Ironies

Last night I had dinner with a friend--D-- of over thirty years. We met through her second husband, a professor of mine from law school, and just as he predicted, D and I became fast friends and ended up discarding him, she by divorce and me by seeing him through her eyes.

D and I both met men and married them, several years later, when we were already in that age group when allegedly there was a bigger chance of being killed by a terrorist than finding a compatible mate of the opposite gender. That study was wrong, another bit of hype intended to control women, and twenty years later, both D and I are still married and D and I are still friends.

D is a social worker who sees individual patients in therapy. Although everyone is suffering from enormous stress, her client numbers are down, because no one can afford therapy right now. Now that's ironic. It's also worrying D.

The second irony is here we are, Second Wave Feminists, raised to be stay-at-home spouses with aprons and vacuum cleaners in tow, but having rebelled are now working our butts off at the age of 60 plus, responsible for investing our own 401 ks, and we are befuddled. There was a time in D and my relationship, when we would dress to kill and do the clubs in Manhattan, never arriving before midnight, in our own version of Sex in the City before there was a Carrie Bradshaw.Last night we spent most of the night nursing a single vodka martini and discussing how to preserve our meager retirement funds. Does she fire the investment adviser? What is the deal with annuities?

The world markets are up because everyone is in love with Barack Obama during his visit to the G 20 Summit in London. Are the markets up only for the institutional investors? If us little people dip in again, will it all collapse for a second time?

D is still beautiful, slim, funny, smart, and fun. We even ate a little bread last night.