When adult children move in --- Yikes!

I just kind of mosey along in my own personal fog most of the time and not much flusters me, but I have to say that having our Eric and Alsiha both move in with us while they reset their compasses has made me reflect a bit about how much I have slowed down from my youth without really noticing much. I have stopped trying to keep up with their energy levels.

We are in the process of gutting out the old garage and remaking it into something usable and not so nineteen fifty sevenish. The work is taking a toll on my knees mostly, but also on my perception my own mortal makeup. My body is asking for days off when there is far too much work yet to be finished. Screaming for attention! Me too, me too! The kiddos have done much of the heavy lifting, and I am thankful for that, but they both have jobs now and I cannot play without guilt until the space is habitable so I just work until my body says it is time for a shower and a glass of wine. When we recently took time to play golf with friends, parts of my anatomy protested, but I averted a general strike by slowing down my pace.

Anyway, spending time with our children has been fun, rewarding scary, and a blessing.They will always be our kids, but it is fun to get to know them as adults.

Time Crunch

With each passing year my perception of time changes. Things speed up and there often is not enough time to do all of the things I want to do. Right now, with the help of Julie, Eric and Alisha, I am in the middle of converting the old garage area into a real bedroom and bathroom space, along with a sort-of-space for Julie's treadmill and other related junk.

But this coming weekend is our annual Rhododendron Festival, so I want to get the DeLorean out on the streets of Old Town for fun and attend the car show. Of course some time at the Grape Leaf may be warranted just to pace the day properly. The trouble is I have been invited by Gary Nauta to go on a fishing raft trip down the Deschutes River for four days beginning next Monday and I may not have enough time to get my work done and do the Rhody Festival thing and still have time to pack. Everyone should be so unlucky! I suppose that the worst could be that the drywall guy may have to wait a few days until I get back and do the final work so that he can get started.

Deaven will be here for the weekend just to make sure that the little carnival is still doing what it is supposed to do - entertaining kids. And Alisha has taken on a job at the ICM Restaurant in Old Town, saving money for Grad school, so she will get initiated in the customer service side of the Rhododendron Festival, although she has never made it here to participate in the revelry in past years.

I suppose that all of us here have so many skinned knuckles that it will be a good time to recover and heal for a few days. Maybe that is why everyone just about pushed me out the door when I received the invitation to go fishing. Hmmmm?

The Gimp

I had a benign glomus tumor removed from my right pinkie finger last week because the random pain over the last several years finally was too much. Alisha has taken to calling me the gimp because I have been able to contribute very little to the house rehab projects we started before the surgery 7 days ago. I thought that I would walk out of the surgery center with a band aid on my pinkie and instead they immobilized my entire right hand! I will, hopefully, get my hand back in a couple of days.

In the process of learning about the bandaging technique and the reason for cuffing me, I have found out that there is a band called Bandaged Hand. Not bad from what little I heard online. Just one of those random bits of useless information.

One of the upsides of all of this, aside from the obvious absence of pinkie pain, has been the the DeLorean is running great. Before the visit to the room of masked people with sharp knives and debilitating, paralyzing drugs, the old stainless steel car was running really rough and blowing black smoke. I knew that it would be some time before the Doc would want me to get my hands all greasy so I did a tune-up and leaned out the fuel mixture. Now it runs better than it ever has, although my assistant, Eric, managed to drop a 7/8 inch deep socket into a virtually inaccessible part of the Lotus frame and I am imagining that I will hear it rolling around forever.

Typing this small post left handed is very slooow, although my speed is up to maybe 10 words per minute now after my week of practice.

Accounting Hell

I have disappeared this last week into the undesirable portion of our universe in which one must account for every penny of cash flow so that our government may take, yes take, what Congress considers their fair share. I have been entering the last three months worth of income and expenditures into the accounting system that almost every small business owner is slave to – Quickbooks ®. Amazingly it finally all balances with the bank statements, so if I keep it up for the remainder of the year, at the end I will be able to punch one button and generate the information our CPA needs to pay Congress once again. Whoopee!

Now I am going back to the DeLorean to take care of some maintenance issues in preparation for our big city wide party in May known as the Rhododendron Festival. It is a blast and I have come to really enjoy the relative insanity of it all. Thousands of Harley Davidson owners, as well as hoards of gawkers, show up for our two days of car show, flower show, slug races, small street carnival and general fun, topped off by our parade down Highway 101 and Old Town Florence.

Photo from 2002 just before the Rhododendron Festival parade.

Oh, drizzle!

We had to return to Florence some time, if for nothing else than to pay our taxes. So here we are with the first truly northwest drizzle that we have seen for 2 1/2 months, unloading the truck and doing laundry. The kiddos, Eric & Alisha, are glad to see us and we are all enjoying getting caught up on events. More on that at a latter time. Alisha has agreed not to use any of the handguns on me for giving her all of our mail and bills to deal with, and Eric is just glad to have company and the rest of the family to grieve the loss of our Bungie (our 15 year old best buddy).

Leaving San Carlos

Today was our last day in San Carlos so we played a round of golf early, which still left plenty of time to look at a beach house that just came on the market (too much for too little) and still we got the Suburban packed. Since we only purchased a few small items it all crammed back in just fine. We have stocked up on about a dozen tamales and a kilo of camarones for Tucson, and we would take much more if we thought they would last until we get to Oregon, but that would probably be stretching it a bit.

We have planned one last dinner out at Picalo's, just in case our waistlines threaten to shrink. If nothing else, we CAN say that we made a great effort to sample all of the restaurants here, along with just a few margaritas!

So here we are with long faces and trying to just count our blessings, which are abundant. We plan to be back soon.

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto

The day after I went into the dentist here in San Carlos to take care of my broken molar, the Doctor stopped by our condo to check on me. He just wanted to make sure that I was not in pain. I was just fine, so Julie and I were out golfing when he left his card on the door, so not knowing why he had been here I stopped by his office the next morning to inquire. I was more concerned that my check had not cleared or that the casting for the enamel cap had not gone well and my new tooth would not be ready before our departure.

I do not know if everyone gets that level of concern and care or if it is only because I am a gringo paying a higher rate and might have friends in similar need. I plan to ask a few locals if this is common practice, but whatever the answer it is just a sure sign that we are in a different world. Dr. Hiram Martinez C. Duarte is high on my list of good people.