Old To Learn
Thursday. An overcast cool to cold morning with breakfast at the usual place, the head pretty good, so believe me: no complaints. The sun is due later and I've got a lunch date with a half dozen or so of my old co-workers around noon. Good. I've heard stories of change (the fairly new company CEO has recently been summarily replaced) and rumors of the acquisition of another company similar to ours with a resulting restructuring that will put everybody out on the street. The usual gloom and doom, in other words. Keeps the conversation going over lunch. Keeps old farts like me marginally capable of carrying on a conversation in polite company, a skill I suspect, given my loner habits, I will have to work at in any years to come.
You talk too little or too much?
Both. It depends on which is less appropriate at the moment.
Later. An easy enough bus ride downtown and back, eleven of us for lunch at Le Cheval, a popular restaurant in the area for the fourteen years I've been in Oakland, although not one where any of us tend to eat very often for reasons not altogether clear. High ceilings (good), a large crowd (noon and night, no problem), a reasonably good and unique Vietnamese menu (good) and the company of nine young (well, younger) women and one other guy. I consider this a balanced table and I hugged more women this afternoon (in greetings and goodbyes) than I have since I was five.
Get a life.
So, yes, the old CEO resigned this month. Yes, the new CEO, headquartered in Singapore, worked in Oakland for much of the time I was with the company, please pass the salt. Ms. R is looking good, now seven and a half months along; Ms. Y is seeing the outsourcing of her job written on all the walls and is looking forward to retirement (“How's retirement?” Just fine. “You swine!”); Ms. A has moved another notch up the management chain and displays the proper managerial demeanor; Ms. T's mother is not doing well, I'm afraid, but seeing and enjoying friends for the time that remains and, well, life is moving along.
And that's it?
I took a run to the grocery store later and discover, in these early evening hours, that Humus, crackers and peanut butter consumed in the same sitting might not be the best combination for one's stomach. You're never too old to learn.
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