Dinner With Dan

Amazing that the day I write a post about Dan having sat in Cynthia's chair, he wrote to say that he has a job working for the EDD starting August 1. We met at his favorite bar to celebrate his new status. His new wife Karen is with him. They have been together for 20 years and finally decided in April to make it permanent. Seemed a little permanent to me before this. Dan sent me this picture of the wedding. I think it's a great shot of the two of them.

Dan was my age when he left The Times. I was curious about how one manages with a year's salary and Times Mirror retirement money. He had the disadvantage of getting his severence pay in a lump sum. This time they are extending salary for the duration of the severence. This works well for those of us who have a year's pay coming. It wasn't so good for short-timers. Their lump would have been nice, not like doubling ones salary in a year for tax purposes.

It sounds like the worst part of the early retirement has been no reason to get up and seize the day when you don't have a job to do. That could be a problem. I have lots planned, so I don't think that will be an issue. But I do have a 5 month period before I will be able to drive the north country to D.C. with my Karen. Holy Cow. I just realized that there is yet another Karen in these threads. That must have been a very popular name in the 40's and 50's. Hummm and 60's. Sorry KJ.

I know someone who doesn't want his name to be in my blog. Ok. I don't use last names anyway. But what if I couldn't use the name Karen? There would be a lot of Madam X's running around.

I'm thinking that I might like to work part time for Festival of Books. Glen says he might have a job that would involve being nice to picky authors. Hummmm. I've been dealing with picky people for a very long time. And yes, most of them write. Would I want to throw myself on that spear? Being nice! Doesn't anyone know how hard that is? ;-)