New Shoes in the Rain

Good morning, friends.  Back to work today after a wonderful stay-cation wherein our daughter and her family came home to Kentucky for a weeklong visit! While they were here they were working on a couple of things that required some followup and it occurred to me that they and a good number of others whom I know are in some sort of transition right now.  Here's a short list: I have a good friend who's getting married in about a month, and it's his first marriage (and he's 48!). Our daughter and her husband are selling their current house and buying a larger one, with all of the bustle and activity associated with that process. Our son is wrapping up summer term of his night law school classes and begins his third year of study in a few weeks. My mother-in-law just relocated from my brother-in-law's basement apartment into an assisted living community. A friend and business contact just left her job here in Lexington to return to her home area in western...

It's Monday here in Steam City, otherwise known as Lexington.  It's not even summer yet, and the weather here is already chronically humid and uncomfortable.  At least we're getting rain every few days to keep grass and plants healthy.... Had a couple of experiences last week that were worth noting.  Both involve meeting people, but in different contexts. The first was a complete surprise to me, as I got to visit with a former roommate, the last one I had before getting married, for the first time in better than ten years! He contacted me via LinkedIn to say that he was in town for a few days and asked if I'd be available to meet.  It turned out that I had some morning time free last Thursday, so we agreed to meet for coffee that morning. Here's a little background.  This guy had always wanted to live in Florida, and after I got married, he made good on that intention and moved to the Orlando area, if my memory is clear.  I heard from him occasional...

Happy Thursday to all.  Or, as I've been calling it, short-work-week Tuesday. This is my second consecutive three-day work week, which is great in some ways but challenging in others, namely in the area of scheduling appointments and such.  Now that I'm just about to get back to normal I'll have another week off after Father's Day! Those of you who have been visiting this space regularly will remember that in a past professional life, I used to travel by air.  A lot.  Like in three weeks out of five each month. And I frequently documented my experiences here, because, well, who else was I going to tell about interesting things that happened? So my air travel is much less frequent these days.  For my current job I've traveled by air a total of three times--once for orientation, and two more times for meetings.  But leisure air travel has become much less common for me, largely because I don't rack up frequent flier miles that can (allegedly) pay for ...