GinBoy2

Actually on a serious note, which is not something we do very often here, that is a big thing. I had to actually force my Dad towards the end of his life to get a mobility scooter. Stubborn old devil just wasn't going to admit defeat, even though walking had basically become impossible for him. As we age I guess you have to go through the various stages. When do you need a cane When do you need a walker When do you need a scooter And the trickiest of all, and I think the hardest for many, is when do you hang up the car keys! I'm only 65, so plenty of life left in me. But things can go downhill fast after 75+, just look at Joe Biden. I know my driving skills aren't what they were 20 years ago but I'm still OK will be for years to come But always tell they kids if the day comes you send your brother to knock me into shape and take away the car

Well you may well be right. I am most definitely a better man than I was back then. Life experiences and family calm you down a lot. I don't think I will ever let go of some of the regret I have for my life choices, but in some ways having that regret in the back of my head I think has made me a better man and Dad. Once you understand regret you realize what you can lose, and thats a good lesson to learn for anyone

The best thing you can do is just embrace the next phase of life Americans will understand this, but i just received my Medicare card in the mail the other day, so I guess i'm officially according the the Government 'old' Trouble is my head feels 18, but dammit my knees ain't cooperating and feel 65

It's sort of weird. Of course I'm happy how everything has worked out, kids are happy, grandkids and all of us are OK in our lives. But you can't help thinking about that trauma that happened back in the day In introspection I have had this conversation with my wife ex wife, and woman generally have a clearer mind than men. Men I 'think' can tend to be bitter when thing go badly Women will in general walk away. Not making any judgments but thats what I see

Hmmm, regret is a painful pill to swallow. For me thats all mixed up with my relationship to my Thai wife. I bitterly regret the pain my marriage break up caused to my ex, who I still love dearly and have a close relationship and my daughters My Thai wife was already pregnant with our son when the <deleted> hit the fan. Terrible, lots of shouting, crying wouldn't want to go back there Now 20+ years later things are different and one of the joys of my life is how we've blended these families together. All my kids are adults, my Thai son is married with a son, lives close to my eldest daughter who is a great auntie. My ex and and my current wife love nothing better than getting together to mutually discuss my many faults. So I regret what I did, but the best thing I ever did was somehow put this amazing blended family together

I kinda hate myself for even responding to this. In US Hispanic culture we don't tend to be circumcised. I've never really thought about it, just how my body came out of Momma's womb. I seem to have lived into my mid 60's and that pesky bit of skin doesn't seem to have caused me any problems. As for women's attitudes to it, I think they care less about male genitalia than we'd like to believe, and for them a dick is a dick

Suez canal wouldn't my opening line on a date! That being said me and Mrs G are very aware of the Billy Joel song. My old Thai bird is probably a little bit more worldly wise than the average

This whole disaster is decades in the making. My first job out of college was with Rockwell, building B1 bombers and I've always had an interest in the aviation industry. When Boeing 'bought' MD I knew it was a bad thing. Essentially MD executives who were bean counters displaced the executive engineering management who had run Boeing from it's foundation. When they announced the 787 outsourcing initiative I thought here we go. The only reason a company moves to outsourcing is so they can squeeze the outsource company on price, which comes at a cost. Spirit Aerospace who manufactures 737 airframes, plus Airbus I might add was owned 100% by Boeing until they spun it off. The bean counters didn't do that out of the goodness of their heart, they did do squeeze every dime they could and increase those executive bonuses. As it turns out, not working so well, those staid old engineering management types might well have been the better choice, and they wouldn't be in the mess they are!

My wife, and my ex. 56 and 60 years old, I think they are both sexy women, and I love them both, mothers to my children. Both of them are bold and confident. Wouldn't go up against either of them in a bar fight cos either of them would kick ur ass, and most likely your balls! Intellectually both of them would drop you in 60 seconds Damn it gets my juices flowing!

So lets get real. For the majority of guys here, you're older, 50 60+ thinking you're God's gift to a 20 something year old. Well of course they are going to seem immature, because they are. Back where you came from at 20 you were also some dumb assed male with the immaturity that goes with being a 20 something guy

Thing is I'm kinda happy being stuck with her Some of us sorta like growing old together We've had our kids enjoy watching the grandkids grow up. We both left immaturity in the rear view mirror decades ago

Very good point Right now I think I'm stuck with my old Thai bird, for better or worse. But honestly I don't know how guys do it in our twilight years. I really couldn't be be bothered with the effort, and 'Handula' would be my default girlfriend And seriously, don't fool yourself, jf she's young enough to be your daughter just give them your ATM PIN number and get on with it

Part of the joys of being multilingual is you really know when you partner is pissed off with you and reverts to the base language. For me I'll go off on her in Spanish, which in some ways is more satisfying since I know she doesn't understand Spanish!

So, on the humorous side of this. When we are in the US we tend to always use English, often she'll talk Lao to son and Grandson, I'll talk Thai and Spanish since we'd like him to get them all. In Thailand at home we use Lao, outside the home it's a mix of Thai and Lao, very rarely English Back in the US I always know when Mrs G is really really mad at me, cos it's always a tirade in Lao!

Well you might be correct about language. My wife growing up in Chicago, sounds like a midwesterner and can most certainly give me a tongue lashing, often deserved I won't deny. This girl ain't shy about showing her maturity to put this boy in his place if required!

Well I question that. I've been married to two very smart women and both of them had and do have some very questionable choices in TV program preferences ....that may be genetic!

Well it's not genetic for sure. Mrs G is all Thai, but brought up in the US, moved to Singapore where we met. She's as feisty and mature as they get. She's actually better educated than me, and trust me holds her own in fight In fact our adult son remarked recently that his wife said to him, "i'd never mess with your Mom, she'd whip my ass" Never a truer statement, and dammit I love that feisty badass lol

I speak Thai and Lao plus a couple more, can't imagine why I would hide it

That is true. I didn't know you you could suspend payments after you have elected to take SS. I think it's also little discussed that if you lose payouts after you take SS but work over the $24K limit you get those $ back after you get to FRA. I think the Government hopes we'll all be dead or too infirm to figure it out

I 'think' delaying or suspending does the same thing. You just move suspended payments into the future. Which again, brings in that 'when will I die' question. It's a conundrum which I don't think any of us has an answer Unfortunately my friend as we all enter the final chapter of our lives, there is no definitive answer, and we're back to that roulette wheel of life Delay, suspend, pick your poison

This is one of those tricky ones. None of us know when we're going depart this mortal coil, and you're spinning the roulette wheel to see how much in total you're going to get back from the system. I'm just aging into Medicare, but I going to delay picking up social security for another year. I don't want to retire yet, tried it once already and I was bored outta my mind. Problem with working and pulling SS before FRA (66 and 10 months in my case) is you lose 1$ of SS for every $2 you earn over $24K. So I figure I'll do another year until I'm 66, then 10 months of them ripping me off I'll live with. My Medicare Part B, I'll pay them directly, and I've signed up for Part C with Wellmark (Blue Cross), which surprisingly also covers me for my time in Thailand for up to $50K for a bargain $64/Month. Ultimately the bottom line is as I said before, none of us know when you are gonna die. You might be dead by tomorrow lunch time, or battle on into your 90's Also, if you pick up SS early at 62 it's a huge drop from FRA. FRA to 70 huge increase, but not sure I'm prepared to wait out my longevity to make that equation worth while. This is my retirement profile, can't go backwards, but at 62 it dropped like a stone

To quote Trump "I love the uneducated" Baffles me, now I know why!

The one thing that always bothers me, when you get into this are the kids. We are now both Grandma and Grandpa, which fills us with a lot of joy. We've seen our kids grown up, graduate university, get their hearts broken, made their careers, then found someone and on to Grandkids. For the guys in the 'pay for play' marriages, and we've all seen the 60+ guys slopping around the mall with 20 something women and a couple of rugrats in tow, thats sad. Those kids will never get to see Dad at their baseball games (insert sport of choice), graduate, get married and have kids of their own. So back to my earlier post, I think real love is a biological attraction of opposites, but money love, is a cruel adventure

I joined back in 2009.It was never 'my life' I had/have a real life. Back then before bots and AI, it was a lot more informative and fun banter, although I may be remembering that through rose colored online spectacles! In that time I've seen a lot come and go. Some leave just because they get fed up of it, or unfortunately due to the demographics of the forum a lot are dead. We moved back to the US as our primary, and Thailand is the vacation home, so I've seen my interest decline. I dont participate in Thai news any more, doesn't concern or interest me anymore, far cry from the coup days. But the Pub & Lounge they'll spark my interest from time to time. The other reason I started losing interest was, and we can all tell, the clickbate posts have gone through the roof, and I just have lost the interest to wade through the detritus just to get to something interesting. I've had some wonderful online ding dongs with folks, but never vicious and we always kissed and made up (with some exceptions), not so sure thats true now. Not sure what the future of this forum holds, but clearly for some of us it has changed beyond what we remember

Setting aside, the dirt poor woman young enough to be his daughter/granddaughter thing, I think we've done that scenario to death, there is a certain attraction of opposites. I always look at San Francisco where I used to live. Walk down the street and probably 50% of the couples you see will be white male with some version of asian female. Now obviously thats not a financial thing for most of them, but just some weird attraction thing. Same thing why are so many white women attracted to black guys? So if you set aside the money, young woman old guy thing, and Yes, there are some of us married to Thai women our own age, I think it is just some evolutionary trick nature plays on us