Safe Deposit Contents

No greater incentive to review my most vital documents than referral by my cardiologist to an oncologist.  While my visit and lab work that followed do not seem desperate, I probably should have reviewed my will and Advance Directives periodically without this external prod.  They are housed in a safe deposit box at the bank where we maintain our checking account.  My last trip there was not long ago.  I deposited the title of my car which the finance company mailed to me after my final payment.  Eventually, I or my Executor will need to sell that car. On that visit, I did not look at any contents, just placing the title atop other items already there.  While we've rented the box for more than forty years, the original branch closed a few years ago, forcing us to rent a new box at the branch near us.  New location, box number, and keys.  Prior to dropping off my title, I had never signed in at the new location.  At the old location I only visited every few years, not looking at its contents more than once or twice previously.

So what did I find there?  Mostly important stuff along with small expensive items.  In a plastic bag sat a few clipped hairs from our first cat who died suddenly and prematurely.  And a gold ring with a ruby that my late father valued and gave to me.  I've never worn it.  Some jewelry of my wife's, including her engagement ring.  The expensive watch that my wife gave me for our 25th anniversary.  I think I only wore it to special occasions twice, and did not recall that it had been stored there.  It sits in an outsized box that I did not recognize.  Opening it took effort, but once opened I recognized that watch immediately.

Papers included appraisals of that jewelry and other pieces.  The box also had a VCR cassette labelled A Tour of our house.  No doubt also related to documentation of expensive items like furniture for future insurance claims.  I wonder if we should do this again, this time with a CD and images in The Cloud.

Other papers referred to our house.  The Deed.  The Surveyor's map of property lines. Our original mortgage documents, long since satisfied.

And papers needed as our lives reach their conclusions.  Wills, Advance Directives, Revocable Trusts.  Those things taken home to copy so that my home strong box will have copies to share with my financial advisor and our doctors.  Then return the originals.  Once returned, I expect that safe deposit box to remain dormant and unaccessed indefinitely.

Herb Pots

My morning task has become retrieving the newspaper at the end of the driveway.  I do this in night clothes, irrespective of the weather unless I have some reason to dress first thing in the morning.  I do not read the newspaper most days, though my wife does and I once had a great fondness for many different newspapers.  A of these dailies have gone extinct, including the Herald-Tribune to which my sixth grade class qualified for a cheap subscription.  Most still print every day but with much reduced local reporting, victim to parallel depletion of paid advertising.  This morning, as nearly every morning except Saturday when the local paper discontinued that day's print edition, I went to the driveway's end, this time dressed in anticipation of our cleaning service visit.  Rain fell steadily, though not enough to create big puddles on the driveway or adjacent lawn.  I found the paper wrapped in plastic, tied at the top, with a coating of water.  I bent down, shook the drops off as I picked it up, then deposited it at my front door to enable my wife to read about what's new.

Today's forecast predicts a much heavier downpour as we enter the first week of spring.  Outdoor activities did not appear on my Daily Tasks, other than to begin preparing my herb pots that I keep a few steps from my front door, their bottoms resting on grassless peat moss applied by our semi-annual landscaping service.  Those herbs had largely failed last summer while my indoor aerogarden herbs have flourished.  I don't know why.  Rosemary had some straggly needles, hardly enough for meaningful culinary use.  Even spearmint, a dominant weed if not contained, produced only a few sprigs.  Chives, thyme, dill, coriander went nowhere.

Reasons for crop failure would generate a long list.  Old seeds, inadequate pot drainage.  I don't think the lawn service sprayed herbicide on them as their placement near shrubbery shields them from the grassy areas.  Maybe too little sunlight, though I have had better growth in previous years.  The soil has not been enriched in any way for a while.  

One recent afternoon I inspected each pot.  The soil seemed tamped down.  I don't remember if I used potting soil or topsoil.  The latter is easier to work with but most online herb pot advice recommends potting soil that comes pre-enriched.  I took a small hand trowel, loosening each upper layer, digging down the to the drainage layer beneath, one made of small stones or broken pottery.  I will confirm drainage before planting this season.  The soil layer for some appeared thinner than when I first established most of the pots a few years ago.

When I watch cooking shows, another activity much reduced in frequency over time, the chefs all have culinary herb access.  I do too as an aerogarden, with some components woefully overgrown and underharvested.  But I really want to be able to go outside my front door to snip leaves that enhance what I create in my kitchen.  That will require a little more attention than in seasons past.

Extra Coffee

Rationing coffee consumption has taken effort.  I became an enthusiast, if not an addict, early in college.  The main cafeteria offered a Bottomless Cup with free refills for 10 cents.  I would add a pastry, most often a bow tie, for another quarter.  Frequently a friend from around campus would bring his breakfast, usually more substantial than mine, to my table.  We would chat about any variety of topics until the clock nudged us to our first classes.  Later, I bought an orange percolator, an electric one of questionable legality in the university dorm, where I would add some caffeine in preparation for intense study as key exams approached.

Coffee has taken many routes since then.  An introduction to specialty coffee worthy of a premium at a unique shop within walking distance of my apartment.  Free coffee provided by vendors or employers.  Technology advanced.  I still have a stovetop percolator, though my beloved orange electric one is no more.  Technology brought us Mr. Coffee drip machines, Melitta cones, k-cups, and Starbucks.  Instant coffee, the staple of my parents and my intro to coffee as a teen, still appears in my pantry though as an additive to baking, never as a beverage.  

For sure, the many variations of coffee attracts me.  It has for more than fifty years.  It also has its physiological effects.  Studying for an exam, a safe boost when needed, if not needed too often.  Awake in the morning to perform the day's tasks, that's probably the reason for its global popularity.  Conviviality, whether at the university cafeteria or at a lounge or a reception.  Legitimate purpose.  Adverse effects crop up too.  Sleepless after those evening receptions concluded with dessert and coffee.  Withdrawal symptoms when deprived on religious fast days or mornings when I need to leave in a harried way to get coffee when I arrive or en route.  And that's without getting into the many reports of long-term benefits or harms.  Despite the advancing sophistication of science, these observational studies seem to segregate into results that pitch the sponsor's fondness for or aversions to my preferred morning stimulant.

Incessant of injudicious consumption had to stop.  I imposed some form of rationing, though a lenient one.  On days at home, two k-cups worth, with the Keurig Machine set at 8 ounces.  When I deserved a treat, I could go to a coffee shop at mid-morning.  On mornings with OLLI classes, one cup of coffee from my k-cup plus some to take to OLLI in a thermal mug.  One class mornings get 10 ounces made in a home Keurig machine poured into a 14 ounce cylinder with a sipable top.  Two class mornings entitle me to a little more.  I fill a 16 ounce thermal mug with water, then pour that into a French press prefilled with two coffee measures of specialty ground coffee.  Wait four minutes, depress the plunger and pour into the now empty mug.  Sip during and between classes.

While I've been faithful to this limitation, I've also used access to extra as a reward.  A superlative effort at my laptop or enhancing my home in the morning entitles me to more coffee at late morning.  This is usually fulfilled at a coffee shop, as the attention to details of brewing that the baristas offer enhances my entitlement for a job well done.  Infrequently, the reward comes from the Keurig machine.

My good faith effort has its lapses.  Rarely do I purchase WaWa or 7-Eleven coffee, though they offer tasty options of major variety and let me customize.  Travel changes that.  On occasion I go out for breakfast, maybe twice a month.  Coffee and one refill become part of that experience.  And that's added to the eye-opening cup I make for myself before leaving home.  Fortunately, evening receptions where coffee is served have become infrequent.  While suppliers indicated that decaffeinated coffee tastes similar to its raw prototype, it registers in my mind as deprived, adulterated coffee.  Maybe because I remember an Organic Chemistry Lab module where we had to extract caffeine from tea.  Very artificial with exogenous chemicals.  I avoid that even at the risk of a night's insomnia.

Those fifty years since the college cafeteria have taken the coffee industry on a forward path, whisking me along with it. I enjoy the variety, availability, and ease.  But for my own safety, I set limits.  My adherence to self-created restrictions plays out as mostly beneficial, with only a minimum sense of deprivation.

Staycation

My last OLLI class before Spring Break.  I came home mid-morning, worked on a monthly financial review, then declared Vacation.  First initiative, treating myself to a donut at a new donut boutique, one for me, one taken home to my wife.  Spring Break in progress.

Being retired, time off gets more difficult to delineate.  My life has minimal fixed appointments.  OLLI comprises the majority of them each week, though now only five distributed over three days.  Periodically I need to visit one of my growing roster of medical providers.  These seem to cluster with long lulls between encounters and the diagnostic procedures they want me to have.  Shabbos is sort of a  fixed obligation.  Dinner preparation Friday, Services Saturday morning.  I don't skip a dinner that demarcates my Shabbos.  Services I give myself periodic mornings at home in place of synagogue.  

For the most part, my Vacations separate themselves from the rest of my time by travel.  This makes both fixed appointments and ongoing chores largely unavailable.  It also forces me to seek new experiences.  Unfortunately, my last two journeys as a couple ended in significant medical problems.  I really don't want to be in my car for hours at a time in both directions, nor do I want to deal with airports or rental cars.  As much as I like wineries, hot tubs, and museums, most of these can be had at much reduced expense and enhanced safety using my house as home base.  A Staycation this time.  The risk, of course, is being sucked into errands that would not crop up while on the road.  Our next scheduled housecleaner service would be one of these.

Still, I think of it as mostly an ME week, a chance to do one to three things that I want to do more than I should. While I could delegate the cleaner to my wife, I really should keep myself on-site that morning. At the end of the week, I have a commitment to the synagogue. There remains my exercise schedule, something I try to maintain at hotels if possible.

Things I like to do.  While I won't have a hotel, I have accumulated two JCC Day Passes.  So the steam room, sauna, pool, and gym of a resort remain available to me one time that week.  I had a grand breakfast a couple of years ago at America's largest buffet.  One morning for that, one of the days that the treadmill has the day off.  As tempting as it is to try an adventure to NYC by some inconvenient but discounted public transit, I need to meet somebody there next month.  I'll travel as a couple by driving.  But I can and should do one day trip to Philadelphia, picking out a special attraction.  Wineries not on my radar this week.  St. Pat's Day come and gone, so no compelling reason to seek beer either.  A new restaurant opened nearby, maybe see if it meets its hype.  I like slices of pizza and tuna hoagies.  Maybe pick one as a treat.

And that OLLI Class time, and the travel time to get there and back, can be designated Writing Time.  Fishing probably ought to happen once.  Putting Green and Driving Range are near the OLLI campus.  Those can wait until classes resume.

But one inescapable reality.  My FB Friends all seem to take themselves to the air.  The algorithms pick out stuff that will keep you fixated on the screen, if not create a feeling of I want that too.  At the moment, I don't.

So my ten days of largely unscheduled time has begun.  It feels a little like Vacation, even in the absence of travel.  

Pesach Season

My invitation to do one of the Pesach Torah readings arrived.  The one selected I've done before.  It comes out on Shabbos this year.  I'm indifferent to making a commitment but I cannot defer a decision too long. Somebody else read that portion last year.

Other parts of the Festival are more difficult to bow out.  In many ways, my personal concept of a year centers around Pesach.  In the Jewish Calendar, the first command given to us as a people was to set the solar calendar to begin two weeks before Pesach.  For me, it has always brought a transition.  My birthday this year coincides with the First Seder.  Past my prime, but still able to prepare and execute the Festival with the right pacing.

The weekly Shop-Rite ad arrived in the mail.  It has a section on Pesach food, though the display aisle has had items for a few weeks.  I saw what's on sale.  A gefilte loaf.  I usually make one for Seder.  If discounted enough, I buy two.  Jarred gefilte fish too expensive.  Matzoh meal I use all year round.  The price comes down this season so I stock up.  Good deal with the coupon next week.  Macaroons.  Goodman's brand the best buy.  Usually I get four.  They no longer come in cans, something once very useful for portioning and freezing the chicken soup that I make in quantity.  I don't think I will get farfel this year.

The big dinners, two Seders and a yontif at the end is when I am most likely to have guests.  Shabbos, First Seder right after Shabbos, yontif Shabbos, and Sunday at the end.  This poses a challenge, though one I've experienced before.  It means I cannot poach pears for First Seder desserts but can for the final shabbos dinner.

Menus are almost programmed.  The Seder ritual specifies most items.  Charoset allows some flexibility but simple almond, apple, wine, with a splash of cinnamon has become quick and easy.  The entrée of default has become a half turkey breast, easy to season and roast.  Salad has a few ingredients.  I make a matzoh kugel, though I have a lot of potatoes, so maybe a potato kugel for Seder and matzoh kugel for closing shabbos.  Asparagus comes on sale.  So do chicken parts, thus from scratch chicken soup with matzoh balls.

Moving dishes upstairs from the basement should go easier this year, as I organized them better last year.  Moreover, the newly hired housecleaners will do their thing a few days before, in anticipation of the carpet cleaners who come for their annual shampoo a few days before.

I approach this spring, with the equinox still a week off, a little beaten down.  Pesach remains a challenge for me, an obligation to other people at home and at the synagogue.  I pull it off each year.  No reason not to rise to the occasion when this year's Festival arrives.

Registering

Worrisome lab work, results with the potential to reduce longevity, brought me to a specialist.  Despite my familiarity with possibilities and likelihoods, mostly in my favor, I fretted over the encounter.  I drove to a big place, a suite that comprised the entire third floor of the building's west wing.  Chairs everywhere.  Quite a lot of doors.  Stuff hanging on walls, with a small display case for awards that members of the medical group have received.  

My turn at the reception desk came quickly.  Insurance cards.  Driver's license to confirm that I am really me.  A clipboard with registration forms and a pen of the type they discount at back to school sales.  No practice promotional logo.

I took my clipboard, then headed to a chair with arms in a place largely unoccupied.  Demographic data straightforward.  Name, address, birthdate as medical facilities now use that to confirm identities.  Emergency contact.  That took some thought.  My wife came first.  Back-up?  Neighbor or Friend.  It reminded me of how few close people I have.  I named a friend who could rescue me in an emergency.  Who to discuss what to do if I couldn't engage in decisions myself.  My wife.  They needed a backup.  I have two children, both physicians.  One is a clinician, the other a researcher.  One can drive to my side in five hours.  The other can fly to my side in five hours.  They have different personalities.  I wrote the name of the more distant on the line.  A reminder that this specialty has patients who sometimes do not do well.  I might become one of them.  I have an advance directive.  I think I know where it is.

Next page, About Me.  Have I ever had?  Our electronic record keeping has distilled all responses to yes/no, ignoring context which often matters more than yes/no.  I have had a right upper lobe walking pneumonia,  no subtlety by X-ray.  I remember slight pleuritic pain, and I probably had a fever which is why they did the film.  I think I took a course of antibiotics.  I remember where the x-ray had been taken, at a facility that went belly up some time ago after private equity purchasers milked what they could of its assets.  So I have had pneumonia.  When the blood bank screener asks if I have ever had a problem with my lungs, I say no. No reason to deprive some really sick people of platelets that they need.  It healed and subsequent chest x-rays have been normal.  My cholesterol is controlled.  Do I have kidney disease?  By current criteria, I have minimal CKD of minimal clinical consequence other than a reluctance of my doctors to prescribe anything that might upset that stability.  Anemia?  It's been treated.  Covid?  Took a course of Paxlovid.

Surgery?  Appendix they care about.  Mucosal tags and arthroscopy and wisdom teeth they probably don't, but EHR record keeping still gives that a yes.  

Family?  I know very little of my relatives' past.  There have been malignancies.  There have been cardiovascular events.  My siblings, my closest genetic contemporaries, are not in my loop.  My children keep their adult medical situations private.  I know how long my parents and grandparents lived and their cause of death.  A few more Yes responses on the checklist.

My Review of Systems, a very cursory checklist.  A pittance of what I used to solicit from patients. HEENT OK, though I think they could figure out from my age that hearing decline and cataracts are in evolution.  CV, pulm, GI, musculoskeletal, hematologic all had some intrusions.  None limiting but all an invitation for the doctor to expand our interview when she thinks it helpful.

Medical parts done.  Statement of financial obligations signed.  Clipboard returned to the front desk for somebody to type my responses onto their computer forms to remain in cyberspace for perpetuity, though with some privacy protections.  I kept the pen, with their permission.

This introduces serious medical care.  Perhaps their registration form, carefully considered by whoever designed it, hints at what their new patients like me want out of the assessment, and later the treatment.  I think everyone, including me, wants the doctor's talent.  Usually that entails technical decisions that extend life when it is threatened, or at least ease discomfort.  But as I filled out my answers, an emotional component became apparent.  I've been through my share of illness.  Until now I've prevailed.  In my Medicare senior years, I've accumulated fewer people that I can count on than I might have anticipated in the years I was more fully engaged with other people.  My children remain available from afar.  My sibs no longer are.  When I needed to identify a backup person, I chose a friend over a neighbor.  Friends are few, though not absent.

Some diagnosis remains.  A chance to recoup my resilience exposed by my past medical history and my current array of symptoms.  I remain fully functional despite them.  I conveyed to my medical care team a few things they needed to know, some they probably didn't need to know.  Those fifteen minutes with the form, pondering that Yes But which an electronic data set cannot capture, enabled an overdue interview with myself.  It left me with a different impression when I returned the clipboard than I had driving to their office.

Vegetable Garden Upgrades

Last season's vegetable fared especially poorly.  My tomatoes stayed leafy with little fruit.  Staking them upright, both with plastic stakes and later with metal cages, did not keep them upright.  Fruits gave way mostly to pests and to blights.  Peppers grown from nursery plants went nowhere.  Seeds planted into the ground mostly disappointed.  I generated a cucumber vine but only one cucumber. Pretty much a dud all around.  My pots did not fare a lot better.  I wonder whether lawn care extended their herbicides to my vegetables and herbs.  Or maybe my seeds had passed their expiration dates.  Perhaps my soil needs selective enrichment.  Even weeds did not grow making me a little suspicious of my lawn care service.  Some plants grew green.  The beans did not generate beans but stalks rose.

The agricultural division of my state university offers a soil analysis for a nominal fee.  They have kits, but will also accept samples placed in a one-quart freezer bag, like the TSA does for screening liquids.  I've been reading their collection requirements.  Cumbersome, but within my level of skill.  I will need to wash, maybe sterilize, the garden trowel that collects the sample.  I'll follow the collection procedure that they require.  Fill the sample bag, label it with my identification and the intent of a vegetable garden, and enclose a check for $22.50.  Mail in a secure envelope that I can get from the post office.  Enrich the soil in the way the agricultural chemists advise.

I would like to harvest some vegetables this season.

To make space more efficient, I've used a Square Foot Gardening approach.  Mine never produces nearly as bountifully as Mel's who wrote the book, nor as well as the many online sites that guide amateurs through that method.  Considering the magnitude of last year's gardening failure, maybe it's time to return to row planting.  And new seeds would likely enhance yield.  A couple of layers of organic compost from a gardening center or hardware store could also contribute to success.  I don't have a good defense from pests, though.

I will need to reconsider what to plant.  Every amateur looks forward to tomatoes.  Either exotic heirlooms or beefy globe tomatoes.  Cucumbers have been successful.  To minimize weeds, I have a layer of cloth weed block.  While successful, it also makes root vegetables unrealistic.  I've not done well with leaf lettuce, nor do I particularly like eating a lot of it.  Bell peppers never produced.  I would consider chili peppers.

But first, collect soil and do what the chemists report.

Pick One

The more preferable of two goods.  In an electoral world of objectionable choices, this one seemed welcome.  Two invitations arrived by email, one directly with ample notice, the other in a more backhanded way on much shorter notice.  Neither anticipated.

First, a program on addressing anti-Semitism to be held at the Museum of American Jewish History on a Wednesday evening.  The topic interests me, though as an American, my Jewish identity has been mostly secure.  A few snide comments by fellow university classmates along the way, but no personal threats, or even limitations.  Yet, the past several years have added to my exposure.  The physician gunned down at the Tree of Life massacre I knew well in college.  On a trip to Pittsburgh to visit family, I reserved a Saturday morning to worship at the repackaged Tree of Life Congregation.  Four years later, it was no longer the multiplex of several simultaneous services in a single building.  The survivors assembled as a single worshiping community in a rather opulent space, part of a more cathedral-formatted Reform synagogue.  The President introduced himself to me as a visitor.  No one else did.  They still spoke of that fateful day, after four years, during their Dvar Torah discussion.  

The Monsey Hanukkah attack enabled me to generate an essay for our local Jewish magazine.  I knew the geography well.  I kept up with its transition from secular Jewish of my childhood to the Haredi dominance today.  Animosities are understandable.  They seem more generated by the experience of proximity and negative consequences for a secular minority than to scripted anti-Semitism.

I've had minor interactions with Islamic anti-Zionism repackaged as a form of negative transference reaction to American Jews like me committed to a vibrant, secure Israeli nation-state.  There seems little role for education where people are pre-scripted, yet that has remained the focus of our own legacy advocacy agencies.  Protective, enforceable laws and an unequivocal national policy with minimal wiggle room seem a better option for keeping everyone safe.  Some, however, rationalize the compromise of physical safety in the guise of free expression.

While this forum took some planning, and I am grateful for the invitation I received, I never received a formal agenda.  The session had been assembled by an educational institution of Jewish auspices, but I did not know whose presentations I would hear.

On much shorter notice, a brief mention in the weekly OLLI newsletter that arrives by email every Monday morning disclosed that Robert Putnam would be speaking at the University's main campus at a time that largely coincided with the Jewish event.  Like many others, I have held this Harvard professor in high esteem for a long time.  In addition to becoming thoroughly engaged as I read through his landmark book Bowling Alone, I've had occasion to hear him speak.  He came to my town about five years ago.  I paid $30 for seats in the auditorium, along with a minor parking imposition.  He did not speak about Bowling Alone, which I had read maybe three years earlier, but about his latest work focusing on childhood poverty and economic inequality's harmful effects that pass down through generations.  As compelling as his presentation was, the benefit to me came afterward.  The Delaware Community Foundation, which sponsored Prof Putnam's appearance, set up tables in the foyer outside the auditorium.  They had representatives recruit those in attendance for the many ongoing projects that the Foundation oversees.  I expressed interest in reviewing scholarship applications.  Once signed on, I remain active with this project.  Each spring for five years, I review some twenty-five applications.  Some come from high school students seeking assistance with college.  Others originate with people already attending medical and law school, needing some relief from tuition and loans.  Along the way, I've made a couple of friends and offered suggestions that get implemented for subsequent years.

This time Bob, which is what the Professor likes to be called, has a new book and a Netflix movie called Join or Die.  I got to this in a very indirect way.  After supper, I often retreat to My Space, where I watch YouTube videos.  I particularly learn from Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, who produces a new podcast on modern evangelical Christianity each week.  His podcast usually interviews authors of new books with a social message.  While the host is an Evangelical, though one who has kept his distance from the political alliances of the Christian Right, the people he interviews originate in many backgrounds, including Jewish.  He recently interviewed Bob Putnam, a show I had to watch.  When Bob told Russell his brief bio, he noted that as an undergrad he took a liking to a sweet Jewish girl of the opposite political party who sat behind him.  They went on an outing to the Kennedy Inauguration.  After graduation, they married, he converted to Judaism, and more than sixty years together brought them an expanded three generational family and shared professional accomplishments.

After the interview, I watched the Netflix movie, taking three sessions to match my limited attention span.  Only after seeing the movie, did I notice the OLLI announcement of his visit.  I contacted the University sponsor, which offered seats in the rather limited auditorium for my wife and me.

Which to attend?  From a content perspective, I think my prior fondness for Bob Putnam's insight and my appreciation to the Delaware Community Foundation for welcoming me as a participant gave them an advantage.  So did my wife's interest in accompanying me to that event.  Logistics cannot be discounted either.  I've been to both the National Museum of American Jewish History and the University's Trabant Center in the past.  The University placed its parking garage adjacent to this student union where Bob would speak.  Some traffic anticipated, minor annoyance registering my car and paying the fee at the garage kiosks, but just a minor stroll from my car to the event.

Philadelphia requires more planning.  I have an unlimited transit pass and the event planners made provisions for use of a garage a block or two from the museum.  To get there and back by public transit, I would have to take light rail from a station near my home, sit on the local train for multiple stops comprising a little under an hour, then transfer to either the city subway or bus to the Museum.  The driving option would require me to deal with some city traffic and with a significant diversion from the interstate to city streets before accessing the garage, then walking as darkness approaches going and fully established on the return.  The light rail schedule would leave me with either slack time with an earlier train or a rush with a later one, then return well into the evening.

Both content and logistics favored Prof. Putnam.  That's where I went.  He gave a suitable presentation.  At the end, I got to ask him a question.  I also got to greet the CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation to remind him that Bob's previous presentation connected me to his agency.  Some light snacks at the end with small talk with a contemporary who I had not met previously.  Then uneventful drive home.

I made the right choice.