Don't look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

 A Florida neighbor, who hails from Canada, has been stuck in Canada during the pandemic.  He emailed recently with an update and a request.  He was shopping for new condo insurance.  He was paying X dollars and asked who do we use and what do we pay.  I said we are paying more than X and he has a good deal, however we like our company and agent. He wrote back that he could put us in touch with his agent and that we were paying too much.

My first inclination was to say, no thanks.  Then I thought, why not?  I'm not going to switch but why not be gracious and take the name of his agent?  People like doing that kind of favor; make them feel like good neighbors.

I remember years ago a neighbor wanted to give me her 10 year daughter's outgrown clothes for my younger daughter.  I turned it down.  I think she was insulted.  In retrospect, I could have just accepted the clothes and donated them or picked out one or two for my daughter to wear. 

So I said yes to my helpful neighbor.

He sent me the information. Maybe I can use it at some point, who knows.

Resilience

 Books and articles increasingly are focusing on resilience, basically coping strategies for dealing with adversity, "bouncing back" from a difficult experience.

A friend  recently sent me information about an upcoming webinair on resilience. This friend has faced adversity and is doing well, it appears.  Her daughter married badly, many years ago.  This was before the internet.  The daughter and husband had a baby, the husband was abusive. Here's what my friends, her parents, did.  They quit their jobs. Meanwhile, their daughter applied for a job transfer to the West Coast.  All of them - parents and daughter and baby moved to the West.  They told only two friends.  Just disappeared.  A kind of do-it-yourself witness protection program.  My friend said, we know he will find us, but this will give us a few months to get settled.  He found them ultimately and launched multiple legal assaults, none successful.  The child never wanted anything to do with her father.  The child grew up safe and secure.  The daughter remarried a "good guy".  Now that child is finishing college and has been accepted to a prestigious law school. 

As a postscript, not everything has gone perfectly.  The good guy husband, still in his 50's, died of cancer.  My friend's husband died of cancer.  The daughter has found another job in the same West Coast location. But the granddaughter went to college on the East Coast.  Now she is going to law school on the East Coast.

So now it will be just my friend and her daughter on the West Coast.  My friend is thinking of her future and the possibility that her daughter, who was her lifeline during the pandemic, will re-marry and possibly move away and/or make another job move.  

My friend is wondering what her next move will be.