Hi Donna, good to see you back.
My condolences on the loss of your father and other family members. I’m also sorry to hear of your job loss and hoping that another opportunity opens up for you.
I am now an empty nester as S is a college freshman. D has graduated, is still in living in the city and getting married this fall. I am still boring!
Welcome back!
Sorry to hear about the loss of your beloved father.
Donna, have missed your voice on various threads. So sorry to hear about your dad. I lost my mom a little over a year ago. I hope you can find work that keeps mind and body content. Glad to hear your S is doing well!
Sorry about your dad’s death but so wonderful that he was able to see the award and program while he was still coherent and knew that his work was appreciated! That must have made him so happy and fulfilled!
Yes, it is challenging to reinvent ourselves later in our live. I created a nonprofit about age 50 and have been running it ever since. It is useful to have my background as an attorney, but I am tired of chasing grants and funding, so am not sure how much longer I will be doing this.
I hope things work out with your new apartment. Moving is a good time to weed things out, I understand. Best of luck to you as you move forward with your next, exciting chapter!
Both my kids have now graduated from college. S has been working on the East Coast and D is still healing and trying to find her niche in LA. We will see how things evolve. She is thinking she MAY go back to school, but I’ve encouraged her to try shadowing, volunteering, internining and some jobs to get a better sense of what she wants to pursue before deciding to be a student again.
It’s very nice to have you back here to chat. I am sorry for your loss and the loss of your position.
Both my parents passed away after missteps in the hospital. It is a horrendously stressful way to lose a close loved one. I am truly sorry.
Welcome back, DonnaL!
So sorry about your father.
Thanks again to all. I’ve now uploaded a photo of Ziggy to use as my avatar. He doesn’t always look this serious!
Kelsmom, my son isn’t entirely sure yet whether he wants to have an academic career – and wants to devote the next however many years to getting a doctorate – or go back to museum work (where it’s possible to get jobs without a doctorate), which is why he’s getting a master’s degree first and didn’t even apply to any Ph.D. programs. Right now he seems to be leaning towards continuing on to a doctorate, but he can still change his mind. His field of interest is contemporary art, specifically photography, although we’ve been talking a lot recently about how much he likes a course he’s taking on Medici Florence, and how if he could live his life over again he might want to become a Renaissance scholar. His professor even said to him a couple of weeks ago, “I wish I could steal you for the Renaissance.” (Of course, my son is almost 25, so in his opinion it’s far too late to change!)
Glad to see you back, DonnaL! Hoping to hear your opinions on a wide variety of subjects.
It’s a great community of people here.
I’m also sad to hear about your fathers passing.
Good to see you again DonnaL, and sad to hear about the abrupt and painful end to your father’s life.
I have been thinking of you for the past several months as a young person in our life has started the journey that you spoke of so eloquently here. You have always provided wisdom and perspective here, whatever the topic. Glad that you have found a new home and that your son is doing what he loves.
Sigh, no grand babies in sight for us either. At least here I can admit to being envious of my friends’ new generations.
Hi Donna!!! So glad to see you back! I’m glad to hear your S is doing so well, but sad to hear of the loss of your father. I often think of you when I’m in the town you lived in before in NJ; I used to think I might encounter you in the County Park that abuts your town and mine.
Since you were gone, the big news at our place was that my D got married, and my S, who dropped out of Columbia years ago, finally went back and graduated. Not a grandma yet; hoping for good news from D in the hopefully near future.
Anyway, glad to see you again, and I hope you hang around a while. 
Welcome back. I remember ‘hearing’ from you on past posts.
So sorry about your dad.
I can completely relate to looking forward to being a grandmother. I have two married children but neither seems to be making any strides in that direction. I do enjoy the pics on FB of the grandchildren of my dearest friend.
We get to “meet” Ziggy! What a great looking kitty!
Donna, it’s good you’re back. I didn’t realize you’d been gone that long, as time goes so fast. I echo everyone else’s sentiments about your loss, and congratulations to your son. He must be very bright and motivated.
As far as your move, have you considered doing some sort of apartment sharing? Though I know it can be challenging to live with other people, if the others are gone a lot, or there is plenty of private space, it can be very nice. Certainly a friendly, quiet person might be easy to share with. The cost of an apartment in NYC is so high, I can’t imagine having to pay an entire year’s rent up front. What if you find a job outside of NYC? Have you considered looking in different parts of the country?
Welcome back DonnaL. It’s funny, but I had been thinking about you recently. I think I was thinking about people who use to regularly post on CC. You often brought a different view to some issues!
Sorry about your Dad. Losing a parent is always hard. But suddenly is more difficult. But it sounds like he had a good long run.
Hi, busdriver. Time definitely goes fast, but it’s definitely been about a year and a half since I was last here. (I did a search for my last post, and it was in mid-2013 – I actually thought it had been longer.)
I’m a New York lawyer for life, I’m afraid; I’m not admitted to practice anywhere else, and the main thing I really have going for me (as a commercial and employment litigator) is my knowledge of, and many years of experience with, New York law and procedures. It isn’t like being, say, a doctor and moving to another state – unlike medicine, laws and procedures really do differ from state to state!
I don’t like having to pay a year’s rent up front either, but it’s really my only option given that I can’t meet the “40x monthly rent” requirement that all the landlords/management companies in this city impose. And I haven’t shared a residence with anyone that I wasn’t either married to or the parent of, since I was in college. So, bleh! It did briefly cross my mind, but I’m much too old (and way too anti-social!) to be willing to do that, plus, even if I were willing, I’d have to pay quite a bit extra every month to put most of my possessions in storage. Besides, the one- and two-bedroom apartments I’ve been looking at in this neighborhood are considerably less expensive than they would be if they were located 100 blocks or so south of here: between $2000 and $2500/month (which I’m sure sounds like a lot to people in some other cities!) instead of $3500-$4000. So it’s doable for me, and the way I look at it, once I make the advance payment, then for that entire year I’ll be able to think of myself as effectively living “rent-free”!
Also, to generate some additional cash, I’ve decided to sell a portion of a coin collection I accumulated almost 30 years ago (before I was married, so I got to keep it all in the divorce). That portion is currently with one of the major New York coin dealers for an appraisal, so I should know soon how much it might bring at auction if I consign it. At least as much as one year’s rent, I hope, and possibly considerably more.
BunsenBurner, Ziggy accepts your compliment, and reciprocates for your two kitties! You might be able to tell from the photo that he’s a tabby (who’s way more orange in real life than he looks in the picture), but you certainly can’t tell how big he is. When I first moved here, he was exploring the corridor on my floor, and some guy came out of his apartment, did a double take when he saw him, and said “what is that???” As if Ziggy were a bobcat or maybe a mountain lion! When he was younger, he used to be able to jump so high he could touch the top hinge on my front door. But he’s been getting not only older but somewhat portly, and can’t do that kind of thing anymore. I stopped giving him between-meal “treats” a few weeks ago – no matter how much he begs, and no matter how mad at me he gets – and I think he might have lost some weight already.
Yes, Ziggy is one handsome cat! I love orange tabbies!
It is really hard to tell that the cats in my avatar are so different in size! The big boy is 16 lb and is a ball of muscle with just a hint of a kitty “beer belly.” His sister, OTOH, weighs about one half of his weight and is very petite and elegant. She likes to be held and carried around like a baby She can jump so high that it looks like she can fly! They both gained weight since they came to the US despite being fed strictly rationed meals and (almost ) no treats.
I also have a “resident” white cat who does not like the newcomers. Sigh… She is old, fat, and really grumpy.
So glad to hear that your son is thriving.
Ziggy has always loved being held and carried around like a baby, sometimes for as long as half an hour at a time, or more. Which gets a little tiring, given how big he is and how small I am!
I need to figure out how to upload my kitty. Donna, I remember when you were moving from New Jersey, your books were quite the haul! The thought of you having to pack all those up again is crazy. Will you have friends or movers to help?