Out of Touch

It's been a while since I've been able to blow some time in front of my computer. I've been super busy with trying to get my Mom completely untethered from her house of 40 years. She's 74 and is now living in an assisted living facility--very nice complex and close to my house. We moved her out in December and it's taken until now, plus quite a bit of cold, hard cash, to get her house (the place where I grew up) cleared out and cleaned up--phew!! Finally, we are at the point of having real estate agents looking at it to determine a fair listing price. We hope to have it listed by the end of next week. We've also been showing it to potential buyers who got wind of it going on the market before the listing--all of this has been extremely time-consuming.

Meanwhile, I've been training for a 5K coming up in July. My elliptical has served me well in that capacity over the winter. I finally took to the streets this past Saturday on a hot and stuffy morning. I managed to run about an 11-minute mile, my usual time, so I was happy with that--but I spent the rest of the day icing my knees to keep them from swelling--worked pretty well. This is also helping with the blood pressure which is mostly back to normal, I'm happy to report.

A recent, really cool development is that I managed to rescue a very limited number of special items from my Mom's house (the last three truck loads went directly to landfill, sadly, thanks to 1-800-GOT-JUNK). One of those treasures was a swinging porch bench which DG and I put together one Saturday afternoon. Ever since then, my neighbors and I have been spending Sunday evenings out there sipping wine and chatting. We've drawn passers-by to the porch to join us and it's been a total "community-building" phenomenon. I've always avoided hanging out on the front porch due to prior bad connotations, but I'm slowly being converted by my neighbors who say that front porch frequenting is good for the neighborhood on a number of fronts--even from a security standpoint.

My lifestyle here is so different from the one I left in Seattle and let me tell you, I was fighting hard to avoid sinking into the "white picket fence" mindset, but now that I live in a house on a street full of other houses instead of a downtown highrise, or mid-sized condo, it's hard not to get caught up in it. I tried hard to buy a condo, but I couldn't bring myself to spend the money in what I thought was/is an over-valued market. But I'm adjusting...now, I spend a lot of time bird-watching from my own front and back yards. We have a nice variety of resident birds including cardinals, finches, hawks, woodpeckers, and geese, along with the ever-present sparrows and robins. Closer to the water there are quite a few gulls. We also have our resident bunnies (quite a few) and squirrels. The biggest difference in lifestyle is having my immediate family so close at hand and allowing them to take up so much of my time--it's all for the good right now though.

Some things are similar. Like Seattle, a number of my favorite hangouts are in my neighborhood, rather than downtown. I have my choice of restaurants and coffeeshops, as well as a local theater, art gallery, huge park, and wine shop, all within easy walking distance. A slightly longer walk encompasses everything else to which I need regular access (though I usually drive). Downtown is farther away than what I enjoyed in Seattle, so I *always* drive to that area of town. I drive a lot more in general, but my neighborhood is great for walking and biking, so I do this when I can.

Well, I think I'll try to load in a few pictures too: Mom at the grocery store (she can't walk unassisted); a scene from the RiverWalk (DG and I spent a perfect Sunday afternoon along this groovy part of downtown); my front porch on a night other than Sunday.

Next posting will include notes from a patio wine tasting at a friend's last week before howling winds, torrential rains, and thunderstorms sent us packing into the basement (not a bad place to be stuck since he has a beautiful new bar, complete with booth seating). Check back in a week or so...

Cheers