December 2016
Dear Friends, Family, and Followers,
Greetings
from the nation’s capital, home of the Washington Nationals, 2016 champions of
the National League’s East division, and future workweek home of President
Donald Trump. In the spirit of the season, we’ll make no further comment on
that subject.
Instead, we’ll turn to the
year’s happy news that son Andrew (AJ) is now the much blessed husband of
Robbie Rogart Jost, married on Sept. 24 in Virginia’s wine country. The wedding
weekend, cohosted by parents Katie White and Ken Jost and Rick and Shelley
Rogart, was a joyous celebration of ritual, food, drink, music, and dance.
AJ and
Robbie took a two-week honeymoon to Hawaii, which included sightseeing on land
in Kauai and Maui, parasailing over the Pacific, and helicoptering over Maui and Malakai. They returned to their apartment in
Arlington and to their respective jobs: Robbie, now a fifth-year associate at
the Washington office of Crowell & Moring; and AJ, investment analyst with
Clark Enterprises. Before the wedding, Andrew also learned he had passed the CFA
Level III exam: so he is now a “chartered financial analyst.”
Nicole
and her wife Lily Rea are resident in San
Francisco’s Mission District. Nicole is a teaching
artist for Performing Arts Workshop and a graduate teaching associate in
theater and playwriting at San Francisco
State University; Lily does audio and
video for events for the Jewish
Community Center of San Francisco. Nicole’s playwriting continues apace. Two of
her plays were produced this year. Slut was
presented by Minneapolis’ Gadfly Theater as part
of its festival of short plays in June; Monarchs
in Space was presented in October in Berkeley
by PlayGround as par of its new play festival..
Ken
continues in his 24th term of writing the annual series Supreme Court Yearbook for CQ Press and now occasional reports for CQ Researcher, including a comprehensive
pre-election overview of President Obama’s eight years in office (“The Obama
Legacy,” Nov. 4). Ken devotes more time to his blog, Jost on Justice, and writes occasional reviews for the on-line Washington Independent Review of Books.
James continues as senior systems analyst for the IT consulting firm Total
Resource Management. After 11 years, they still live together apart: Ken in Cleveland Park,
subway close to the Supreme Court; James just outside the Alexandria
city limits, a short drive from his Old
Town office.
This is
written as Ken and James are set to take a pre-Christmas trip to Malta and Sicily.
Ken’s other travels included a week on his own to Berlin, Germany; a baseball
road trip with AJ to Atlanta (three ballparks to
go); and a trip to Miami
for the LGBT journalists’ convention. Ken also tailed along with James on a
work trip to Westchester County,
New York, where Ken visited the
homestead of the first chief justice, John Jay, and had a good reunion with cousin Jerry Reilly.
James visited his parents in Taiwan.
His father, now in his late 80s, is doing fairly well after the emergency
hospitalization a year ago.
Every
year, it seems, the seasonal wishes for peace on earth and good will toward all
collide with harsh reality here in the United States and abroad. And this
year as well. We hope for a resurgence in 2017 of tolerance for all and
compassion for those most in need. And for you and those close to you we wish a
new year of health and happiness. L’chaim!
