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.

You know you're moving when....

1.  The ugly microwave has been banished to the garage on show days, so you have to go out to the unheated garage to warm up your coffee. By the time I get back inside, the coffee's cold again.

2. We have vacuumed the carpet in places we didn't know we had carpet.

3. Will we be judged by how the toilet paper feed is topside or downside?

4. No, the Buddha is not for sale.

5. Pay no attention to the holes in the outside wall.  If anyone tries to cover them up, large woodpeckers will perform scenes from Hitchcock's "The Birds."  You've  been warned.

6. Look through the garage and find six lawn chairs.  And two more hanging on the far wall. And four more in the shed. Twelve outdoor chairs? We've never had 12 people here in 29 years.  And the balcony at our new place is about three feet wide, and three floors up.   We'll be lucky to FIT 12 people in the new place.

7. I can't find the power cord for, well, just about anything. We were told by the real estate agent to hide all wires, and we did it so well, nothing works.  I did find my Mac power cord in my underwear drawer.

8. I think its weird that we sign a contract with people we don't know and give them permission to bring other people we don't know into our home and then ask these strangers if our place is goof for them.  And then they say "No".

9. We started our December tree decoration by bringing in four boxes of stuff.  On January 6, we took down the holiday spectacle. We now had six boxes.  We bought two small ornaments all season.  Why are there two more big boxes of stuff?

10. Just as bad as strangers walking around our house is we have to ask big financial houses for a mortgage to pay off what will owe for the condo.  We just saw "The Big Short".  Be worried.

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.

The New Neighbors

We've lived in our house for over 25 years.  It's a one floor townhouse with two bedrooms, one bath, attached garage.  You are probably no more than a half hour drive from finding something like it. These planned housing areas, with curvy roads and walking paths through the trees, began around the Capital Region area near Albany some three decades back.  Oddly, the more jobs there are in the Albany area, the more Saratoga County (where we live) has had to build and build, add hotels to store the people who haven't bought their house yet, and build more.

Except in our development.  The Luther Forest homes were done by the early nineties.  It's now become the spot where young families start, and elderly folks can sit and finally watch some quality TV.

As my wife and I are slowly move into the second category, some observations on suburban life, especially with New Neighbors just finishing taking everything out of the truck and settling into the house we're attached to.

1. In the past 25 years, we've had young military families who have some connection to the local atomic labs.  The guys are always the rock hard buzz cut types who wouldn't let you help with a shovelful of snow even if National Security depended on it.  The wives are usually quiet, and holding a baby.  These folks usually last about six months, then are reassigned.

2. Then we had the rock drummer.  He and his lady fair seemed to exist on manna that trickled down from somewhere.  He was kind enough tell us that he practiced at odd hours, like 2 AM.  We just needed to bang on the wall, and he'd stop.  This must be something he was used to telling neighbors. They disappeared in their Volkswagen one morning.

3. Then the senior citizen.  Her daughter stopped by daily to help out her Mom, and we were just "wavers".  No conversation, just a "hi", as we headed for our car or the mailbox.  Then came the Christmas snowstorm on Dec 25 2002.  The daughter had another obligation, and could not be with her mother on Xmas.  The daughter asked if her Mom could spend the day with us.  My wife's mom was already there, so why not make it a foursome? It seemed the Christmas thing to do.  And we got through it.  Mom disappeared a month or so later to nursing home land.

4. Mom was succeeded by a bevy of independent women who would at least join in the costs of a new roof and driveway as it was, but nothing much else.  My wife has been in the neighbor's house twice in 25 years, me, once.

5. Around 2005 or so we had a ice and wind storm that felled a tree in our back yard.  These are tall pines about 60-70 feet high so when they fall over, hope you're in a tank, cause it'sa coming down. It did serious damage, but in below zero weather, the cleanup was literally painful.  Fortunately, "the guys (that is, neighbor to our left and to our right, and me) did our best to straighten it up.  Eventually, the professionals finished up.  That was the only time the three house's residents got together to do anything. Ever.

6.  Who says good fences don't make good neighbors?  The guy on our right asked me if I'd mind if he put up a privacy fence? Nope. Go ahead.  He has been there for ten plus years now, and we've had maybe about three conversations including the one in No. 5. He has a dog that does not appear to age, and from that I get some structure.  The guy leaves for work around seven AM, comes back to let the dog out at 9:45 AM, lunch at 11:45, and home at 4:30. Every day. I know the sound of the truck going out and coming back.  Which means I need another hobby.

In a house we first thought was "temporary" we've lived here more than a quarter century, and as my condition worsens, it means no stairs and easy access to my stuff.  Quiet days. Peaceful nights. So we stay.

I think the "Neighborhood" idea never took off around here because there are no kids within a five house radius and has not been for years  Kids interacting with other kids bring parents into the mix with school talk and parental issues.  Even when the military families lived next door, they kept their kids away from whoever was around.

One thing I do wonder, now that Jackie and I are retired and the New Neighbors (names forgotten already but there is a dog) are settled is how long until they ask the question: "Are you OK?" followed by the classic"You don't look sick."

Hey, you never know.  But they'll be wavers eventually, and eventually, disappear.  Luther Forest used to be the crown jewel in Malta.  With the new factories pumping out something, and people coming from the Far East to live and work here, the Forest has become the backwater place.  Potholes, repairs slower, already two Chinese restaurants and its a good bet that when we go to the Supermarket, one third of our fellow shoppers are not speaking English.  But this is Malta.

We'll still be here in 2015.  I hope you have a great year, too. Thanks for reading. 10,000 plus.