I was wrong [a joke]. Alain’s friend was a little cutie, and used to definitely be even more so. We were instantly compatible although I would not say we hit it off, caution being the word. The Thanksgiving dinner at the new house was a great success and the food was truly fantastic. I have to admire anyone who can work in a restaurant all day, then cook for a crowd at night. Of course, you’ll want to see this picture of Jeremy, the friend from Boca. It is a captured still, but you can easily make out the important features.
We talked for a half-hour several times during the evening which JZ read more into than was there. Then again, he’s known her for twenty years and it is not lost to me that during that time all five of his doctor brothers undoubtedly had a go at her. (Oddly, after this dinner, nobody ever talked about her again.) I know I would have but guys, I just got here. I’m not being cruel, in fact, I would do right to point out that even if they all had a being selective. (Later, I do not know what that last sentence means.)Alain’s new house is huge but less imposing now that there is furniture inside. The focal point of the dining room is still that picture JZ and I hung below the window sill. Alain safely used the line that they overpaid for the place but got the zip code they wanted. JZ showed up late (naturally) and walked in to find Jeremy and I talking in the kitchen. He now wants to know why I didn’t put a lip-lock on her. Simple, guy. I need more information as to why a forty year old woman with a dynamite body is still single in South Florida. A lot more information.
Okay, now everybody wants a picture of Alaine. Maybe I will, providing I can find one equally blurry. No way anyone is getting any good leads while I’m still single and so are many of her girlfriends. True, this is different than my philosophy twenty years ago, but back then there was enough to go around. The shop was busy today including one chain-smoking plump country gal who thinks I consider her a real catch. I told you wearing a tie works around here. Dickens called from Massachusetts, a state I still cannot pronounce.Back to dinner. It was great and totally home-cooked. Corey has a real talent for it. Turkey, mashed, gravy, stuffing, mushrooms and a new dish to me, kind of quiche with corn. Very mild and very ungood for the waistline. They outdid anything I could with appetizers of rare salmon and lamb chops. JZ and I shared one chop, it is another food I just so rarely get to. Ah, here is a picture of Alaine. Appreciate that it is very difficult to come up with such photos and I’ll thank you to take a good hard look at her until you see what I see. She is in an over-stuffed chair in the TV room, taking a deserved break for the first time in over four hours. She finally changed out of that zillion dollar dinner dress and came over. We talked about Jeremy and I told her outright that I liked what I saw. That was a manipulative statement but also one long overdue.
We chatted about JZ and the subject came up that he wants to live in Mexico. At that point I balked. This is a tight and reasonable family, but if there is a fantasy such families share, it is that they made it on their own. Hell, that's what Donald Trump thinks. I must tell you from a position of great respect for what they have, not one of them has any realistic concept of how brutal life is for the rest. Oh, like all rich kids, they talk and think they know, but the facts are otherwise. Mexico is not the answer.
ADDENDUM
[Author's note 2015-11-24: The following should be taken in the context of JZ proposing we buy, renovate, and flip a property. Im expressing concern that his experience at handling money is considerably less than mine. This is about the time that I began to formulate the idea of me buying a place first, then sharing on a fixer-upper.
Let's put this into perspective. I would like to go partners, but there are some grey areas when it comes to self-sufficiency. I can tell by looking when a person has real survival instinct, the most important quality in a partner. I need to see long-term investments added to little by little over the years. The rest of today's record is me trying to talk JZ out of this whole Mexico thing.]
JZ has often referred to a year he spent delivering pizzas in New Jersey as proof he could survive by himself. This sad illusion is made the worse because nobody really starves in America. He does not always understand that delivering pizza is not a career, that only somebody who knows in the long run he hasn’t a care in the world could accept such work as meaningful employment. He does not see any direct connection between that mode of thinking and being born rich. I have habitually laughed at this, but his plans are now approaching lunatic.
He talks of selling his “investments”, roughly fourteen thousand dollars worth of mutual funds his father gave him two years ago, to which he has not added a cent of his own. To take this money and go live in Mexico. He talks like he could live for years on this cash yet that is the one thing he has no experience at. It would be gone in six months if he tries to live a fraction of his current style. The first thing he’d do in Mexico is put in a hot water tank. What most concerns me is his reactions whenever I show him photos or records of events of my travels.
I swear, the guy has “never been more than one phone call away from home”. Often he does not recognize the slightest non-American way of doing things and has great difficulty understanding an explanation. I hope I don’t regret not insisting he understand. I’ve warned him but you know how much good that does. I’m reminded of that passage in “The Reckoning” where the oil man tells Billy what could happen if he invests all his money in one well, “At least you been told. More than anybody did for me.”
Of course, the well was a success or the book would not have sold. My point is not just the good advice, but the fact that nobody is questioning where Billy got the million to drill in the first place. The book says he worked on the rigs and saved the money, see? Not really, for there is no explanation of how he, among thousands of rig workers, was the one who managed to save up so much money. The answer, I know, is the oft-repeated theme that the rich have a special gene they pass to their offspring which enables them to overcome the same barriers that block the rest of the world. The problem for JZ is that theme exists mostly in bestsellers. It is the steady undercurrent of family propping them that they fail to see as what makes the real difference. JZ vastly overestimates what he could do if he removes that support.
That is why, if he goes to Mexico, I must go with him or block his way. In the end, he didn't go.
