old farts at lunch

Well, maybe Hope and Barbara are not old farts, but we are all old enough to remember the days of paid journalism. Hope told us that at People magazine writer/reporters are required to produce a story every 45 minutes now. What! We used to get weeks! And new hires are presumably paid pennies. The years of the $5-a-word free-lance story are obviously over as well.

  Hannah used to say that old people talked about the weather and when the mail would come. (As an aside, the mail hasn't come here for a week.) Now that I am old, I see that we talk a lot more about our ailments and our friends who have died and how much the internet has changed everything and the bad shape the world is in. Barb said she feels like she is telling people to be careful and call to say they are OK too much. 

   But Ralph is living his best life—finally able to travel and write instead of booking travel for writers. He took a giant round-the-nation train trip, with many a whistle stop for lunch or to take pictures and plenty of stories to tell afterwards. So there's a cure for old fartism: Start something new!

   Oh, and BTW, we had to show proof of vaxing even to sit outside.