Return on Investment (ROI) in Everyday Ramblings

This is a kind of big leaf ivy dying back against a concrete wall on an upscale beautifully landscaped condo a few blocks away. Other leaves caught in the vines.

This neighborhood is such a mix of classes. And cats.

Some new young folks have moved into the nearby student rental house with three cats, all indoors I am happy to say, a gorgeous seal point Siamese and two ginger cats all with great towers to lounge around on in front of the window. I asked the young man out getting the garbage can off the curb if the ginger cats were boys or girls and he said they are both female. A rare genetic mash up, but it happens.

There is some speculation at this point in feline anthropology that orange cats may have been a favorite of the Vikings and that that is how they managed to get everywhere, on the boats as professional mousers.

I like to think of Sammy that way, descendent from proud Viking royalty. It would certainly explain his love for men in close quarters and the trophy toy he still brings me yowling at the top of his lungs most nights before bed.

So yesterday was the new guy’s first day at work. I am thrilled to say that at this point I am not sensing any red flags. He seems not only neuro-typical but also bright and happy to have a job. He’s tall, in good shape, in his mid twenties and has good manners in the style of good manners of young folks today. For now he’ll be The New Guy until I can come up with something. He has a sense of humor I am also happy to report.

Can you sense the relief dripping off me in sheets? Fingers crossed that things continue along this vein. Turns out he was a student in one of Most Honorable’s Economics classes so I know he has a good foundation in finance. :)

So do you remember over the years, complaints here (in hopefully a relatively good natured way) about a guy I was seeing before and actually during early days with Mr. Finch named Mr. Fine China?

When I first met him the summer after I moved here, he was a business referral from an Investment Advisor friend I made before I moved here via the Internet. Mr. Fine China was looking for someone to help him with his Financial Planning practice as a consultant and I was looking for work.

He was newly divorced and much hurt by the betrayal. He has three children. A daughter who is now in her mid twenties, but was gosh, eleven then. And twin boys. He needed a practical woman who drove and could help out with the kids part time when he had them. (As well as someone who could help with the Financial Planning and Tax business.)

I had absolutely no intention whatsoever under any circumstances you can even barely imagine of falling for this guy. Although age appropriate. (I think he is a year older) in every other way we are umm, NOT LIKE EACH OTHER.

Although he has a fine tenor voice and sings at church (he is a Lutheran) he doesn’t listen to much classical music, his favorite poetry is…oh say, Dr. Seuss, he owns guns, worked for the IRS as an agent in Alaska, went to college on a swimming scholarship (he is like an otter in the water, fast and sleek) and was crew on Fighter Jets for the Navy until his very scary adult onset diabetes made itself known and he had to muster out.

Of course we did become involved and it was after a few torturous years and about eight breakups and many tears on my part, I made the break. He married someone else soon after. A divorced woman with a son a little younger than his.

Then about six and a half years ago he got in touch with me again. The marriage had foundered and he wanted to see me (and complain about his marriage). It was basically a booty call.

Although we didn’t know it on any conscious level, Mr. Finch was already sick then. I was a bit harsh with Mr. Fine China because I just couldn’t deal then.

I suddenly realized this last weekend that I could, in fact, deal, now.

So I sent him a friend invite on Facebook.

Twelve minutes later he accepted.

We have been corresponding via email since. He is in Las Vegas at a tax conference to get CEs. I am going to meet up with him when he gets back.

The relationship with Mr. Finch tempered and changed me in so many ways that I am most curious to know how I might handle his close to the chest pecuniary habits and his self-centered point of view now and his silly way of talking like the guy from Omaha that he is.

I used to say to myself, after the kids are grown, we’ll travel and hang out and I may have even told him that. But no way during one of the last six years would I have believed that possible.

We’ll have a drink and take a good long look at our older wiser selves and see where we want to go with this.

He does make me laugh. He always did. Even when I wanted to strangle him. :)