A Christmas time visit to New York City and a quick trip to Winterthur

Last weekend we went to NYC for a couple days. On Thursday we visited the Rubin museum which specializes in Asian art.  They had a fine exhibit of photos by Steve McCurry- mostly from India, which brought back pleasant memories. We had dinner with friends afterword at a fairly traditional Italian restaurant which was mediocre.  They had bad loud music, which they turned down on request, but then we could hear the sounds of a hammer-drill all too well.   As we were leaving we asked about the noise and they apologized but said they had was problems they had to fix that night.
On Saturday we visited Bryant Park which was full of shoppers due to the Christmas market there and the people skating on the ice rink set up there.  For the afternoon we saw "Charles III" on Broadway. It is an excellent show nominally about when Charles becomes king, but also about the monarchy and the parliamentary government system of the UK.
On Thursday of this week we drove down to Winterthur- near Wilmington, DE - to see the house and Christmas displays. We had been there around Christmas about 30 years ago!  We did not remember a lot about the place, so seeing some to the collection of American furniture again did not seem very repetitive.   Seeing all the Christmas decorations was fun too, but the weather outside was heavy rain, so it did not seem very much like Christmas.

Sinterklaas

Each year the village of Rhinebeck NY has a sort of festival that celebrates its Dutch heritage.  There is a short parade starting around 6 PM after the streets are closed off to traffic and it runs for an hour or so with a wide variety of cultures exhibiting some form of demonstration of how the season is celebrated. The event has become very popular and people come from all around to watch while also visiting the shops and restaurants in the town.  It was very chilly this year, but quite enjoyable.

A Thanksgiving day passes

We had guests for dinner on this Thanksgiving day that just passed. Fortunately, they did  half of the work, so it was more manageable and less stressful than it might have been.  While such occasions are supposed to be fun and joyful, they are often more stressful.
It continues to get colder and the days get shorter, but no real snow has fallen since October. This is good, but it does make it harder to feel like the Christmas season is upon us.  Today is "black Friday" when sensible people try to avoid going to any shopping district, but most people see it as a great opportunity to spend money. For retailers, this is good.
We had plans to spend a couple days in Boston and a couple days on Cape Cod two weeks ago, but Janet had a bad case of conjunctivitis and could not go. Before that plans feel apart for the two days on Cape Cod,  so Jim went alone and attended the Boston Book Fair show at the Back Bay Events Center.  This was fun - as usual- but not very profitable from a sales point of view and the post- show contacts and sales have not be great either.  Such has been the book business for many years now, but it sometimes has its bright moments.
The process of downsizing this year has consisted of selling our house on Cape Cod, donating a fair amount of good furniture to the Salvation Army and selling a variety of things collected on Craig's list.  Craig's list seems to have a number of people who follow it closely and contact people right away and many others who look once in awhile. Still, some things were listed a 2-3 months back and gathered no responses, but when re-listed, they got instant responses.  Hard to figure.
Since retiring from Jim's employer of 35+ years on June 30 and working for the new employer for just short of 5 months, his last official workday was Nov. 22- so now he is officially retired from the second company too.   Since the last Real work day of Oct. 9 the second company has laid off a number of people around the world and now there are rumors it may be sold to someone.... who?
All those still working may be having a difficult and stressful time trying to decide what to do.

6 Saturdays and a Sunday

The week now seems to consist of 6 Saturdays and one Sunday!  Without the need to drive to the office each day- most days now feel like Saturday.  

Week 3 and Halloween

It is now 3 weeks since the last day at work. The time goes pretty much as fast as it did before except that more of it is spent doing things we fell like we want to do rather than out of necessity. Of course, there is still plenty of time doing chores and looking into exciting things like health insurance! So far, Jim has no regrets about retirement.  Halloween was fairly uneventful, but we had dinner with some friends

Days 9 and 10 and Saturday

Thursday was expected to be somewhat busy and it was, but it turned out different from expected.  A few appointments and such ended up being canceled, but other things filled the gaps. In the evening we went with friends to see "Blaze 2015" at Van Cortlandt Manor in Westchester county, NY.  If you look at the Oct. 28 entry from 2008-  a week before we left for India- you will see a few pictures from the place then. This event has continued over the years and grown in popularity.  It is still remarkable. This time we could only get tickets for 9PM- last entry, but this worked out well as there were fewer people. It was warmer than the last time, but the bright moon made it less spooky.
Friday was day 10 and started with an early car maintenance visit and  then times was spent trying to use some new software on the new mac and then later time was spent doing an appointment from the previous day that was fouled up and then we had a pleasant lunch at a french restaurant.
Saturday was mainly spent traveling the NYC to see the Photo 2015 show. An Indian friend has taken up an interest in photography and so we decided to sign up and go together. Entry is free, but, they get your email address.  It is a large exhibit in the Javits center, and a but crowded, but not too bad by NY standards.  All sorts of photography equipment and supplies on exhibit.  It was interesting to see, but a bit overwhelming and tiring.  Traffic in the city was hectic as is pretty usual, but we managed. The trains have changed their weekend schedules from the past and were a bit less convenient. 

Days 6,7,8

Both of us started feeling ill on day 6- the past monday, but we decided to go ahead with  nice dinner at our favorite restaurant and then see "Bridge of Spies" with Tom Hanks.  The dinner was excellent and so was the movie!  We got home a little late- something we would not have done two weeks earlier with a work day the next day!  However, Jim did not sleep much that night and was quite sick with cold or flu all day the next day and well into the following day, so day 7 was lost and close to half of day 8 (today).    Jim took trash to the transfer station today rather than Sat, for probably only the 2nd or 3rd time in 30 years!  Because elections are coming up, the campaigners usually show up there on Sat. and slow things down, so going on Wed. avoids that!  Temperature have warmed bit, but it is clearly fall.  Jim is slowly getting used to using his new macbook and transferring files and such from his old computer. There are some interesting options around for being able to run windows on the mac too, but some of these sound easier than they probably are in reality.  Software upgrades would probably be needed as well.  

Day 5 plus snow!

Friday Oct. 16 was day 5 of being retired! it was not all that eventful, but the time went by fast!
Our friend Kathy and Janet were picked up at the train station after 2 days in NYC and then we had dinner.  Kathy left early on Sat.  and we decided to ride on one of the rail trails in the afternoon. While we were both tired, we did quite a lot.  It ruined quite cold overnight and on Sunday we got a little snow! Snow in October is fairly rare, but has occurred in the past- the worst was in 1987 when we had around 10" of heavy wet snow- since it was early Oct. the trees still had their leaves so may suffered terrible damage- as did the electrical lines!  Our electricity was off for 6 days- some people were out for 2 weeks.  Anyway, in this case it was just a reminder of what may be coming!  We had a nice walk in the afternoon, but it was cold!  It was below freezing again over Sunday night, but Monday is bright and clear, though still rather cold.
There is plenty of work to do sorting out how to get the new macbook Fully operational!  This is day 6- since we only count work days.

Day 4

It is still hard to get used to the idea of not needing to get up in the morning and going to a particular place each day.  This day involved going to the train to drop Janet off, then going to  doctor appointment that may not have been all that useful - except that Jim learned that his doctor of 30 years is retiring at the end of the year!   next was a trip to a jeweler to get a new battery in my watch - something that might have taken a couple weeks to do in the past.   Then came a trip to an electronic store where a new laptop was purchased. The old one is showing signs of failing soon, so a new one is needed.  This one is a macbook. The setup, so far seems easier than the old laptop, but it still seems unnecessarily tricky with different accounts needing to be created and then it being unclear which password goes with which account!   In any case, al this is related to the changes that have been brewing for a long time.  

Day 3

this is the end of the third day of not having to go into the office!  It is strange not having that daily task to look forward to- or to dread- as the case may be.  Today was spent showing a friend some sights in the area- it was fun to go to some places we have not seen in many years and to have lunch out of the office or house when weather is also cooperative.

Nov. 2013 to date

 2013 ended with news that Jim's company would be selling his division to another company,  which, after so many years meant retiring from the old one and going to work for the new one.   This lead to lots of speculation about what the future would hold.  We decided to cancel our nearly 5 week trip planned to Australia and Indonesia for Feb. 2015.   
In November Ziggy disappeared from a friends house in CT while Janet was taking he and Zoe to Cape Cod.  After posting signs, speaking to neighbors and putting out a pet lost alert one of the neighbors there caught him and took him inside and Janet went to get him.  He seemed non- the worse for wear, but later showed intestinal problems that have taken awhile to clear up- we can only guess what he ate!   People advised us to put his carrier outside the place where he stayed and leave some food, but we thought this was more likely attract a raccoon than Ziggy, but it worked- the neighbor caught him when he was by the carrier and food.
This year started with a visit to the same friend in CT- who is up in years now and forgetful and then with Janet flying off to Florida and then to Cuba for a week. She enjoyed it and the stayed in Florida for a couple more weeks to miss some of what turned out to be a rough winter with below average temperatures and above average snow. We got about 60" of snow, but felt lucky it wasn't worse since at least 2 storms were predicted to drop  at least a foot more than we got!  The Boston Area got what we just missed.  When we managed to get to Cape Cod in Early March we decided it was time to sell the house there.  The cost of maintaining two places and the driving time were part of the decision, but the changing neighborhood there, and, in particular one neighbor who liked to have parties, finally made us decide.  The place had a great location and real estate prices came back up there, so the place ended up selling for what we paid after realty commissions were subtracted.   We spent a couple months moving thing out and to the main home and we left many things for the new owners and donated alot.   So far we don't have any major regrets.
On July 1 to tranfer of Jim's job took place.  In Sept. the new company said there are money problems and offered "buy outs" to all the U.S. employees which were attractive to many who had already planned to leave around the end of 2015.  Jim decided to take it as well and retire from the business and focus on hobbies like travel and photography.   Oct. 9 was his last day of reporting to the office.
It is now "day 2" (not counting the weekend) of not having to go to the office.  He reports that it feels good, but a little disorienting after so many years.
The fall colors in NY are pretty much at peak where we stand- it is always beautiful, but also a reminder of the short, cold days to come.

Updates for 2013-2014

Its been quite awhile since we updated here- we've been busy!  In Mid 2013 Janet had back surgery from which she recovered fairly well.  Zoe had an apparent blood clot on her left front side in Sept. 2013, but with medication that she still gets she has been doing very well and showing no signs of disability.   In Sept. 2014 we made a trip back to Bangalore and then one to Sri Lanka- A place that is only a 1 hour flight from Bangalore, but we never had time to visit while in BLR.  It was great to see BLR again and many familiar places looked the same or at least similar.  Our trip to Sri Lanka was interesting, but the humidity was oppressive in most places. We started in Colombo for a couple nights and then went to the area around Sigiriya to a very nice place for 4 nights.  We took day trips from here to see various places and enjoyed ourselves, but the oppressive humidity limited what we did.  We mostly visited ancient sites.   We went on to Kandy and then the hills and found wonderful Batiks.  In the hills it was cool, but rather isolated-  the drive there at night was scary in the fog and rain. We moved to the southeast coast to stay near a national park, but it was closed- until a day after we left. We hoped to see leopards, but did not, however we did see elephants, crocodiles and many birds, so it was pleasant.  We stayed at a couple places along the southwest coast and enjoyed that- except for the humidity.  We had dinner with friends of friends from BLR one night which was great fun.  Overall we liked Sri Lanka- it is developing rapidly after the end of their civil war, which happened while we were living in BLR.   The country is not so densely populated as India, so that was a major difference- and it is much more heavily Buddhist. 
For Sri Lanka we arranged to have a car and driver- guide who was generally pretty good and very helpful.
We had a plan to go to Indonesia in Feb. 2015, but canceled that due to reasons that will be written soon.