids are migrating to the East Coast. My middle daughter is in Boston, my son and daughter in law just closed on a house in New Hampshire. So my grandkids will be New Englanders. Of course the youngest is still with us, and my oldest daughter is in San Diego. But I suspect the youngest will head to NYC for college, and the oldest will leave SD when her final studies are over. 

And my wife and I will probably leave once the youngest is gone, and we too will go back east. Maybe to the south to escape the winters, or maybe have two homes, a summer one close to the grandkids and one in the warmth for the winters. My beloved brother is back east, as are my beloved brother in laws. So it makes some sense.

California has no hold on me. The costs are insane, the politics are crazy. Fires, drought and floods. 

San Francisco was great, till the woke brought the crime and the poop and the tent cities… and a complete loss of logic. 

Sad.

The North Shore of Kauai

 Taking a well deserved vacation with the family. We have been to Hawaii many times and love it, but usually it has been the Big Island. This time we came back to Kauai and are staying on the north shore. It is beautiful, if windy. There are several sheltered beaches here, but the place where we are staying is full on in the trade winds. I can sit on the Lani in the wind and for me it is pleasant, but too much for the girls. Otherwise it is a great time, we have hit the beach and kayaked the river and today ia a surfing lesson for my daughter and wife. I plan to hang out at the beach and maybe run. 

We keep flirting with the idea of moving to Hawaii, just not sure about which island or if it really is a good idea. We love this place,  but actually we know no one and we have a lot of family that would be  very remote. It remains one of those decisions that keeps getting kicked down the road, at this point by the very real need to stay put till my daughter graduates from High School. Of course the never ending Pandemic school drama scrambles that. Had we known a year ago that we would be facing  a whole year in distance learning and a fall with masks, questions and union shenanigans I think we might have pulled up stakes and bailed back then. Problem is, both of us could work from anywhere in the continental US, but Hawaii would have been a stretch. 

Our last time in Kauai was down at Poipu and mostly south except for one day excursion north. This time we picked the north coast and a small condo resort west of Hanalel. It is much windier and rainier up here, but still wonderful. The landslide of last year has the road only open three times a day during the week, so we have stayed on the Hanalei side. There are two amazing beaches and we did a day hike on the Napali cost trail, which was spectacular, surfing lessons for the ladies and a Napali coast boat tour with snorkeling which was both spectacular (boating into sea caves, cliffs, dolphins) and insane (high speed return trip into the swells and driving rain). Kind of a four hour IRL Disney ride. We were able to get a table at the Bar Acuda restaurant, it was a special night out for the three of us. In general though, the little town is overrun and the restaurants are having a hell of a time finding help. Blame the exodus back home and the pandemic payouts, the small businesses are suffering. Otherwise it is takeout and cooking in the condo. 

Hawaii has done a good job of containing the plague. Cases are low and deaths very low. They do have masks indoors, but not out and given the climate it is not onerous. Also they have made it easier for visitors if you are vaccinated, so in their own way they have been incentivizing good practice. Really, except for the help shortage and what seems to be more people, it is like any other year. It seems that Maui is overrun, and of course prices have been jacked, especially on rental cars. My guess is that it will take another year to recover to 2019, but for now the business owners are bent on making up for lost revenue.

Next week schools start in person, thank God. We did attend the webinar from the school on reopening and next week, so feel prepared. Looking at the numbers in San Mateo county, the vaccination rate is over 90% above 12 years old. Cases came up, but not crazy and if I am reading the county data right are beginning to level off. My best guess is that it will begin to turn down and by September will be looking like the UK case crash. Blessedly, deaths are not tracking cases. Comparing that to areas with low vaccination rates and you have a perfect study on the importance and effectiveness of vaccinations. I am not a fan of the restriction and health order of the week game coming out of the bureaucracy, and I am somewhat unimpressed by the actual impact of this on the healthy, but frankly I can go with the flow on masking indoors if it makes the fearful feel better. So long as the schools remain full time in person. 

If the narrative seems a touch strange, this covers several days. I mostly write for myself, so not too concerned about the flow. Apologies to any readers. 

Last point.  I have been consuming mystery books, in this case the Sister Fidelma mysteries and a series about a young woman who is an agent of Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. I am thinking it is part of a need for escape, to either 6th century Ireland or Rome of the 4th century. The one set in Rome has me thinking about the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Empire almost collapsed and was put back together by Aurelian, then reformed into the Tetrarchy by Diocletian. And that gets me thinking about the Collapse of the Republic and the founding of the Principate under Augustus. Societies work until they do not, and then comes change, but not without death and destruction. The Romans lost their Republic and freedoms and traded it for a Principate that had an emperor who cited like he was just the fist citizen. Then they lost even that and wound up with an Emperor who was very much the despot. In no case did the clock run back to republicanism and greater civil rights. 

As I watch the shenanigans of the political and media class on both sides, I am reminded of the same. And I wonder. 

Post The Plague

 For almost 582 days of the COVID plague I kept a Facebook post blog, focused on my own thoughts, doings and local observations. I called it a Chronicle because it was patterned after the old monastic chronicles of the Dark and early Middle Ages. I had no intent or interest in a journalistic or footnoted history, simply a record of my point of view. It was followed by many of my friends, though as the pandemic subsided and people made it off their couches and backyard lounge chairs the following declined. It made sense when all of us were stuck at home and as the restrictions fell away with vaccinations, so did the readership and frankly my own motivation. 

So on June 15th I wrote my last post and put it to bed. Well, one post script a day later to cover things missed. And it was a wrap. I suppose, as I had before with a previous blog, it was my way to process a very strange and terrible time. 

Now that time is over. 

But to be fair, while the topic ran it’s course, I miss the process of public journaling. So I may try to restart here. The reality is motivation. To write I need a reason, and clearly it is not to eat. The day job handles that. I have kept this blog for many years, yet rarely post here. Perhaps I shall try to stick to it this time. 

Let’s see.