Final Days

The house is sold and we are just waiting for the closing date so that everyone can practice signing their names on forms and , of course, checks.  In the meantime we are filling boxes with books, my books, or so it seems.  I’m sure Jackie has done something about all these boxes around her as well because I can hear her wheezing from dust bunnies that invaded a few weeks ago. And while both Jackie and I are looking to moving to a condo with much less responsibility, there is work to be done here aside  from packing boxes and tossing stuff we thought we’d always keep.

Like we would never leave, but we have to, well, truthfully, I have to.  A thirty year old house needs upkeep.  A 60 year old guy with MS needs to keep up.  There is little I can do now for the house or me, but we part friends, the house completely done over in new paint with add-ons and with me balding, slow walking, and then forgetting where I was going or why.  I’m not sure who got the better deal here. No, wait, I know. Me.  Sure the house cost plenty with paint, lumber, man hours, nails, garden stuff, fix the driveway, mulch - lots and lots of mulch, more mulch than you would ever think you would need in your life, or any life and that was what you had used just up through April.  You’d put the stuff in, tuck it around plants, take in the sweet smell, and the next day half of the dumb stuff has blown into the neighbors yard, covering their dog in wood chips.

Once the yard was done (for that day) time on our small but perfect deck, sitting, reading, having an occasional adult beverage, and moving my chair to stay out of the sun was required.. The awning above the deck kept us cool when the sun demanded more attention than we could allow.  The small deck in our new place will get sun only in the early morning. Fine with me.  Oh, and what was once six hours worth of work a day on the yard is now about maybe 30 minutes and I have to go on a three hour break. Nope.

Time to say goodbye...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWQbuJ24Wzg&list=RDLWQbuJ24Wzg

First a goodbye to my fellow toilers of the house exterior...Please give a hand or two for my cohorts in suburban bliss Rake! Broom! And Snow Shovel!

Hello, guys, and thanks for all your help these past 28 years.  Yes, shovel, I am aware that you had taken injuries during the recent snowstorms (chipped blade) and that circumstances relegated you to back yard leaf pickup detail, which is not your fault totally, very little snow and all that.  We only had the driveway plowed once this year and… yes, all right, we got another shovel, too.  Not that you’re not good, but this shovel is one I can push the snow around, not have to lift and dump. This is what I need now, and even I only used him once to push the snow and no he does not get used for leaf removal. Let it go. I won’t be using either of you anymore.  Our contract clearly states..

Yes, broom? Oh, I know you look pathetic, with your bristles cracked and broken.  Frankly you’ve had a good career here, and I’m not able to see what the new owners will do.  You know, you should be glad you were assigned to the shed.  I kept you around.

Oh, yes, rake, you are the winner, you get to play near every day, and have soundly defeated your enemy Fake Rake:

Plastic rakes are the weak Walmart cousins of a metal; easily terrified by pine cones or clumps of mowed grass. That is why he is banished to the garage, and will await further orders from your new commander, er, owner.

And to you, fair lawnmower, you started when I needed you to, asked for only gas and the occasional oil change.  And you were always good to spend the winter in the shed, sharing room with tools and stuff I forgot to get for the winter in the house.

So, we will have a few more days together, and will clean up this place for our final mission.  And I will know these are the Final Days.  And I will know that this is final time I do this and that with you., but we shall continue until the mission is done.

And then I adjusted my holsters, fixed my 4 star generals helmet, and cued the Patton music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu11QRO9BrQ

I looked off into the woods behind the shed…


I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere. But I can’t anymore.

That's all.

The breeze came up and the plants and flowers just appearing to bud moved their leaves which I'll take as applause.

Time to Say Goodbye - Homeward Bound

In my final blog of the year, I have opted to demonstrate my lack of film experience in showing this version of our new home.  We'll be heading a few miles south of Malta down to Clifton Park, where Jackie had her teens and 20s, or if you will, her life pre-me.

We've lived in Malta since 1/1/89 or 5 Presidents back (Reagan). From here we both did 50 mile a day travel to Albany and back, me from 1989 - 2010, Jackie from 1989 - 2014.  I stopped because I was offered early retirement and took it, as MS had begun to creep its evil self into me.  I might have stayed for a bit longer at DSS but the promotion I had hoped for was given to another, because management thought I was leaving due to illness but never actually asked me, which, since that's what they thought, who am I do judge their decision making abilities? So I worked in my yard, read a lot of books, did some writing, traveled, and got sicker.  So maybe it all worked out.  Even with seeing my old staff at various functions, I had trouble remembering names of people I had known for years.

In the last few years, night driving has been somewhat hazardous (on a foggy night, I just see things [dogs, people] that just are wisps of vapor, except to my brain) and will limit activities, as my wife also has problems driving at night.  It's not that we're stranded up here, but neighbors are distant, even though some are only 50 feet away.  Our nieces and nephew are no longer local, and we have little contact with other family.  Reality.

We are on our own.  And as I'm not getting any better, and I do not want Jackie
stuck in a house that's 30+ years old itself and needing its own rehab from the vagaries of time. So the move to the Condo just makes sense.  (In deep truth I saw my mother flail against the tides of death and financial ruin. Her last years were just sad, with a few bright moments, but totally brutalized by the death of my sister in 1991. Her bipolar disorder didn't help.)  I have done what I can to make sure that my wife will be in good shape financially when I'm no longer available.  A home, people around her (good friend support) and a decent income.

Everything else is up to her.

But I ain't gone yet.  Still I see my yard fading in what I can do for upkeep.  I have energy for only two worlds named Jackie and the novel.

What will I miss? The quiet. Also, since we've both lived in two story homes when younger and here in Malta in a one story town home.  First time for both of us to have "Somebody Upstairs".  At the Bentley, its just a different quiet, with a lot more old people wheezing.  I will miss my yard, but for the last few years what I would have done by May I'm now trying to finish in October.  Nice times sitting on our deck on a warm day, not a hot one. The bunny who visited every day munching on clover and I guess not feeling very skittish around us.

I will not miss the chipmunks and squirrels or the lugging of stuff around the yard finding that I could lift two bricks, and only two, move them barely ten feet and then having to sit for a half hour until trying to move the same two bricks.  You get it.  I work out twice a week, and what tiny muscles have come from that are no help at all.  I get winded just walking to the mailbox.

This is bordering on whining so I'll get out of here. We are venturing to the Final Frontier, and I'd be honored to tell you about it.

Thanks for the 14,000+ visits.