October 7, 2008. Chevy Chase, Md. Dinner.

Freddie is sure this country is going to hell in a hand basket. He tends to be a pessimist anyway, but this crisis in the financial sector has left him shaking his head with despair.. What I think is a needed wake up call about the risk of credit in this country he thinks is an unmitigated disaster for everyone. Fred and Phyllis came to dinner here tonight and as usual, our evening was lively and interesting. His general approach is so different from ours that it makes for controversial conversations. They leave in a couple of days to visit their children in California, then they return for a wedding before leaving for Florida the day after Thanksgiving. They will return in April. They have a very nice life style. Fred retired when he was 42 years old. Now he is 71. He laughed when I told him that I would be retiring in 2017, in December, and said that he would be retired 40 years by that time. It seems a waste of talent to me, but he is happy so who am I to impose my work ethic on him.

There are several things about Freddy that we enjoy. Firstly, he is an engineer by training so his approach to everything is different than ours. Secondly, his pessimistic nature is so unusual that we are always being required to defend our position. Of course, I am a real Pollyanna, which he does not understand at all. He pays a lot of attention to his friends and is always sending Ken information about something we talked about months ago. He is a good friend and we enjoy his company but he definitely is not your average American man We will have dinner with them once in November before they drive to Florida. As usual, we rotate houses, so we will dine at their home. They have already told us what they are serving for us. We on the other hand, never think about our menu until just a day or so ahead of the event. That is another charms of Phyllis and Fred. They really go out of their way to cook wonderful food, and we enjoy every bit of it. We can't begin to compete with them in the dinners and never try. Just good basic cooking in our home. Tonight Ken cooked stew and it was delicious. Everyone was happy and that is the only thing that matters.