It feels like I took a deep breath in early December and I’m
just now slowly letting it out. So much
has happened but nothing of earth shaking importance worthy of a blog
entry. I write today only because many
of you have expressed concern about our well being, having not heard from us in
several months. I can report that all is
well and we are, with apologies to Thoreau, living lives of quiet exaltation.
We spent a great deal of December being warm. Florida was the site for my birthday week
spent in the loving embrace of kids and grandkids, and featuring nature walks,
fine dining and a few bottles of wine and excellent Champagne. From there it was a quick dash back to
Charles Town for a change of clothes and then off to Minnesota for
Christmas. We stayed in downtown
Minneapolis which afforded us the opportunity to see the Christmas decorations,
visit the remarkable display of a kids’ Christmas at Santaland
at Macys’ and almost freeze to death as we stood in the dark and cold to
watch the Holidazzle
Parade. Now that I have done all of
that, I never have to do it again, but it was fun and once again made me
understand that you have to be born a Minnesotan to enjoy Minnesota. From
Cindy: he liked both of those holiday experiences far more than I’d ever
dreamed he would and we had a great time.
However, even this “born Minnesotan” was awfully cold at that parade.
We spent Christmas Eve day and Christmas Day in Anoka with
Cindy’s mother and sister enjoying a traditional Christmas, replete with trees,
songs, cookies, decorations and lots of laughter. It was low-key and we had a fine time dining
and exchanging gifts and otherwise enjoying the holiday together.
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| View from Room |
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| Our Backyard |
On the day after Christmas we went from the ridiculous to
the sublime in terms of weather: Minneapolis to San Diego. Earlier in the year an opportunity presented
itself that allowed us to purchase two weeks a year in the only timeshare in La Jolla. While we had never
stayed there, we had visited our friends who have been going there for thirty
years. It is an old motel that was
converted to a timeshare with 16 units right across the street from the
ocean. As you can see from the photos,
it is spectacular and every night we were lulled to sleep by the sounds of
waves and wind coming though our open windows. Long runs for Cindy, walks for
me, great sunsets with the green flash, no cars, no computers, no phones, just the lilting rhythms of Chinese and
Japanese tourists mobbing the Children’s Pool to see all of the filthy seals
and sea lions. We arrived a few days
before the rental period so our friends the Harkins and Colburns fed and
watered us for a few days before we could get into our unit. Our friends Brent and Kari joined us in a
neighboring unit for the week and one night we had a party for all of our San
Diego friends. On the last night we went to “upper” La Jolla (above the water
on a large hill) for dinner at Ken and Elena’s, admiring their view almost as
much as the cuisine. The man can cook!
It was truly grand and we are in love with the timeshare and delighted
that we have it for two weeks each year.
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| View from Balcony |
We returned to Charles Town in early January and got into a
lovely daily routine. We would wake up
with first light, which at that time of year wasn’t until around eight. Cindy would run, I would treadmill and we
would meet for coffee by nine. A spot of
work/writing/communicating in our respective offices and then tea at 12:30
followed by a light lunch at 1:30 and a long walk at three. As the weather has improved, we can now get
in three walks and have become the neighborhood watch team since everyone now
knows us as ‘those crazies’ who walk the ’hood.
Cindy arms herself for the afternoon walk with a plastic bag to fill
with tossed bottles, cans and other recyclables (she draws the line at true garbage
and lets that be), so we are also the trash collectors of Norborne Glebe, the
prosaic name of our neighborhood. There
are about twenty new homes that have been built since October and it is fun to
watch them go from a foundation ditch to a finished product in the space of
several weeks. It is good that there is
construction again, which means that real estate values will begin to climb
again and we might be able to unload this house in a few more years.
We are enjoying good health, Cindy is fit and trim and I’m,
well, I’m fit. On the flight home from
San Diego I experienced my first flight related malady in nearly 50 years of
flying. Our flight had been delayed for
several hours and the pilot of the United Airbus 320 was trying to make up some
time. It appears that a landing slot
opened up earlier than expected and he put the pedal to the metal and in an
effort to make up time, he did a very quick descent. For thirty minutes my left ear was plugged
and I was in agony - and it didn’t stop after the doors were open. After about two weeks of this, using over the
counter meds and methods, I went to a specialist. He stated the obvious: My ear was blocked, and he proscribed a $100 two-ounce
spray bottle of something and told me to come back in a week. Nothing was any better so he did an extensive
battery of hearing tests, all of which showed I had perfect hearing so I’m
guessing it was a Medicare scam. Last
week I had to fly again for the first time and within twenty minutes of
takeoff, my ear seemed to pop and all was well.
I mention this, not only to bring attention to Medicare
scams, but because we were worried I might not be able to fly later this month.
We are scheduled to go to Wellington New Zealand on the 21st and it
is a long trip at high altitudes and I didn’t want to chance it if there was
still a problem. We are going to visit Colin and Meagan and Hannah for about
two weeks. I had to use miles since we
couldn’t afford business class tickets and I was darned if I was going that far
in cccccccoach! I had AwardWallet make
the arrangements, which cost me the normal number of frequent flier miles and
$150 per ticket. I viewed this as a great deal since I was not able to come up
with any routing to NZ using miles. It is not an ideal itinerary but we are in
no rush and we’ll enjoy a few stops on the way.
We fly non-stop from Dulles to Narita, outside of Tokyo, and will stay
for a few days to relax and visit a few lovely temples in Narita City. Then it
is a long day on the 24th to Seoul and then Shanghai, where we shall
wait for five hours for our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. I promise to keep you apprised of our journey
and since we’ll be taking Hunter the Teddy Bear with us, there will be a
detailed journal. Hunter is the mascot
of our daughter Valley’s kindergarten class and we shall send frequent reports
to them to let know where Hunter is and what he is doing.
So, until Tokyo we wish you well and hope for an early
spring, or fall depending on your geographic location. Best wishes, William
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