A hiatus for the Odyssey

August 5, 2015

 This is our final post on the Odyssey blog. We had planned to continue it with our move to Mexico but since that isn’t going to happen for at least a year it is time to close.

 We are pretty settled into the condo. See photos in our previous post. We still visit our storage unit as we discover we don’t have some items we need here. We have grown weary of the unit frankly. But we have made great progress in separating things to be stored into a smaller unit and things to sell at the yard sale. We now plan on having the sale at a friend’s house ion the 23^rd of August, a few days after Ron returns from VA. He will leave Sunday and spend 10 days helping Rachel and Mark pack for their big move to Wyoming where Mark has accepted a full time position in the music department of the community college where he will develop the strings department. We are so happy for them. I feel badly that Ron has to pack more boxes after what he has gone through here.

What doesn’t sell at the garage sale will go to Goodwill. It will feel good to have that behind us and to get the remaining items into a smaller unit. Ron plans to have help moving into the smaller unit the week after the  yard sale.

I continue to progress in my healing from the two surgeries. I have been released by the gyn doc and don’t need to go back until my annual checkup in April. I see my eye surgeon on Tuesday next week. I am still in stage four in the recovery process and am hoping I will be in stage five by next week. This will allow me to bend and to drive. I am most eager to be able to bend. House cleaning and cooking require lots of bending. Without Ron around it would be good to be able to function on my own.

Our condo looks great and has many of our travel mementos around which makes both of us feel at home. We have just started to take time to explore the neighborhood. Today we discovered a non profit three blocks away with a fitness center and lots of classes/programs geared for all ages. Today we will walk up the street to see about becoming members. I will be awhile before I can exercise but both of us are eager to find a place with exercise equipment that we can walk to easily in the winter so we can be consistent with our exercise. I am selling my exercise bike and weight bench at the yard sale.

August 17, 2015

 Time flies. Ron gets home Wednesday from VA. I am so ready to have him back. We have never been separated for more than two weeks in almost 30 years of marriage. That only happened once many years ago when he attended  leadership training in CO.

While he has been gone I managed to do most of the pricing on the items for the garage sale. I visited the storage unit daily for about four days and the only things left for Ron are technical equipment and computers.

I had a visitor from LA one night, a former exchange students from Germany who lived with us the year the Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago. He is now a father of three and happily married in LA. He was here on business overnight. It was great to have a good long visit with Tom.

Mark spent last night with me. He wrapped up his gig with the Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville and flew out at 0 stupid 30 this morning. He and Ron will have one day of overlap to finish up the packing.

My doc appointment went well. I am now allowed to bend, no longer have to wear the ugly eye cage that made me feel like a Cyclops instead of a sexy pirate (ha) and I am allowed to sleep on my left side. All good things. I still cannot lift more than five pounds. I will not be driving from probably two months. I am thankful that Portland has such good public transportation. I tried out the neighborhood laundry mat and it pales in comparison to the Spin Laundry and Lounge. So I most probably will use Spin, using a taxi to get there, while Ron is in Costa Rica from Sept 17-Oct 7. I think I have mentioned that we were invited to return to Costa Rica and staff the airbnb where we stayed in April. We thought it would be fun and a way to see more of Costa Rica. That was in April and this is now so I asked my doc if I could go for two weeks when Ron was there. His response was ‘That is a really bad idea’. End of conversation.

Our odyssey has ended, not as planned but we all know that life is what happens while making other plans. We are grateful for the months of travel and adventures we had and we look forward to our next adventure. I cannot travel for the next year so we anticipate moving to Mexico in mid to late 2016 if all goes well. 

Trying to get settled

July 24 

Wendy helped us three days this week and what a difference it has made.  Yesterday after taking Ron to pick up the Tahoe and going to the storage unit to pick up the last items: dresser, bedside table and floor lamp, they came here and put things in place. Having the second dresser gives us a ton of storage space. Ron and I spent the afternoon organizing  closets and drawers. It is all coming together so nicely.

In the afternoon we went to a movie which we had not done for weeks. Then we tried a nearby India restaurant. It was no where near as good as our favorite place, India House. It was a good day.

July 25

Today we went to the farmers’ market in Vancouver and got some fresh berries. Afterwards we picked up two bookcases Ron had ordered. It took the rest of the day to assemble them. The second one went much faster than the first. Tomorrow we will bring our books from the storage unit and place them on the shelves.  With that I do believe we will be done moving in. Yeah!

July 27 

 We got the books sorted at the storage unit and bought home the ones we wanted to keep. The living room is now complete and looks terrific. Kathy Burkey called me today and I said it feels like home now that we are surrounded by familiar objects and we are content to be here. Ron has worked tirelessly to get it all done. Our next task is to go to the storage unit and dig through the two filing cabinets and bring what we want to keep here and store in our storage unit available at the condo in either the basement or on the third floor where we live. They are a real bonus.

Mark, our son, came in from VA last night and left for the Britt festival this morning. It was great to see him even for a short visit. We will try to go see him perform next week before Ron leaves for VA.

We are now on our way to see Mr Holmes, a movie about an aging Sherlock. We will be joined by our friends John and Kathy Somers and Rick and Ellen Levine, our weekly movie group. Ron and I have missed about a month of movies so we are delighted we be joining them again.

And the eyes have it!

July 20, 2015

On Wednesday July 15^th I had my eye surgery: trabeculectomy (for glaucoma) and cataract in the left eye. It was about a 90 minute procedure and fortunately I have no memory of it, although I was under a local anesthesia. Each day afterwards through Saturday I had daily visits to the doctor’s office for a check up. For the first few days I was bed ridden. I was allowed up to use the bathroom and to eat. No reading and no TV. I did fairly well listening to the radio as we didn’t have time to get to any books on tape. Each day the doc said my eye looked good. I am also restricted to NO bending, lifting or straining. This doesn’t sound too bad but so much of this is automatic and I constantly have to be mindful of my movements. I drop things and bend down to pick them up and then remember I am not supposed to do that. I can do some real damage if I am not careful. So no loading a dishwasher, no putting things in drawers that are below my waist, forget grocery shopping…I went grocery shopping briefly in Sunday and found myself reaching for peanut butter on the bottom shelf and almost had a melt down when I realized what I had done.

After the surgery on Wednesday, we spent Wednesday and Thursday night in town to make things easier since I was tired from the surgery and I had to be back at 10:30 the next morning and again return at 9:30 on Friday. We spent Friday night at the farm and were joined by Larry’s daughter, Hillary and her sweet family: Scott, her husband and their two kids, Henriette and Ewing. We left Saturday morning for my doc appointment and did not return to the farm. Larry and Susan were expected to return around 11:00 p.m. that night. I miss waking up to the most gorgeous view each morning and my time with Baker, the smartest, coolest dog ever.

There are seven stages of recovery from my eye surgery. There is no specific time frame as each patient heals differently. By Saturday I was at stage two which meant I could read and watch TV and be out of bed for small time periods. I was told by my gyn doc no baths and by my eye doc no showers. I cannot wash my hair until stage four!!!! I have oily skin so I have washed my hair daily since I was a teen even when wilderness camping. I am going crazy with this restriction. Pray that I am at stage four when I go for my next check up on Thursday.

July 22 2015 

On Sunday July 19 we started going through boxes that were left at the storage unit. We created three categories: take to the condo, put in yard sale, and re-store. We worked two-three hours each day, about all either of us could handle, particularly me. It was much easier to do it at the storage unit using my old desk as a place to open boxes instead of bending over a box on the floor. We bought home boxes each day and put things away in the condo. We combined contents and repacked boxes that were to be re-stored and we started boxes for the yard sale. Our goal is to downsize our storage unit from 23 X 24 to something about half that size. Ron’s shop and its contents will be stored as well as any boxes of items we wish to keep at this point.

We went back on Monday for a two hour stint and on Tuesday and Wednesday Wendy Wibbens joined us to help out. I have known Wendy since she was 16 and I administered her GED.  That was 41 years ago!!!!  We have history and a very fine relationship. She is on vacation here from Oakland CA. She took me to my gynocologist post op appointment on Tuesday morning. My doc was pleased with my progress and told me to come back next year when I was due for my annual check up. I was also given the go ahead on having a bath! Yippee! I took a long hot bath that night and it felt divine. I felt clean for the first time in over a week. Now about that hair…

On Tuesday we went to the unit after lunch then worked for a couple of hours. Wendy was terrific and packed up items for the yard sale. We made great progress. She came back to the condo with us and helped to unload the items we brought home. After putting things away, she and Ron organized the kitchen. I must confess before my surgery when Ron and I were bringing things here I literally dumped box contents into the drawers and cabinets here. Well, the two of them took care of getting it all straightened out and it is just terrific.

Around 6:30 the three of us headed to NE Portland and had dinner at Tamale Boy, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. Wendy went to her friend’s house for the night and we came home, pretty tired from a long day.

Today I got up and after breakfast took the trolley to a place in SW Portland to be fingerprinted, a security requirement to being back on the board of Our House of Portland. I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the print/copy shop where I was finger printed (it is all electronic now, no more messy ink). The owner was Indonesian and came to this country in 2005 seeking asylum because he and his wife had converted to Christianity from Islam. I didn’t know things were that strict there. He said they came here with two plane tickets and $2,000 and now he owns the print shop. I told him he was the classic American immigrant success story.

I came home, called Wendy and she came over and the three of us went at it again. I am glad to say we have a sizable yard sale pile. We managed to get through the last of the boxes in the storage unit we are dealing with right now. There are more that we have to do but we are waiting on some book shelves to arrive on Friday before going through our boxes of books. Once again we unloaded the things we brought back to the condo and headed out to lunch at a nearby Vietnamese place around the corner. Afterwards we walked another block for dessert, a hot coffee drink at Starbucks. Wendy headed home and we rested for while as we were pooped. I napped and Ron read.

Ron has been busy hanging up textiles, masks, and artwork. He has done a terrific job. I think by this weekend we will be pretty set here except for a part of the iving room where we will put in wall unit book shelves for both books and chatchkies. They are scheduled to arrive at the store on Tuesday the 28th . It has been a difficult time for both of us, frankly. Ron is worn out and has been somewhat stressed. No surprise there with all that has happened since returning to Portland. I have to fight with myself for feeling useless or inadequate because I am so limited right now. But here we are, in a lovely neighborhood, in a gorgeous condo and we have made it our home/sanctuary and nest in less than a week.  

Moving and preparing for surgery

July 3

We went to Portland to pick up Mark’s Tahoe to load up boxes from the storage unit and take to the condo. The movers come Tuesday and we wanted to get some things put away before the chaos ensues. The battery was dead even though Joe, Mark’s cousin, had attempted to recharge it. Ron added some water to the battery and we went to Sellwood to load up the car with the things we had stored there. Back to the Tahoe. It was ready to roll so we went to the unit and loaded it up and filled our car. I was able to load things like bags of coat hangers and pillows. Ron had all the heavy stuff.

We went to the condo. I unloaded the car while Ron worked on unloading the Tahoe. At 2:00 we stopped for lunch then decided we needed to get home to Baker who was inside the house and we worried about July 4^th traffic. For the first time I can recall I -84 on ramp from I-5 was a piece of cake. Usually by this tine of the day (3:00 pm) it is a friggin zoo. I guess most folks left town on Thursday.

On the way home I got a call from Wendy, a Parkdale neighbor. She had gotten our phone message asking her to help with Baker today. She had been out of town in The Dalles, working on a rental she and Dick own. They let Baker out while we were en route. It made for a less anxious trip home. Once we got home we went to Wendy and Dick’s to pick Baker up and to visit. I took my calendar to ask for help on days we can’t be here, like Monday when we head to Olympia to see my eye surgeon and the 15^th  when I have my surgery.

We both were exhausted when we got home. It was hot today and I think both of us are more stressed than we realize. I rested in bed for a bit then we made a simple omelet supper and watched the news. I think today was my second day out of bed since my surgery. I see how I can get into the trouble I was warned about: you feel great so you do things you shouldn’t be doing. DUH! Bingo, just what I did today.

July 4, 2015

We said today we would just rest. Here is how we rest: we picked raspberries before breakfast, had breakfast then Ron went out to work on the duck compound, trying to make it more secure from unwanted birds who get in and peck the eggs. I showered, cleaned two bathrooms and swept the house. Damn I am hard headed. I wore myself out and did rest the rest of the day. I even took a nap and slept deeply.

July 5, 2015

We returned to the condo to unpack boxes. Ron went to the storage unit to get another load and I worked quickly trying to empty as many as possible. Some were easy with blankets, pillows and such and some were tedious. I unpacked two large suitcases that we had packed for Mexico. I decided the goal was to get the boxes emptied and out of the condo so we had room to work. I literally dumped things into the kitchen drawers and shoved things into the cabinets with no particular order. We can organize later. The kitchen is so small, a fraction of what I had for the last 20 years so there will be some major adjustments there. I feel the pressure of my July 15^th surgery date and want to get us as settled as possible before then because I don’t know what restrictions I will have post surgery. I will find out more tomorrow when we drive to Olympia and see my doctor. Fortunately our son David is flying out to help us. He arrives on Wednesday and leaves way early on Sunday. The extra help will be terrific.

Our friends Rick and Ellen came over to a brief visit since we don’t have any furniture to offer anyone a place to sit. They arrived a little before Ron returned from the unit. When he got back, he suggested we all grab a bite to eat. That was great because it forced us to take a break and gave us more time for our visit. Afterwards, we came back and unpacked more boxes and tidied up, taking flattened boxes and paper to the recycle bins in the basement.

July 6, 2015

Off to see the wizard. We got up and Ron has been showing me how to take care of the geese/ducks in case he needs to stay in town during our move into the condo. We also anticipate that he and David will spend Saturday night in town since David has a VERY early flight out on Sunday.

We think our drive to Olympia will take two or so hours from Portland and want to make a stop in Vancouver on the way. We anticipate getting home late since my appointment is at 4:15 and I have a page of questions to ask regarding the surgery. I am hopeful that I will calm down a bit afterwards. I have some anxiety regarding how I will be able to function after the surgery as it relates to our move into the condo. I am assuming I won’t be able to do much so currently I am in a hyper mode. Imagine that? Anyone who knows me (us) knows we call ourselves hyper active adults but in these circumstances we shift into overdrive!  As I look at the calendar I am limited between now and the surgery in terms of getting into town and getting things done.

We left at 11:00 to make a stop in Vancouver then head on up to Olympia for us to meet with the eye surgeon. He had suggested that we talk before the surgery so I would fully understand what was involved. His practice is in Olympia three weeks a month and in Portland one week a month.

I asked Ron to come with me so he could take notes. I had prepared a long list of questions and knew I would not be able to retain everything. The drive was quicker than we had anticipated and we arrived over an hour early for the appointment. So we treated ourselves to a Starbucks coffee and sweet treat. I walked around the shaded parking lot because I really do not like long spells of sitting. It was around 2:30 when we arrived. Then we read in the car until time to go in.

Dr Samples is a great guy and very easy to talk to. He explained the procedure: I will have cataract surgery and glaucoma surgery. My cataract is unusual in how dense and small it is. With the glaucoma surgery he will create a canal to help reduce the pressure build up which can destroy my vision. For a few days afterwards I will just be lying around and doing much of nothing…not my strong suit. I will be wearing a patch...arrrrgh.  Each person is unique but as a guide for two weeks I will not be able to bend my head below my heart, strain or lift anything over five pounds. I will be checked after the surgery each day for three days then weekly for one or two weeks, then monthly for six months then quarterly for the rest of the year. After that it will be every six months. If all goes well it appears we can move to Mexico but I will need to leave every six months for a check up. I am not making reservations yet for Mexico!

There are risks associated with the surgery. There can be bleeding, hemorrhaging and infection. He said he has ‘never lost an eye’. He is quite conservative, cautious and he is adamant about adherence to the restrictions. None of this is overwhelming but I do have a difficult time lazing around. I will have no choice about this though as losing an eye is very serious business. It is best that we stay out at Parkdale because being in the condo I would want to be doing things. The drawback is the three hour round trip. It has gotten somewhat onerous for us. When we were invited here to recuperate from the hysterectomy I didn’t know I would be having eye surgery too! Nor did we know we would be buying a condo after we moved in here. Such is life.

We got home at 9:00 road weary. I walked down to the neighbors and fetch our charming dog Baker. I think he was glad to be home after spending the day with a teenager dog that runs circles around Baker. We went to bed at 11:00 because Ron wants to leave early for Portland to meet the movers.

July 7

Ron and the movers got going around 11:00 and were loaded by 1:20. They wrapped up around 5:00. A lot of our things are still in the storage unit but half of what is stored are Ron’s shop and tools. We left all the artwork for now and other things that we can bring over ourselves as we have room. I stayed home but got reports throughout the day.

July 8

David arrived at 11:30 from NYC. He started his day at 4:30. We ran errands including grabbing a bite to eat. Then we worked at the condo for about two hours. By 4:00 we needed to leave and get back here for Baker. He can go about eight hours then he needs to be let out.

I must have overdone it (duh) because at 8:00 PM I asked Ron to feed the geese and ducks so he could take me to the ER in Hood River, about 25 minutes away. I was bleeding and thought it would stop which is why I had waited to tell him. Not so. By 11:00 we got to come home with the admonition to take it easy. I am so hard headed and thought I was okay to unpack boxes. There must not be much brain in my skull due to its thickness!

So I behaved today and stayed home and in bed all day until time to make a simple supper. Ron and David worked all day and go a lot done. Ron seemed pleased with the progress.

Today I got a call saying St Vincent’s Hospital requires patients to have had a physical prior to surgery and it has to have been within the last 30 days. Guess what? I was past the time limit so the eye clinic called my doc’s office and they said they could get in tomorrow at 7:45. We will need to get up at 5:30 and drive for about 1.75 hrs to get there on time with the morning traffic. Then I have a hair cut and manicure scheduled for later in the morning in Vancouver. I will need to come straight back from that to let Baker out. OY, I will be thankful when all this is behind me and we are just hanging out at our cool condo! There is light at the end of this tunnel. The temps have been in the mid 90’s to the low 100’s for weeks but today it dropped into the 80’s and there is a breeze. What a difference. This is so much more typical of our usual weather this time of year.

Life on the farm

June 27, 2015

Today is Saturday and I came home from my surgery on Tuesday. All went well with one small hiccup. The doc who performed the operation was concerned that my bladder/kidneys were not functioning well after the surgery so I remained on the operating table while an urologist was called in (it was night by now). He did a dye test and determined that all was in order so I got sewn up and went to recovery. I got to my room around 10:00 p.m., later than expected. My surgery started around 3:00 in the afternoon but with robotic surgery I think it takes about an hour to set up before actual surgery begins.

I was released the next day, Tuesday at noon. It takes about 90 minutes to reach Parkdale. I went upstairs and when I tried to get into bed I had excruciating pain in my shoulders and screamed out, tears where flowing down my face and Ron told me to breathe. It hurt like hell to cry and to breathe. I finally got into bed. Apparently this is the worst side effect of the operation. I was injected with carbon dioxide gas to help the surgeon see better and to help move things around. This is a common practice. However the gas aggravates the diaphragm and a nerve that goes to the shoulders.  The pain felt like torture frankly but was only in the shoulder region. By night fall I couldn’t take it any longer and Ron convinced me to have my narcotic prescription filled. He left to go to town, an hour round trip. What would I do without this wonderful guy?

With the help of the drugs I was able to sleep but had to sleep in a sitting position because I couldn’t lie down without creating the stabbing pain in my shoulders. I did this for two nights and slept well. Ah hard drugs, a godsend under the circumstances. This experience made me even more sympathetic to my friends who have had to deal with much more serious physical/medical problems.

If ever there were a perfect place to recuperate, Parkdale would be it. Larry and Susan’s farm is in an idyllic setting. Our bedroom window looks out on tidy farms and a drop dead gorgeous view of Mt Hood. I often sit on the edge of the bed and just take it in. It is a healing gesture. Then my first days post op, Larry or Ron would bring me coffee and my meals. I stayed upstairs the first day due to the discomfort I was experiencing each time I got out of or into bed. But by Wednesday I was able to do downstairs for short visits.  Between Larry and Ron my every need was attended to…hey I could get used to this!

On Thursday Larry left for Portland and to pick Susan up at the airport. She has been visiting her mom in Florida. They stayed overnight in Sellwood. We watched the news after dinner and on Friday I was out of bed much of the day. I walked around the property briefly, had my coffee on the patio taking in the view and we headed into town around 12:30 to go to a notary for a condo document and to do some grocery shopping. It ended up we went too early as the notary wasn’t available until 2:00. Because it was 90 degrees we decided to do the non perishable grocery shopping before seeing the notary and to pick up the rest on our way back to the farm. As luck would have it we ran into Nick, Mateo and Stacy, friends from Portland, at the grocery store. They were on their way to a camping weekend nearby at Lost Lake so we had a brief visit in the store and we hope to go see them this weekend. I find getting out of the house helpful but am being careful to not overdo it. Everyone has warned me about feeling really good then overdoing it. Being a hyperactive adult this is a challenge but I want to be well as soon as possible. I am lucky to have had this type of surgery.

In the late afternoon my new ophthalmologist called. He had not answered my emails and I discovered earlier in the day that he had been attending a meeting and had not been in the office. I asked about delaying the surgery until October. He said I was losing eye sight and by delaying I was risking losing more. I decided to set up a meeting with him in Olympia where his practices three weeks a month. He is in Portland one week a month. We will meet July 6th as the surgery is now scheduled for July 15^th. I am proceeding with this as Ron will need to be in Costa Rica in mid September and I feel the longer I have in recovery before his departure the better. The appointment in July will give us more information to know exactly what we can expect in terms of risks and possible outcomes from the surgery.

Larry and Susan arrived around 6:00 p.m. and we waited until the heat abated and served a salad dinner which we all enjoyed. We had picked up three deli salads then Ron made a great green salad. We added some good bread and called it dinner. I rested in bed all evening and read Miss Marple mysteries by Agatha Christie. I had run out of reading material and found a book with five mysteries in the beside table to keep me entertained for now. These are quite dated so it is interesting to observe how things have changed in terms of attitudes towards women, age and gays. It makes me aware that some progress has been made. We were thrilled to hear of the two Supreme Court rulings on the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage equity.

I made it through the day with no narcotics and am pleased. I did wake up around 3:00 a.m. and so did Ron. I read until about 4:00 when he came back to bed. I then slept until 8:30. Ron has been working with a program called Home Architect which allows him to draw a floor plan of the condo and place furniture to see how things will fit. He refined it further during his wakeful hours between 3:00-4:00. He has done a terrific job of thinking things through. We are downsizing from 3,000 sq feet to 1280 sq ft. We have a large art and textile collection so some of it will need to be stored, sold or given away I think. We won’t make any decisions until after we attempt to move in.

Today Mandi, a former tenant of ours in Vancouver is bringing lunch for the five of us. We look forward to her visit.

Sunday

We had a super visit with Mandi and a delicious lunch. We will see her again hopefully before we move into our condo. Ron and I ate leftovers for dinner and Larry and Susan went to a winery for the owners’ retirement party. I spent the evening in bed as I had been out of bed much of the day.

Today after lunch we said goodbye to Larry and Susan who are leaving for Portland today and France tomorrow. We drove about 35-40 minutes up to Lost Lake to see Stacy, Nick, Mateo and Stacy’s folks, Rollie and Dolores whom we have known since the early 80’s.  Poor Mateo fell asleep as soon as we all congregated at the camp site as he had spent a long time doing a standing kayak on the lake, and was very tired. (so no picture of him). We had a great visit and enjoyed the cooler temps. Today is was about 87 degrees compared to Saturday’s 102. It was also cooler in the forest service campground which was probably another 1,000-1,5000 ft higher in elevation than Parkdale’s 1500 ft.

Stacy

Nick

Tricia

Dolores

Rollie

We came home and picked blueberries and raspberries then ate leftovers for dinner. We watched The Theory of Everything, a wonderful film about Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane.

Through our stay at Parkdale, we've told you about Larry and Susan's dog, Baker.  He is so smart.... so here's his picture.

July 1

Today we found out that Mark, our older son, passed his defense of his dissertation and is now Dr Bergman. Hooray for Mark who has worked so hard on this degree while holding multiple jobs and while being a great dad and husband.

Our mover finally called back to say he couldn’t put a team together. I got rather emotional with tears. I can’t tell what all the contributors are to my emotional outburst but Ron thinks it is all that is going on: multiple health issues, the vagabond life style, and multiple plan changes this summer. Let’s not forget the disappointment of not moving to Mexico. We quickly got some recommendations from our realtor and our friend Ellen Levine. By the end of the day Ron had arranged for a move a week from Friday, July 10^th.  Tomorrow we will see if that can be moved up a bit as it doesn’t give us much time to get settled before my surgery on the 15^th.

We went into Portland where I had my eyes measured for the surgery and RON went to a lunch with buddies then a dental appointment. My friends Gary and Edmund picked up at the eye clinic and we headed out to Hood River where we had a play date. We ate lunch, visited art galleries and interesting shops. It was 102 degrees today. Oy! We came out to the house, about a 20 minute drive. They fell in love with L &S’s house and the setting. We relaxed and had a snack then later I gave them the garden tour, and showed them the orchard and duck/geese pond and where the birds are housed. After Ron got home, we decided to go back to town for a nice meal.  After dinner we said our goodbyes and rushed home to get the birds back into their house for the night. This house protects them from predators. 

Life is What Happens While Making Other Plans.

Back in Portland and the Great NW

Our first plan: Ron and I thought we could rent a place in Portland or Vancouver for the summer. This would allow us to get ready for our move to Mexico and to say hello and goodbye to all our friends. HA! Were we ever naïve? Portland has a 3% vacancy rate for rentals and the only rentals available require a year’s lease. We have relied on friends to help us out and we are extremely grateful for all the support we have been shown.

Our Second plan: Ron and I arrived in Portland on April 24^th and stayed at Larry and Susan’s Sellwood house for two weeks. This is the house we rented last summer after selling our home in Vancouver. From there we moved to Gary and Edmund’s house in SW Portland and house sat while they vacationed in Italy. Stunning sunsets from Gary and Edmond;s deck!

We moved back to the Sellwood house for one week and Ron helped Larry get the house ready for Hillary and Scott (Larry’s daughter and her husband and two children) to move in on Saturday. Ron worked doing some wall repair, painting and various minor handyman jobs. I mowed the grass and ran errands for parts as needed. We made great progress in getting the house ready. We volunteered to help out on moving day. We moved out on Friday to an airbnb in NE Portland. On Saturday there were some delays but we were able to help until around 7:00 PM including serving dinner. We left and went to a restaurant to join friends whom we have not seen for quite a while. During out last week in Sellwood, we put an offer on a  ‘so called’ 3 bedroom  2 bath house near where we were staying.  One of the bedrooms was in the attic area and was quite small (8X8) and the second bath was in the unfinished basement.  So in reality, it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath home without a garage, but nicely refinished in a period way.  The asking price was $535,000.  In two days, they received 10 offers (mostly all cash) with the high bid at $596,000.  We were way out bid.

Our Third Plan:  Our son Mark has taken a new job working for a community college in Wyoming.  He has finished his PhD program and finalizing his dissertation. We agreed to go back there to help pack up because Mark was already committed for another season at the Britt Festival in Oregon that will take him to the time he needs to start in Wyoming.  So our travel plans were changed again to allow for this side trip.

Our Fourth Plan: While at the bnb we decided to look at real estate. Portland is on fire as far as the real estate market is concerned. We learned that 200,000 more people are expected to move here over the next 20 years. We also learned that real estate prices were expected to rise 12% this year over last year. We were afraid we would get priced out of the market and decided we could buy a condo and rent it while we were living in Mexico. That way we would have something to come back to and if we decided at that point that we wanted something different we could sell it and use the money to buy something else.

Somewhere in all this I had a hysteroscopy procedure to remove the polyp I discovered I had while traveling in Central America. Unfortunately the procedure was not successful and I learned that the only way to remove the polyp was to have a hysterectomy. Drat!

Our Fifth Plan: That meant changing our plans regarding departure. The operation was scheduled for June 22^nd. My next option was September so I took the 22^nd. I also had the option of June 8^th but I would have to miss the wedding for two friends, Kathy and Penney, who have been together for 35 years. I couldn’t miss that!  Because of the surgery, Ron felt we needed a home base to come home to and we looked at several condos in Portland.  We put in a bid on one, but were out bid.  This was a very fancy historic building from 1911 and the unit was remodeled in that period.  Very high end.  But it was small; only 1000 sq feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bath. 

Our Sixth Plan: During this time we found a house to lease in Mexico through our friend Stacy. We were over the moon to score this house: it sleeps five, was within our budget, is in the exact kind of neighborhood we wanted and we could walk to the center of town in 10 minutes. It doesn’t get any better than that.  Google Casa Emily San Miguel and look for a VRBO listing for pictures

We left the bnb after 12 days and on June 11^th drove to S Oregon for the wedding weekend. It was fabulous as you would imagine. I never saw two more radiant women. After the weeding we drove to Salem OR on Sunday and spent four nights with our friends Rollie and Dolores Wisbrock. Ron helped Rollie with a couple of projects there too.  Then we went to Portland and stayed two nights with Janet Flaherty, another friend. She is getting her spare apartment ready to use as an airbnb and Ron helped by installing some electrical plugs/switches, hanging artwork, a spice rack and other handyman tasks.  I could rent this guy out!

Saturday June 20^th we drove out to Parkdale in the Columbia Gorge. This is where Larry and Susan live. They had invited us to stay with them when I found out I needed the hysterectomy. I do not know what we would have done without them. As it turned out the timing was perfect. L & S leave June 29^th for three weeks in France. We (Ron ) will  take are of the farms with its geese, ducks, veggie garden and the smartest dog ever, Baker. I will be lounging around recuperating and hopefully helping out as I can with the limitations I will have.

We bid on a second condo to rent out while in Mexico and this one we won.  It is about 1200 sq ft. with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths in a nice NW area of Portland.  We will close the end of June.

Medical Madness

Every doctor I saw this summer found an issue requiring a procedure. The dermatologist found a basil cell and removed it. The dentist said I have two old crowns that need replacing (scheduled for July), I have already mentioned the hysterectomy. To top it all off I found out yesterday that I need eye surgery due to my glaucoma and cataract that will require me staying in Portland for aftercare for one year. Double drat.

Our Seventh Plan: That totally eliminates our move to Mexico for now. Needless to say I shed some tears over that. Being who we are we went into hyper-drive and solved the problem.  So another change of plans.  Instead of renting the condo, we will move into it for the eye surgery recovery period.  And, we cancelled the lease on the Mexico property.  The owner was really sweet to let us out of the agreement; because we only were able to snag it when someone else had leased it for 2 years and had a medical episode and backed out.  The universe truly is strange.

Our new digs in Portland:

Here’s the current plan: tomorrow I have my hysterectomy which requires a six week recovery. Our closing on the condo  supposed to happen on the 29^th if all goes well with the inspection on Wednesday. Ron will work on getting us moved in while I am recuperating so when Susan and Larry return we can move into the condo. Hopefully I can wait to schedule the eye surgery until October which will allow us to go to VA in August to help Mark and his family pack for a move to WY where Mark has accepted a position at a community college there. Then we hopefully will go to Costa Rica in mid September to staff a bnb until Oct 8^th. We were offered this opportunity in April when we were staying at the bnb. We have invited Sandi and Bill. Ron’s sister and her husband to join us. Then we will return for my eye surgery and a year of aftercare. I really want to fulfill our dream of living in San Miguel so hopefully we can do that in Oct 2016. We will find out on Monday if the eye surgeon will let me wait until October to have the surgery.

Parkdale

The views from every room in the house!

Parkdale is a small community just south of Hood River OR in the Columbia Gorge. It is an agriculture area known for growing cherries, pears and apples. Larry and Susan have started an orchard of chestnut trees. They have a ton of strawberry plants so Ron and I got up early this morning and started picking them. Larry said there was probably 20 pounds of strawberries ready on the plants. Guess what? Strawberries grow on the ground. We had to bend over the entire time to pick them and soon found out how hard that is. Oy! But what strawberries. We put a small dent in the crop that needs to be harvested. Unfortunately today is the last day that I will be able to pick them…maybe in another three weeks and maybe not. TBD.  We picked about 7 or 8 pounds; cleaned them, packaged them in 1 to 1.5 pound vacuum packed bags and froze them for later use.

Ron has been learning farm chores, especially caring for the ducks and geese, collecting eggs, and other farm chores. This is something for a guy who doesn’t do gardening and has been a city boy his ENTIRE life.

Virginia to Rhode Island via Massachusetts with a Bar Mitzvah included

April 22, 2015

After SC we flew north to Centreville VA where we spent three nights with Mark, our older son and his family: Rachel, Avi and Zachary. It was a whirlwind of activity and was all fun. We had good weather so were able to take some walks, Ron did a few minor house projects and we attended a recorder concert with Avi’s 3^rd grade class performing. We were amazed how the two teachers were able to get so many classes of eight year olds to hold still, not to mention play classical tunes. Kudos to those teachers. 

Mark with new dog Dimond

Mark and Rachel playing in the park

The Grand kids were great and we had a ball with them.  

Especially fun was an afternoon at the park where they and their parents played on the park equipment.

Avi

Zachy

Rachel, Mark, Ron and I have a grown up night out and went out for a dinner at an Indian restaurant, a long tradition with the four of us. 

Next we flew to Hartford CT where our friend Jock Conly picked us up. We headed to his and Laurie’s home in Granby MA about an hour away. Laurie arrived from her yoga class and we spent the afternoon and evening catching up. We met Laurie and Jock when we all were in the Rep of Georgia in 2009-11. We took advantage of the hot tub while J & L prepared a great salmon dinner. 

Camp Ramah Schul

Jacob

The next morning Ron and I headed to Camp Ramah where Jacob, our grandson will have his bar mitzvah on Saturday. We helped with set up at the camp. We made beds, helped with decorations, etc. That night services were held and then we had an 8:00 dinner before heading off to bed, back at at J & L’s house about 45 minutes away. We reconnected with many relatives from the east and west coasts. It was a wonderful evening.

Saturday was a very full day. Services started at 9:30. David, our son, lead the service until it was time for Jacob to read his portion of the Torah and then he completed the service which was a long one. Jacob did a splendid job and made us all quite proud of his command of Hebrew, his singing ability and his piece he wrote as part of the service where he examined the portion he read from the Torah.

Anne, Elishevah, Jacob, and David

Ron with his two California sisters Heidi and Robin

 Lunch was served after the service then we visited with folks before taking a break back and L& J’s place. That night we returned from dinner and more visiting. Sunday we joined folks for breakfast then we helped with clean up which involved cleaning the sanctuary, carrying laundry to a cabin, taking down decorations, etc. At 3:00 we headed back to J & L’s after watching Jacob opening his gifts.

David, Leah, Elyse, Erit, and Mark (1st cousins)

Heidi, Drew, Erit, Robin

We walked around a reservoir with L & J after we got home. It turned out to be much longer than anticipated as we left by a different gate than the one we entered. It was a very long way back to our car and it was not scenic. Jock prepared a wonderful lamb dinner.

On Monday we visited the historic town of Deerfield. I wish we had more time but we did manage to visit three of the historic homes there and have a great lunch at the historic Deerfield Inn. The town was established in the early 1700’s and there is much to see there. We ended our visit with another great dinner that Jock prepared.

On Tuesday we headed to Springfield and visited two of Springfield’s four museums that are all in one compound. It was fantastic. We saw few Impressionist paintings, a wonderful collection of Currier and Ives prints of firemen, and then went into another museum that was housed in a fabulous building with Tiffany windows, gorgeous tiles, carved staircases, etc. The collection included Islamic items (carpets, tiles, etc), Japanese warrior garb, ivory carvings, cloisonne, copies of famous classical sculptures such as Michelangelo’s Moses. It was a real treat.

Jock and Laurie left us at the Peter Pan bus station where we caught our bus to Providence RI and we were met by Sandi and Bill, Ron’s sister and her hubby. We ate a great lunch in town then drove to Kingston where they live. On Wednesday Maxine, S & B’s older daughter came over and the five of us took a walk by the ocean in Narragansett, about 20 minutes from here. It was a warm, sunny day and the ocean was beautiful.

We came back home for a quick bite then headed to the cinema where we got to see A Woman in Gold, about a famous Gustav Klimt painting that was confiscated during the Second World War. We all enjoyed the film. That evening we drove to Westerly for a wonderful dinner. Since Ron and I shared our entree we decided we could be bad and ordered two desserts (a lemon tart and a gingerbread ? with dolce de leche ice cream) for the four of us to share. It was a very good move!

April 23, 2015

Today we drove to Wickford and walked around town, poking into various shops. It was very cold with a chilling wind. Wickford was established in 1709 so there was an abundance of old homes and buildings which thrilled us to no end. New England is such a lovely place with its small villages, stone walls and quaint and grand homes. We ate at a tavern and I was treated to a lobster roll. That is a great big yum! Tonight we go to dinner and a play with Sandi, Bill, Stephanie and Peter, Rachel’s parents, who live nearby. Tomorrow we leave for Portland OR. Stay tuned as we do not know where we will be after May 29^th.