Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Inlaws' Anniversary Trip Journal #5
Harrisburg, PA - Sat, 9 Nov 2024, 2pm

Today my inlaws celebrated their 60th anniversary, and my father-in-law's 85th birthday, for the 3rd or 4th time this week. I mean, why not celebrate it a few times? 60 is a huge number. As FIL has pointed out, getting to his 85th birthday only required living. Staying happily married for 60 years took work.

Today's celebration was at their house of worship. Almost all the family and friends who were at the party at the house last night were also at services this morning. Unsurprisingly, almost all their relatives and close friends are Jewish, or at least born Jewish and now secular, or— in my case— never Jewish but familiar enough and comfortable enough with the faith after sharing a roof with Jewish people for so many years that I am willing to attend their services with camaraderie and respect. The rabbi mentioned their 60th anniversary several times during the services, several of us in the family did short readings at the front, and afterwards the whole congregation joined us for a kiddush luncheon. (My inlaws sponsored the meal, so there was good food there. And champagne, too. 🥂)

A few things struck me about the Jewish service, in the vein of cultural differences. First, compared to my upbringing in the Catholic faith, Jewish services run on an informal schedule. People drift in at various times over the course of an hour, and when as arrive they tend to make a bit of a hubbub saying hello to the friends they take seats next to. In the Catholic church, you arrive on time or everyone stares daggers at you as you make the walk of shame to your seats, and you shut the fuck up. Once in the nave you speak only when instructed and you stick to the script.

The second thing that struck me was the age demographic. My inlaws' Jewish congregation is old. Aside from a few of us visitors (me, Hawk, her brother) who are still under 60, probably 90% of the regular attendees were 70+. OMG, looking around the nave it was like god's waiting room.

This probably isn't so much a Jewish vs. Catholic thing probably as a now vs. then thing. Younger people are less religious than older generations. Plus, as Hawk pointed out to me, the services are simulcast over a Zoom link. Probably younger families with kids are more likely to watch from home than deal with the hassle of bundling all the kids into the car and staying at the temple for 2 hours.

This morning we're headed off to Pennsylvania to celebrate my in-laws' 60th anniversary.

At first we weren't going to make this trip. They're not making a big fuss of the celebration, just having a luncheon at their house of worship after morning services. "You don't have to come," MIL told us. "We'll see you a few weeks later at Thanksgiving anyway."

That logic— not to go— seemed reasonable. Hawk accepted it. I didn't quite. So while Hawk figured we wouldn't go, I started quietly booking flights anyway. The tickets were refundable so there was no downside.

Why was I quietly making plans to go anyway, even though MIL told us she didn't expect us to come? Because a 60th anniversary is a big thing. Most people don't get that far. And I remembered my parable of the red bowl. 60 is a big number, and there may not be a 61. My grandparents in the parable didn't even make it to their 40th anniversary. Treasure the time you have with your elders.

I shared this thinking with Hawk last week. "I'll call mom and see if she wants us to come," Hawk suggested.

Hawk called on the phone. "So, Mom, with you and Dad's anniversary next week, we were thinking—"

That's as far as Hawk got. Her mother had already broken down in tears on the phone. Tears of joy.

We finished booking our tickets after that call, and now we're off to the east coast.

I'm starting a short series of blog posts about the ballot propositions on my ballot this year. "Props", as we call them for short, are often thought of as a California thing, though they're part of the process in a number of other states as well. It's worth taking a close look at props each cycle because they can be complex; more complex, say, than choosing whether to vote for Candidate A or Candidate B.

How are propositions complex? I mean, you just vote yes or no, right? For one, there are 3 types of ballot propositions with different rules and different impacts. Two, propositions may be poorly written or purposefully deceptive, among other problems. By the way, you can't let this complexity cause you to throw your hands up in disgust and vow to vote "No" on all of them. Due to the way the different types of props work, some of them will actually block or even reverse an act of the legislature if a majority of the people vote No,

This year there are a whopping 10 statewide ballot props plus several local props in my area. I'll start with the statewide props in numerical order, outlining a few per blog.This will take several days, so it's good I'm starting now! By the way, this isn't just altruistic. This is me doing my own research and me articulating my argument for or against to be confident my reasoning is sound.

Prop 2: Bond for Public School & Community College Facilities: Yes.

For this prop as with all the others the first source of information I'm checking is the California Secretary of State's Voter Information Guide | Propositions. This measure "Authorizes $10 billion in general obligation bonds for repair, upgrade, and construction of facilities at K-12 public schools (including charter schools), community colleges, and career technical education programs, including for improvement of health and safety conditions and classroom upgrades."

Years ago, when I was younger and less sophisticated in my understand of political economics, I looked at measures like this and scoffed, "Why does the state just pay for needed work? It seems like every year there's more bonds, extending payments out 30+ years. Why not just pay today for the stuff we need, today?"

Alas, that's not the reality of how the state's budget works. It would be nice if it were, but it's not. The only choice we have is pay this way, or let our schools continue to fall apart, worse.

I like to invest in our schools. Schools are an investment in our shared future. Schools educate the next generation, who'll help support us and help govern us in the future. Schools are also an investment in our economy. Good schools equal good local economies because people and companies want to locate here.

Another thing younger-me would've scoffed at is the fact that this measure is Put on the Ballot by the Legislature, as the voter information guide notes in bold and italic. "Why didn't the legislature just... y'know... legislate... this instead of sending it to us?" younger-me sneered. And that's why it's important to understand How California Ballot Propositions Work. This bond measure had to be approved by a super-majority of the legislature first, then it also has to be approved by the voters.

You can thank the anti-tax zealots for that process, BTW. And incidentally, those same anti-tax zealots also construct the deliberately false arguments yammering about, "Why didn't the legislature just... y'know... legislate... this instead of sending it to us?" that younger-me fell for years ago.

Prop 3: Constitutional Right to Marriage: Yes.

This proposition reverses 2008's Proposition 8, which defined marriage as only being between a man and a woman. It replaces that state constitutional amendment with a new amendment permitting marriage between any two adults, regardless of race or gender.

"How is this necessary?" critics of the measure ask. "Federal courts ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional in 2013." Yes, but consider what happened in 2022 with the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning nearly 50 years of jurisprudence under Roe v. Wade. We're just one case away from the far-right supermajority overturning the previous court's ruling and restoring California's ridiculous Prop 8. Our constitutional rights cannot be trusted to the interpretation of reactionary ideologues. We need to protect our liberties by putting them in plain text.

Note that this initiative is also tagged Put on the Ballot by the Legislature. Again, that is not an indication that the legislature is passing the buck. This is a Legislative Constitutional Amendment. It's already gone through the full process of being written and approved by both the Assembly and the state senate, and now it must be approved by a majority of the voters, too.

Edited to add: The list starts at 2 because that's the first prop this year.

Edit 2: Read about Props 4, 5, and 6 in my next blog.

Last week Hawk and I had our anniversary. How long have we been together? Well, that depends on how you define "together". Counting from our first date, it's now been 30 years!


How long we've been married is a different question. That's just 18 years with this anniversary. Yes, both anniversaries are on the same day. We purposefully got married on the anniversary of our first date. Hawk always joked it was so that she'd only have to remember one date, not two.

Yes, the difference of 30 minus 18 means that we dated for 12 years before marrying. No, we didn't take breaks or see other people during that time. There were a couple of other reasons why we put off saying "I do". For 10 of those 12 years, though, we did live together as a couple. That's why I also include the number 28 in the anniversary mix. 28 years ago is when we decided to move out to California together from the East Coast after college/grad school and start our new lives. Together.

Continuing with my theme of how couple should manage their money together, my topic today is how many bank accounts a pair of people in a relationship should have. After "How should we share expenses?", which i wrote about yesterday, it's the next most common question I see in financial advice columns and blogs. And the two questions are related. How you set up your bank accounts is closely tied to how you share money and split expenses.

When Hawk and started living together years ago the modern advice was to have 3 bank accounts: one for each person in their name alone, and one joint account from which shared bills can paid. The idea was this preserved each partner's independence, via money and fiscal control that was theirs alone, while also making it simple to share common expenses. That was different from the more traditional arrangement, where couples once married would have a single household bank account. Often the woman in the relationship would have little control over the money.

As an aside, I can only shake my head at how the 3-accounts strategy that was the new advice 25-30 years ago still seems to be the new advice today. So many questions or stories on this topic in financial advice blogs are from women who are trying to avoid, or recover from, loss of financial control.

Anyway, back to what worked for us.

3 Accounts, in Spirit if not in Practice

When we moved in together we embraced 3 accounts idea... in spirit. We each had our own accounts but no shared account. One of the other of us would pay each bill for shared expenses (rent, utilities, food) then about once a month we'd figure out the difference and one person would write the other a check to even it out.

Why no shared account? Frankly because bank accounts are not free. Even the credit union I belonged to had a monthly account fee that was only waived if you had either direct deposit of your paychecks or a certain minimum account balance— a minimum that was high for people just getting started out. Having a third account would've meant paying fees. Evening it up ourselves once a month, even in the old days of adding stuff up on calculators and then writing a check, was easier than paying a fee. BTW if we were starting out today we'd do the same thing— though with a tool like Venmo or Zelle to even out the payments.

If 3 is Good, 6 is Better!

As we built up our finances we did open a third account... once we had enough money to meet the minimums across multiple accounts. And then we opened a fourth account, and a fifth, and more!

We opened the second trio of accounts specifically as savings accounts, separate from our checking accounts. In terms of discipline, checking accounts are for regular expenses. We auto-deposit our paychecks and pay bills there. Savings accounts we only touch for bills if they're major, planned purchases. More importantly, in terms of financial structure, the savings accounts are high yield. We hold them at banks that pay great interest rates. Most banks and even most credit unions pay essentially 0% interest on checking account balances. The best high-yield accounts are paying close to 3% today.

Advice You Can Bank On

My advice to people starting out (or starting over) today is three simple recommendations:

1. If you're in a long term relationship, use the 3-accounts approach— in spirit (like we did for several years) if not in practice.


2. If you're living mostly paycheck-to-paycheck, focus on finding a good checking account with as low fees as possible.


3. Once you're able to start saving, open a high-yield savings account and start transferring there whatever money you don't need for regular expenses. (Note this isn't investing. Investing is the next step, and it's a major one.)

That BuzzFeed listicle I read earlier in the week about women who make more than their male partners also highlighted the problem of unequal division of responsibilities at home. Traditional thinking holds that as the man is the primary breadwinner of the family, the woman is the primary housekeeper. The personal stories reveal that while this is supposedly an economic division of labor it's really a gender role (unsurprising to many). Even women who become the family's main breadwinner report still having to do the lion's share of the housework.

In our household we've always viewed housework as something to be split evenly. We're both responsible for it— and we're both able to do it! That doesn't mean everything splits 50/50, though. There's more to the equation to balance than simply whether we both did an equal number of minutes of vacuuming each month. In particular I've been doing more than 50% of the housework for several years now because of something I jokingly call Work/Wife Balance. (Yes, it's a play on the term work/life balance.)

My wife works a job that requires she be in-office at least 4 days a week. That seems broadly true of her industry; it's been the case across 3 companies she's worked at in the past 10 years. During the same time jobs in my industry have been largely remote-first.

Working remotely gives me two big advantages when it comes to free time. One, obviously, is that I don't have to spend time commuting. My wife spends at least 45 minutes a day commuting, and it was 90+ minutes before her company moved office several months ago. That's extra time I can use to take care of chores that's not available to her. Two, I have flexibility in my schedule during the day. I can take a few minutes here and there to put sheets and towels through the wash or unload the dishwasher. I can take a long lunch once or twice a week and pick up some food at the grocery store.

Again, equitable division of responsibility doesn't mean equal number of minutes pushing the vacuum. It's about balancing free time and energy. It's my work/wife balance.

Florida Trip Travelog #10
Back at the hotel - Fri, 23 Sep 2022, 10pm

Friday afternoon and evening we've continued our "We're on vacation!" mentality. After eating lunch at the poolside cafe we went back in the water for a while longer. I rode the water slides a few times then joined Hawk for several laps around the lazy river pool. Soon enough we packed that up, though, as we wanted to go out and visit more of the beaches in the area.

We drove a loop down through Bonita Springs, out to the barrier islands, and up to Ft. Myers Beach before coming back inland and completing the loop back to the hotel. I could post pictures from the beaches we visited but honestly they all look the same in a boring-amazing way. White sand everywhere, shells everywhere, clear water that's so warm you can walk straight into it.

We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner this evening, at a Brazilian rodizio restaurant. Rodizio is Portuguese for "meat parade"[1]. It's the style of restaurant where waiters bring skewers of grilled meats (and pineapple!) up to the table and slice off a bit onto your plate if you want it.

The meat parade is never cheap, but we had a special occasion. ...Actually, two special occasions. One, our anniversary is this week. We had already planned to treat ourselves to a nice dinner some evening while on vacation. Two, Hawk learned this afternoon— in a last-minute, must-attend management meeting she had to join from our table at the poolside cafe at lunchtime— that an asshole peer she and many colleagues find difficult to work with is being discharged. It was like a weight was lifted from her shoulders with that news, so we decided we'd enjoy our nice dinner tonight.

[1] The word rodizio has no direct translation from Portuguese to English, so I've coined its English equivalent as meat parade.

Humorous images and memes about couples having trouble sharing the bed sheets have been around for years. One partner grabs way more of the covers than is left for the other. Even manufacturers have gotten in on the joke with novelty sheets such as these:



Usually it's the woman who's portrayed as the blanket hog, though not always.



My partner and I used to have problems like these... though without resorting to solutions like hammer and nails. She'd go to bed first and have the blanket all scrunched up, and I'd have to pull it off her when I came to bed to straighten it so we could share.

Even when we were sharing the covers close to 50/50 there'd still be problems. It was too far up, so my feet stuck out the bottom (I'm much taller). Or it wouldn't cover down both sides well enough, a particular concern in the winter when we sometimes kept our heat a bit lower.

One solution we tried was to buy oversized sheets. We bought a king size blanket for our queen size bed. That helped with some of the doesn't-go-all-down problems but still didn't solve the blanket hog type problems.

The best solution we figured out a few years ago is just use two sheets. With different sheets and blankets on the bed for her and me there are almost never conflicts over who has how much of it. There's a whole sheet or blanket for each of us!

The two-sheets approach also solves differences in preferred temperature, weight, and texture. I usually like a thinner sheet while she prefers a heavier blanket. With one sheet or blanket shared, it was almost impossible to satisfy both of us. Now we're both routinely comfortable.

We also have differences in preferred texture. The sheet and blanket I like the feel of best, she finds "itchy". The blanket she likes best, I hate the feel of when it touches my skin. Now we don't have to negotiate on who gets their way. We both get our way, every time.

Gold Lakes Basin, Calif - Saturday, 25 Sep 2021. 4:30pm.

One of the challenges with appreciating nature's beauty is that nature has its own timetable. Come at the wrong time and it may be too hot, too cold, cloudy, smoky, snowed under, or dried out. Thus it was when we visited Frazier Falls in the Gold Lakes Basin today, after already doing a twofer of short hikes atop Sierra Buttes and at Upper Sardine Lake. Frazier Falls is a favorite spot for repeat visits when we're in this area. A short trail, about 3/4 mile each way, leads to a waterfall about 200' tall. Except today the waterfall is dry.




The fact Frazier Falls is dry right now both is and isn't surprising. It isn't, because this is late in the season when many California waterfalls slow to a trickle. And this year is a drought year. Waterfalls that run low flow in normal years could be no-flow right now. OTOH this is a bit surprising because we've come here late in the season before and still found water. In fact it was on a trip to this falls many years ago that Hawk and I got engaged, and Frazier Falls was beautiful then. That's why we're here this weekend, celebrating our anniversary.

On the plus side, we had the area totally to ourselves. After sharing other sites today with numerous other groups there was absolutely no one else on this trail.

White Plains, NY - Sunday, 13 Jun 2021, 10pm.

Our friends are now married... thrice over. After getting married in a civil ceremony last August (after Covid had forced them to cancel plans for a traditional wedding twice) they got religious-paperwork married by a Jewish rabbi yesterday and then religious-ceremony married by a rabbi in front of ~60 friends and relatives today.

The wedding stuff was like a fulltime job today. We arrived at the event site before 10 so Hawk and the other grooms party members could start getting ready and posing for pictures. Hawk was pretty much ready to rock from when we left the hotel... except for her pants. As she pulled her pants on, the button was a few inches from being able to close. As she took the pants off to see if there was an adjustment that was set wrong she saw someone else's name embroidered inside the waistband. She had the groom's pants, and he presumably had hers!

Pants Switcheroo

We called the groom. "Do you have Hawk's pants?" He didn't know!

"How did you not try them on and say, "Hey, why are these capris?" I asked.

"We're not getting dressed until we get there," he explained. "The photographer's going to take pictures of us dressing."

"Oh, you purchased a boudoir photography package," I teased.

Eat, Eat!

The wedding went well. The event hall in Tarrytown, NY, on a hill above the Hudson river, was beautiful. Immediately after the ceremony was a cocktail reception with delicious appetizers. A lot of people didn't know they were appetizers and rushed to eat their fill. The joke was on them as there was a full meal, with dessert and cake, right after it! Hawk was amused by everyone who didn't know the amount of food that would be put in front of them. "It's a Jewish wedding celebration, of course they're going to feed you until you bust a gut. Jews know to pace themselves at these things."

I paced myself. After loading up on a rib roast appetizer because it was delicious I skipped the main course of chicken/fish to save room for dessert and cake.

A Short Rest, then the After Party

The wedding was done around 5pm. We left 10-15 minutes early as things were winding down. The grooms had quietly indicated to us they were "done" anyway. Plus, we all needed to recuperate for the after party!

The afterparty was a simple affair. A bunch of us met in a quiet part of the hotel bar. The grooms had gotten a room there from the night... apparently more to get away from the parents than anything else. The parents didn't join us— they were having a separate after-party at their house, I believe— so it was just the grooms, us, one groom's sister and cousin, and 2-3 of the grooms' men. The group was the right size for an after party, and us taking it easy with a casual dinner and a round or two of drinks was the right pace. Most of us just ordered an appetizer and called it supper as we were still full from all the food at the wedding.