It’s Family Time!  

It’s the year of our bi-annual Family Reunion! We now have two families on the West coast and two on the East coast. For previous reunions, we always found a lakefront home in California, but two years ago, when our family had expanded to 15, there was not a waterfront home large enough with enough beds for all of us. So at the suggestion of one of the grandsons, the one who wants to be a pilot and loves to fly, we broadened our horizon and found a beautiful house on one of the beaches of Oahu. We were lucky and could rent it for ten days instead for the usual week that most homes rent for. We had a wonderful time. It was truly a Paradise Found.

This year, we found a home in Duck, on the grounds of The Four Seasons on the Outerbanks. We are renting it from June  30 until July 7, the only week that all families could make it. One West coast family will come a week early and the other will stay a week after, so everybody has two weeks vacation. Last night, Saturday, the California family has arrived and we will have them plus the three grandsons here over for brunch at the Club and the fun starts there!

So I am taking three weeks off, because I don’t think I will get close to a computer when I’m on the beach or lounging at the pool or walking on the Boardwalk or watching the Fourth of July Parade. I did take a quick picture of our front entrance, where I love to sit in the cool evening hours with a good book and a glass of wine, watching the fireflies flit back and forth. It’s like my little garden.

Have a wonderful time yourselves, my friends, and count on it that I have exciting news by the end of July!

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until Next Time,

Ronny

Blood Draws

Every quarter, our Primary Physician, a member of  “Doctors Making Housecalls”, orders a blood draw from the Lab for all Residents. In Prescott we had that done once a year, during our physical. But here, a person from Quest, the Lab, goes around on Wednesdays to draw blood from Residents between 6:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. She goes first to the apartments in the main building, then comes to the cottages and we are done just in time for breakfast at 8:00. I asked Jolene, one of the people at our dinner table one day, “Who is awake at 6:30 in the morning to give blood?”
” Not many of us, to tell you the truth. I certainly am not. But she knocks on the door, comes in, tells us who she is, and comes to the bedroom. Then we, half awake, hang our arm out of the bed, she takes blood, covers the pin hole with a bandaid, and disappears. We turn over and go back to sleep.”

We are glad that we are last on the list and will be showered and dressed to open the door. And we refuse a bandaid, because taking it off causes a multitude of bruises on your arm. Bruises are the norm here by the way, either caused by ripping off a bandaid or just appearing out of nowhere. Like, “how on earth did I get this one? I didn’t hit anything; I only touched my arm with my thumb when I was soaping up in the shower.” They just appear, large and small bruises, on arms and hands and legs. I started getting them about five years ago. We get them probably because our skin is getting thinner as we age. They do not hurt, and everybody has them, so it does not matter. And in this day and age of tattoos it does not matter at all!

Spring Cleaning

Last week the pressure cleaners were here. They come once a year to pressure clean the roofs, the outside of the main building, the cottages and fences. Our turn was on Tuesday. We had moved the chairs, plants and doormat inside the garage and were ready when they came. They sprayed one time with a light chlorine solution, the second time with clean water. They did a pretty good job and our house and patios are clean! Just before our kids arrive!

On Friday, about 6 cleaning ladies and their manager came to clean the inside windows. And not just with a wipe, but there were bugs, dead and alive, between the screens and the glass, so after they understood how I wanted them to clean the windows and the screens, they did a thorough job. I am sure though, that none of them had ever done such a thorough cleaning job on any of the windows in the eight years of this facility’s existence. It takes a Dutch housewife to know how to clean, or so they say!

When the window washing ladies had taken off, two handymen and their manager showed up and went to work: taking the hardware off the front door and proceeding to paint it. All front doors were a dark green before; but they can’t get that color anymore, so now all the doors are painted black. With the doors of the main building finished last month, we were the first of the cottages to get the royal treatment. We were again critical, because it all would have to last a long time before another maintenance job would be due, so we asked to also paint the white door frame. The hardware came off easily, but when put back on, we could not properly lock and open the door. So someone else came to redo them. And the door itself still showed green in the grooves so it needed a second coat of paint. Someone came back to work on those final touches.

My sewing kit

Most Sundays, Mike and I ride the bus to church together with our daughter-in-law’s parents, who came to live here almost two years ago. Sitting behind them, I noticed that the hem of Mia’s jacket was hanging loose. And again, I noticed it later on when we had brunch at home. So on Thursday evening, after dinner, Mike went home and I picked up my sewing kit and walked back to Mia and John’s apartment in the main building. I had called ahead of time, and so the door was open. Together we found the jacket and I went to work. I love to sew and even to mend, and I am a good story teller, so the time went by fast, we laughed a lot and, using my sewing kit after a long time, I told them its story.

“In 1960 we were engaged to be married. In August of that year, Mike got an invitation from the Netherland-America Foundation to work in the US for a year on a Business Exchange program. He was going to leave on January 13, 1961. What a terrific opportunity! I thought of a practical gift for him, a small sewing kit, so that he could at least sew on a button if it came off. On December 24, riding the train to our parents’ home for Christmas, I said, “Here is a little gift you can use when you are all alone in New York.” He opened it and thought for a few minutes. Then he said, “Ron, why don’t you marry me? We can go to New York together!” We had a lovely wedding two weeks later, and I have been sewing on his buttons and hemming his pants and mending his socks for the next 57 years, not only in New York but in many places all over the world! I say: Good deal!

It’s a Wonderful World!

Until Next Time!

Ronny

HAWAI’I  A 3.0 earthquake under Kilauea Volcano on April 15, 2018 was quickly followed by five more on the same day. Heavier quakes shook the southern part of the Big Island in the ensuing days, until on May 4 a fissure opened up in the area near Leilani Estates, followed by more and more fissures, spewing smoke and lava to blacken the sky and covering everything in it’s slow moving path, crossing roads and homes, trees and cars, slowly moving down to the ocean. We have all been able to watch the eruption of Kilauea, still going on today. Actually, the eruption itself started in 1983, fountaining, followed by years of flowing lava, dangerous gases and small earthquakes.

We lived on the Big Island for twelve years, 9 miles north of Hilo. We never witnessed a close-up of a fountain, but frequently took guests to the Caldera and down the Chain of Craters Road, from where we could take a good look at the lava flowing down from the Pali (cliff) and could feel the enormous heat while we were taking pictures.

During the current wrath of Pele I have kept in touch with 4 sets of friends who live on the east side and north side of the island. They have all assured us that Kilauea’s terror is more raging in the south and they are not in danger. They can hardly believe that the gases can get to 10,000 feet into the air, but most of the bad vog goes to the Kona side. Another friend, whose mother lives on the Kona side assured her that it is not as bad as they say it is. However, for the people living in the Leilani Estate area, and Kapoho, and Pahoa, the people who have lost their home, it is a disaster. Because with the lava enveloping everything they have also lost their land – you can’t build on lava. Insurance is hard to get; those who have it must be pretty affluent, but those living in the affected area definitely are not.

A month ago I tried to get a hold of friends living in the Pahoa area. I knew they had listed their home for sale but had not heard from them since Christmas. The phone number was discontinued, I could not find the listing of their home anymore, but finally, my email reached them. They had just arrived in Berkeley, with her family, and would go to Vermont to be with his family the next day. The earthquakes had started in early April; Escrow closed on April 30th and they made it out to Waimea in the north for an overnight while the fissures started cracking the roads open.

Just this week we got an email that they will be the proud owners of a house in Fairfield Iowa, close to everything (they don’t have a car but she bought a bike) so they can walk everywhere and start a new life. Winters will be cold for them, but it’s better to be freezing than to burn up! Fairfield has a University, like Hilo, and they are already planning to plant fruits and vegetables, like they had in Hawai’i. We think it’s a miracle that the sale of their home went through and hope it will stay out of the danger zone.

Considering Mike’s asthma (which he got from that same Kilauea), we are glad we are not living on the Big Island anymore. Although our home’s new owner in Onomea, who has a bed and breakfast there, assured us that Hilo side is safe and tourists keep coming (with a little education on what is happening). Hey, here’s a thought. If you want a very exciting vacation, go to the Big Island, Hilo side, make reservations for staying in our former Onomea house (the original carport has been refurbished and turned into a beautiful studio) and witness the excruciating labor pains of the birth of new land. The continually descending lava, flowing into the ocean and hardening, is creating land, attached to the Big Island and many thousands of years from now, people will be able to live on that land.

For those of you who have my book Rising from the Shadow of the Sun, you may want to read again my story of one eruption, describing the wrath of Pele, Goddess of the Volcano, and the lunar rainbow I watched later that night driving up the chain of Craters Road (Pages 329 and 330). My dad, during the war, witnessed such a Lunar Rainbow when he was stationed on the Cocos Islands. Has any of you, my friends, ever seen one? I would love to know when and where that was. Just leave me a note on the Contact Form below this Post. Lunar rainbows do occur, but only under certain weather conditions, such as a full moon and a misty rain.

Another active volcano is creating underwater activity: Lōʻihi (also known as Lōihi Seamount) is an active submarine volcano about 35 km (22 mi) off the southeast coast of the island of Hawaii.^[6] The top of the seamount is about 975 m (3,000 ft) below sea level. This seamount is on the flank of Mauna Loa, the largest shield volcano on Earth. Lōihi, meaning “long” in Hawaiian, is the newest volcano in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, a string of volcanoes that stretches over 5,800 km (3,600 mi) northwest of Lōʻihi. Unlike most active volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean that make up the active plate margins on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Lōʻihi and the other volcanoes of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain are hotspot volcanoes and formed well away from the nearest plate boundary. Volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands arise from the Hawaii hotspot, and as the youngest volcano in the chain, Lōihi is the only Hawaiian volcano in the deep submarine preshield stage of development.

Lōihi began forming around 400,000 years ago and is expected to begin emerging above sea level about 10,000–100,000 years from now. At its summit, Lōʻihi Seamount stands more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) above the seafloor, making it taller than Mount St. Helens was before its catastrophic 1980 eruption. A diverse microbial community resides around Lōihi’s many hydrothermal vents.

I copied this information from the internet because there are so many interesting clickable links to explore! And then, just for fun, there is a wonderful YouTube video of about 6 minutes called LAVA. I loved it, and hope you will too. check it out!

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until Next Time!

Ronny

The Menu

The nightly dinner menu offers several choices. On the right page we find the soup of the day, a choice of two entrees and a choice of two starches. The entree is chicken, pork, fish, veal or beef and the sides are rice or potatoes or pasta and a vegetable. Most of the time we can find a good choice that is tasty and healthy, although there is not a great selection of fresh vegetables other than sautéed squash or zucchini with onions and peppers. Sometimes beets and carrots, root vegetables, which I like.

On the left side of the menu is the A la Carte, available for a whole month. There is a nice choice of salads, Caesar salad, House salad with dark greens, arugula, tomatoes and cucumber, and more. For sides there are fish cakes and a variety of other items like hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries and a vegetable. The names of various items often are a source of amusement. Sometimes things are not what we expect when we read the name. All of last month one of our favorites showed: Hari Covert Beans. They were always prepared well, green and crisp, and the servers understood what you wanted if you pointed at the item on the menu or plainly called them green beans. “Ah yes, green beans.” Then, also last month, they added a vegan dish: Vegetable quesadilla. We don’t know of any Mexicans working in the kitchen, but the first night it was offered I ordered it; my expectations were high, because I love Mexican food. However, I was disappointed this time. The contents of a small, folded tortilla (I got only one) consisted of a few slices of zucchini, a couple of strips of red pepper and some mashed spaghetti squash, oh yes, and some onions. No cheese. Really? Yup, no cheese. So a few days later, when one of our  table mates said he did not like all the cheesy sauces on everything, I could honestly say, “Have a quesadilla.” That evening, the kitchen staff had wizened up though, and the quesadilla did contain some shredded cheese, but most of it could easily be scraped off because it had not melted – sometimes the food is not really hot. All in all though the staff really works hard to serve the food as quickly as possible, on heated plates, the chef tries to please everybody, and the pastry chef makes every dinner a success, night after night.

This month, a new item on the A la Carte menu was another dinner salad, a Spinach salad with sliced chicken breast, goat cheese, strawberries, nuts and a strawberry-champagne dressing on the side, at least, it looked and smelled like strawberries and champagne . We have had other dinner salads, like a Cobb, and a Mexican tortilla salad, but a Spinach salad is one of my favorites. The third night, Dolly and Rex joined us for dinner and two of us highly recommended the spinach salad. When it was her turn to order, Dolly looked up at the server and said, “I would like to have the Spinach salad, but  please leave out the spinach.” One other person at the table and I exchanged a look and a wink, the other four did not notice a thing. “I’m sorry Ma’am, but the Spinach salads are already plated in the kitchen, so I can’t leave the spinach out.” Dolly decided on a hamburger instead.

Jordan Lake

One of the favorite outings is a trip on the bus to Jordan Lake. They organize it twice a year. For all outings you have to make reservations on a list in the Activity room. The bus holds only twelve people, and is prepared to transport walkers and/or wheel chairs in the back. This time it held cases of bottled water and wraps and cookies, our lunch on the water. Two weeks ago we were lucky to make it. Jordan Lake is a reservoir west of Cary that covers 13,940 acres with a shoreline of 180 miles (290 km) at its standard water level of 216 feet (66 m) above sea level. The water level can fluctuate quite a bit, as our guide pointed out, showing a level mark far above our heads on a pillar of one of the bridges. It was developed as part of a flood control project prompted by a particularly damaging tropical storm that hit the region downstream in September 1945. Constructed at an original cost of US $146,300,000, it is owned and operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which dammed and flooded the Haw River and New Hope River between 1973 and 1983. This spring, one of our grandsons had Regatta races with his rowing team in the Marina area, there is a State Recreation area and many undeveloped camp sites offer the opportunity to be one with nature for a while.

After about an hour we parked the bus and boarded a pontoon boat, which took us to many parts of the lake. We were hoping to see a bald eagle, and we were lucky, we saw three, two adults and a junior, a rare occurrence according to the driver of the boat. Sightings of other birds, the Dam, built in the seventies, and more of his stories enlivened our tour, and lunch, with complimentary pita chips and artichoke dip went down well.

Shopping

Not only are medical buildings close by, but shops and restaurants are as well. Last Saturday after breakfast I took the opportunity to go shopping early because there is no PT on Saturdays. I needed new running shoes; the old pair still has good soles, but my big toes start peeking through the canvas top. When I got to the shoe store I discovered to my dismay that I had forgotten to bring my insoles and socks, and my cellphone as well. I can’t tell you how often I forget to take my cellphone! That’s really awful, and every day I try to remember not to forget anything. Anyway, I should have gone home right away, because Mike would be wondering where I was  without hearing from me. However, I decided that, since I still had the old shoes, plus a heavy duty pair for long walks, and since Dillard’s was only five minutes away, I would go to Dillard’s to look for a bathing suit for our upcoming family reunion. I still have a bathing suit, two actually. You can’t very well live in Hawai’i and go swimming daily at Richardson’s or at any of the white sand beaches on the other side of the island without multiple bathing suits, right? The third one I owned, my favorite one, had lost its elasticity. So to go back to having three, I went to Dillard’s just to look for a bathing suit; I had not seen any nice ones anywhere lately, but you never know…It is a trait left over from the war, when we lacked everything. It will stay with me for as long as I live, I think, I have to make sure I always have two of everything. Just in case one gets lost, or I can’t get another one, or… To make a long story short, I went shopping for running shoes and came back with a beautiful bathing suit. Mike had been terribly worried about me because I stayed away for so long without a call, but when he saw the suit he liked it so much that he just frowned and told me to always take my cellphone with me from now on. I promised to do my very best.

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until next time,

Ronny

Back at the Mac!

I almost missed my promise to write again “next month”, but I am back at the Mac today! The surgery went very well and I found it interesting to hear afterwards what had taken place and how the surgery had been performed while I was sitting in a beach chair like position, totally unaware of what went on. Wearing the black sling afterwards was comfortable most of the time, especially in the beginning. I got used to the fact that everyone asked “what have you done to your shoulder?” and “did you break your shoulder?” and “did you fall?” And, being in a retirement community, most people asked the same questions again the next day, and then the next week. But that’s what you can expect of people in their eighties and nineties. A problem with the rotator cuff is a problem  everyone has heard about, but because there was much more wrong with my shoulder than a torn rotator cuff, I resorted in telling them that no, I had not fallen, I just had voluntary surgery.

Three weeks into PT treatments I thought I could work on the computer again, but writing two emails proved me wrong, and I had to put my arm back in the sling for a while. Last week I had an appointment with the surgeon, who was happy with my progress and set me up with a new 4-week PT protocol, and now I feel finally able to work on the Mac. Oh, and I have been driving again since both Mike and I were weeks past due for a haircut, ten days ago. So all is well.

In the meantime I have witnessed the expression Spring has sprung! In a matter of one week, flowers literally sprung forth everywhere. On bushes, trees, around our pond, in neighboring gardens, everywhere I looked. Many shades of green seemed to jump out of all the branches on the trees, and pine trees grew candles of over a foot long. The Magnolias opened their buds to show the whitest white flowers, and yellow day lilies and fragrant gardenia bushes are all around. It’s truly a beautiful world in which I live and walk.

In and around the pond are now three goose families, each with two goslings, born a month apart. They traverse through our back yard and the “divide”, cross a street in Wimbledon and walk across another lawn to the larger ponds that are there. It’s amazing how far and relatively fast they can walk. I read on Google that goose families stick together and take care of each other’s goslings, like people do in a creche. It is fun to watch them swim and primp, and sleep together, parents always on alert. Two days ago though, I discovered a large heap of feathers at the water’s edge. One of the adult geese had been savagely killed and probably eaten. What could have attacked her? A bird of prey, a snapping turtle from the pond? It’s the first time I heard of snapping turtles, but I think the one I saw in our back yard a few weeks ago was too small to attack an adult goose. 

We have been here exactly one year. Many activities are offered, many outings as well. I participated in a half day trip to a buffalo farm. Buffalo’s in North Carolina? You bet. We drove on a special vehicle drawn by a tractor to a pasture with one of the herds and saw them close up, including two one week old calves. Later on we had buffalo hamburgers for lunch. Hm. Do you know the difference between buffalo and bison? A buffalo is the animal you see in the field, bison is the meat you get to eat. Mike and I saw buffalo for the first time in Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota in 1962. From a distance of course, and it was interesting to see them close up, but I must say that I prefer watching them in their natural habitat.

There is a certain rhythm to the day to day schedule. There are hard boiled eggs every day except Wednesdays and Sundays. Mondays are donut days; Tuesdays there is trash pickup; Wednesdays are hot breakfast days: we can fill out a paper menu to inform the kitchen of our choice: eggs cooked to our preference, bacon or sausage, plain or blueberry pancakes. The servers pick up the menus and take them to the kitchen. But with one burner and one cook it often takes twenty or thirty minutes before we get our food, and those who hand in their forms first get their cooked breakfast first. Because breakfast starts at 8 and PT is at 8:30, I usually resort to the breakfast buffet items like cereal, yoghurt, fruit etc. There are plenty choices. After my surgery one of our lovely cottage neighbors brought us two large slices of carrot cake with 1/2″ thick icing from a bakery in town. A delicious treat, but at first we wondered when to eat them with all the pastries and desserts we already get every day! On Thursday afternoons there is live entertainment in the Café for an hour; on Friday afternoons we have Happy Hour with real wine! On Saturdays there is nothing special except for movies in the theatre, and on Sundays we have brunch.

A month ago a water pipe broke in Betsy’s kitchen in the middle of the night and flooded her apartment on the second floor, continuing down to Connie’s apartment below it on the first floor. Management provided other apartments for them to stay in while the damage was being repaired, but that took a long time, because first they needed approval from headquarters in Michigan, and insurance needed to be checked. The damage was extensive, both apartments were stripped after possessions were boxed up and taken out. Connie is back in her apartment now, but it will take a few more weeks before Betsy can say the same. Quite an ordeal for them.

And now I am going to a lecture about the Headhunters of the Orinoco, a presentation by one of our neighbors who has lived among them and came out alive.

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until next time,

Ronny

Love’s Labour’s Lost

A very tragic ending of four weeks of anticipation happened tonight. When I looked down at he goose nest, Mother Goose was not on it – for the first time. I saw a bed of grey feathers. Then both geese appeared from across the street, where they had visited the patio behind one of the cottages, where they have bird feeders. But the nest was basking in the late after noon sun, so I thought they had just gone out for some supper. A little later I went to look again, this time with my binoculars. I saw the gander rummage in the feathers – no eggs were visible. Then Mother Goose gently stepped into the water and swam across the pond. The gander left the nest and started to eat grass close by. I took a few steps to look at the nest from a different angle and then I saw three, no four eggs bobbing in the water, close to the nest. Oh! I was so sorry. What had happened? They were so close to hatching. Were the past few days too cold? Had the water reached the nest and did the eggs lose the warmth necessary for hatching? Did the parents then flip the eggs over the edge? How sad. I had so looked forward to little goslings. I’m sure they had too…

The Easter Mouse lives!

Finally, after ten days, a guy from Orkin, an exterminator company, came out with two of the maintenance crew, to do something about the mouse. All that time we had kept the closet closed and taped at the bottom. What they concluded was that the mouse had entered through a hole underneath the sink (they plugged it with a scouring pad) and that it had left the same way after there was nothing edible in the pantry anymore. Because contact with feces etc. can cause diseases in humans (I found that on Google) they cleaned the shelves and the bottom of the pantry for me and left, gifting us with a large box of more of the scouring pads. Ha! I didn’t even know there was a hole underneath the sink. Did they assume we have more holes to plug in other areas of the house? I’ll have to investigate under the sinks in both bathrooms tomorrow. I was not present at the time they left because of a tele-seminar I attended in the office with the door closed.

I have three days left to do the most urgent things inside the house and on the road, because on Friday, April 13, I will go in for surgery of my right shoulder. That means I will take a break writing my blog posts. But, like they say in the stock market these days: do not pull out, the market will come back. So I say to y’all, stay around, Ronny will be back!

Surgery

I finally made the irrevocable decision. In Dutch we say De kogel is door de kerk (the bullet is through the church). What a strange expression if you think about it. It dates back to the battles in the seventeen hundreds. When even churches were destroyed in a fight and the enemy did not spare even the sacred things it was a sign that they would stop at nothing to reach their goal.

Now, nothing will prevent surgery to happen; my shoulder needs to be repaired. A completely torn rotator cuff is only one of the things wrong with it. The surgeon will be able to repair some of the problems through arthroscopic surgery, and the rotator cuff through “open” surgery. Thank goodness it will be an outpatient procedure! Earlier in March had an MRI, which showed the full extent of the damage. Six problems, no kidding. And all that as the result of half an hour playing frisbee with my granddaughters a year ago. No wonder I had a lot of pain for a long time. OT did not help, only aggravated the condition, but now, finally, the end is in sight. I found the best shoulder specialist in town to do the surgery and he promised the shoulder will be good as new and pain free.

One day of surgery sounds easy enough to live through. But the recovery period is something else. Arm in a sling for two weeks and then three months recovery with passive PT. Even that does not sound too long, though. The most difficult thing will probably be that I can’t drive for at least two weeks and I won’t be able to tie my shoelaces. I have already started using my left hand to do a lot of things to avoid extra pain on the right side. But I am very thankful that help will be available when I am really tied up (or tied down, however you look at it). I noticed in the doctor’s office that patients coming and going all had their right arm in a sling, and to my happy surprise the slings were black and not stark white, as I had imagined. My sling can even look distinguished, I decided, if I match it with the right clothing 🙂 Plus, Friday the thirteenth is the new lucky day, and this summer I will have a good shoulder again. Yeah!

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until next month!

Ronny

An Easter Mouse  

On Friday, getting a can of coffee from the pantry, I noticed crumbs on a lower shelf. That was strange, because we don’t have open jars or cereal boxes in the pantry. Even though one of the crumbs looked like a mouse dropping I paid no further attention and thought I would clean it up later.

On Saturday morning we were having breakfast at home because of the large pre-Easter brunch we would be attending with the family at noon. After breakfast I was planning to go to Trader Joe’s, five minutes from here, to get fresh flowers for Easter. When I opened the pantry I noticed many more crumbs on the shelf and an open glass jar with a few leftover cashews in it. The large cork, whatever was left of it, sat next to the jar on the shelf, the edges were rough and pieces of cork were everywhere. But the jar itself stood upright, the contents untouched. “We have a mouse in the house!” I said, and explained my findings to Mike.
“It must be a little field mouse like the one we saw darting across the hall of the main building when we arrived last May.”
“Oh,” he said, “go to Trader Joe’s and get a mouse trap.”
“A mouse trap at Trader Joe’s? They don’t sell mouse traps.”
“Of course not. I did not say that.”
“Yes, you said go to Trader Joe’s and get a mouse trap.”
“I meant go to Trader Joe’s and then get a mouse trap somewhere else.”
“All the way at The Home Depot? No way! I am going to call the front desk.”

The girl at the front desk called me back a half hour later: “Harvey is on call but he will only come out for an emergency, not for a mouse in the house. He will come over on Monday morning with a mouse trap.”

There was nothing else we could do about it. So I taped the pantry door, which has a 2″ gap at the bottom, with two strips of tape and we will hope that there is enough cork left for the mouse until Monday. Needless to say that when we hid easter eggs for the grandkids we skipped the kitchen area.

We had a lovely brunch on Saturday with four of the five family members attending plus Stephanie’s parents, and on Easter Sunday, after a beautiful church service we had Sunday brunch as usual, then took a nap and drove to the kids and grandkids for the rest of the Easter Day and Dinner. We are certainly not starving here at Waltonwood!

On Monday morning both Harvey and Joe appeared with a mouse trap. Quite a new invention to me: a 10″ x 4″ strip of thin carton: folded at the seams to resemble a large matchbox sleeve, the inside paper peeled off to expose a very sticky surface with the smell of peanut butter. The mouse would go in and get stuck – a cruel ending of its life, I think, but we can’t live with a mouse in the house either. I just hope he is still in the pantry so we can catch him. The men put down two traps and would come back on Tuesday to take them away. I’m glad I was gone all morning, starting with an early presentation at the Sunrise Rotary: at 7:00 a.m.

When the men came back yesterday afternoon and opened the pantry door, the traps were empty; they will come back again today. A service man came out and spent over an hour fixing our TV, replacing the cable box and various cables. It is working again after two days. What was really great about not having TV was that we each picked up a good book and have almost finished it today.

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until Next Time!

Ronny

2018: The Year of The Dog

We had an interesting Saturday. We took a trip to Liberty, to the breeder that we have selected for our puppy. They have a large farm, where they breed not only poodles and goldendoodles, but horses as well. In the midst of forested nature we found a number of large barns and a couple of homes. The owner came to meet us and showed us two litters of miniature poodles that had just been born, behind curtains in bins in one of the barns. Lovely miniature poodle mothers came to the gate to greet us then hurried back to their litters, little pups of about 6″ long in various colors.

Then we went to indoor/outdoor cages where we were greeted by about twenty dogs of buff and black and brown and beige and copper colors in small,  medium and large sizes. All overjoyed to greet visitors, and a joy to behold for us. We spotted the prospective parents of our puppy and fell in love with their size, looks and behavior. Further down a number of dogs were running around and playing in a large fenced dog run.

A couple arrived to pick up their eight week old puppy and we followed them into the house. A buff goldendoodle was cuddling in the arms of his new owner, who was very kind and let us take turns in holding him. All puppies are cute of course, but it was nice to see all this, because we have been without a dog now for almost a year, and we never had Isabelle as a puppy. It will be a totally new experience for us.

More Young Life expected
Last week, I walked around the pond as I love to do; the water level is higher now and the fountain is spouting high. I noticed one goose sitting about three feet above the water’s edge. Strange that she did not move. I went closer and called out to her but she still did not move. Then I noticed that twigs and straws jutted out from underneath her and I thought she must be sitting on a nest! Sure enough, she has not moved at all, feathers spread out in the back, head facing me as I stood still to watch her. That’s exciting!  It takes about thirty days for goose eggs to hatch after they are laid, and if she laid them ten days ago we will have new goslings in about three weeks, which will be a week after Easter. How special! Then again, if she has been sitting there before I noticed her, the eggs could hatch right at Easter!

But then it started raining; a little at first, then a lot, then a whole night long, and the following morning the water level had risen to the very edge of where the goose was still sitting on her nest. I could not see if it was actually in the water or not, but the goose had not moved. Today, the sun has been out, the water has receded and the nest is at a safe distance from the water again at two feet. I will keep you posted. It is lovely to live in a densely populated area with freeways all around and yet to be able to enjoy nature in walks and flowers, birds, geese, deer and turtles. We have not been here in the spring; who knows what else we will experience.

Changes

In the main building, the Club, a lot of moving is going on. Sometimes we find that people we knew have moved to Assisted Living, sometimes we hear that someone has gone to the hospital. Most of them come back from the hospital to resume life in Independent Living, but a couple of people have died recently, and that is always a shock. We attended a lovely Memorial Service in the Garden Room downstairs; that is a practical place if you want Residents to attend. For most of those who don’t drive anymore, attending an outside Memorial in a church or cemetery is not possible, unless they can take a ride with someone. Today after breakfast I visited Emily who moved to Assisted Living recently. She and her husband were always at our breakfast table. She has been on oxygen and Hospice care for a long time, but her husband, still in good shape, moved with her. On my way to her apartment I passed familiar friends, greeted them by name, gave them a hug: “A hug a day keeps the doctor away.” They loved that. I had promised Emily I would give her a manicure for Easter. She had recently fallen and broken two fingers, but the tips were sticking out of the bandage, so we could go ahead. She selected a light coral color from my collection and chose a soft pink glitter as a second coat. We had a lovely time, talking story, sharing anecdotes, and the time flew by.

It was time for my book group meeting in Independent Living, and afterwards I needed to get my car inspected. We discovered that here in NC you can’t register your car for the next year until it has received a safety and emissions check. That’s every year! Pretty safe place to drive here! Once I had found the Inspection Station, which took 45 minutes, the inspection itself took only 10 minutes. I passed!

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until Next Time!

Ronny

Dogs

For as long as I can remember I have had dogs. After the war we moved back from Camp Halmahera to Soerabaja and found an empty house on Djalan Tjimanuk. We found some furniture for our house here and there and our Pappa joined us again, and normal life resumed, with Pappa going to work, Paula and I going to school, Mamma overseeing the servants who had come back, and writing letters to Oma and Opa in Holland and sewing clothes for us. I don’t remember when, but Roeli joined our family at a certain time, a stray female medium size brown dog, who loved being a member of our family and getting enough to eat. In those days we did not walk our dog, she just stayed around. Smart dog!

A few years later, when Pappa’s boss left for Holland, we got his dog. Her name was Darky, she was small, black, with bulging eyes, a mix between a Pug and a Pekingese. I had fun training her. Her best trick was jumping through a hoop with a grain of rice as a reward. Really, she performed for one grain of rice!

When I was a freshman at Leiden University, I saw a little dog in the window of a pet shop, could not resist the temptation and went in to buy her. Do you remember the song How much is that doggie in the window? I could just afford her. I was living with two roommates in a small apartment on the second and third floor over a baby shop in the main street, Haarlemmerstraat. We had a shared living room on the second floor with my small bedroom and a toilet, and a large attic with a bedroom for my two friends on the third floor. I came home, proudly took the little puppy out of my bag and put her on the floor of the living room. “Ina, Marjan, look what I got! Another roommate! I will take care of her and she can sleep in my bedroom.”

“Oh no!” said Ina, “No dog in my house! Out with her!”

“But I just bought her. She comes with a certificate of health and had all her shots.”

“No way! Take her back! Now!”

Ina had joined us from Venezuela, and was used to returning purchases she did not want. In Holland, however, we could not return anything in those days. If you bought it, you had to keep it. So I didn’t think that I could return a live puppy. I had no choice, however. Ina was adamant. So before the store closed I took the puppy back and explained that my roommate was against having a dog in our house. Thank goodness the store owner took the dog and gave me my money back.

Many years later, when Mike and I were married and living in Son and our older daughter was almost two years old, we decided it would be good to have a dog. After some research we ended up with Roy, a Chow-Chow. He was beautiful but had a mind of his own, which of course we knew he would have. I can still remember that once he escaped through the back yard and ran along the street in the back of our house with Mike running after him at full speed, dressed for work in a long sleeved white shirt, tie and beige pants. Roy emigrated with us to Pasadena in 1972 and lived another six years, very content with the southern California sunshine. A puppy joined him at one point, with an injury on his leg, given to us by a colleague  in Mike’s office, just to take care of for the weekend while she was out of town. But when she came back she had decided her life was easier without a dog, so we got to keep Barney.

When we lived on the Big Island we first rescued a “miniature Rottweiler”, from her owner, who had her tied down with a heavy metal chain around her neck in the garage. The poor dog was shivering when we came to look at her, in one of those cloudbursts of a Hawaiian Monsoon. Well, Lani was six months old already and only half Rottweiler, as we found out later, but we felt sorry for her and took her home. We also got a Doberman-Pinscher mix from the pound to keep Lani company. All dogs in Hawaii are mixes, by the way, they just happy-go-lucky mate with whichever bitch is in heat, and since they are all roaming around that is easy to do. They are called Poi dogs.

We fell in love with the character of a Rottweiler and in Prescott we bought a two-year-old female from the breeder. Isabelle became our faithful companion until she got cancer and we put her to sleep peacefully, just a week before we moved to Cary. It could not have been a better time.

And that was a long introduction to the news that we are planning on getting a puppy! We are limited here to a small dog, maximum 40 Lbs, but that is fine, because we don’t want a dog that can pull us over when we take her out on a leash. After researching breeds and breeders and everything else we decided to get a miniature Goldendoodle. It’s a relatively new breed, but they are selling like hotcakes here. They are hypoallergenic and do not shed, so that’s perfect for our little house. I started researching in December and finally found the perfect breeder only an hour away, so we can pick her up when she is ready. Mind you, she is not even born yet, but she has been conceived, and when we get her this summer she will be 12 weeks old, potty trained, leash trained, and trained in basic obedience. How about that!

It’s a wonderful life!

Until next time!

Ronny

Taxes!

It’s that time of year again, and I am always looking forward to doing our taxes with TurboTax. We have been doing them ourselves for about fourteen years now, are always early and always got them approved a short time after filing. During the year, Mike is collecting all figures of donations, taxes paid, Medical expenses and the like. That of course is the Lion’s Share (he is a Leo after all). This year, we expected it to be more difficult. We moved from one state to another, we sold a car and bought another one, we sold a home, and more things like that. But when we started, about  week ago, it was as easy as all the previous years, perhaps even easier. It was a good time to do it because we still have not regained our strength, so we haven’t been out a lot. And so, within three days, we e-filed and our returns were accepted, Federal, Arizona and North Carolina, in the same day! We are done with taxes!

Presentations

On Saturday March 10, I did a Presentation at the White Plains Methodist Church for about 53 men and women; I planned to do the most updated Keynote, but their sound system could not connect with my iPad somehow, so I ended up doing the Power Point one, very similar. Thank heaven (I did!) for an excellent technical helper who figured it all out and made it work.

Today, Wednesday, I am doing another one, a Keynote if it works, at the Cary Senior Center, and they assigned me the Grand Ballroom, as I told you before. Right now there are 53 reservations, a nice crowd. I will have more time today than I had at the church and much more than I will have at the Rotary meeting the day after Easter. For them I will have to work hard at talking less, and forwarding the slides faster. But oh joy! I have a new presenter! It is a Satechi Bluetooth Pointer, and it works like magic. It came in the mail yesterday and I already tried it out with the iPad. Magic! That tiny little thing in my hand can move gigantic slides on the big screen with just a light press of my finger!

The Weather

The last few days have been freezing and last night we got a little wet snow. The third Northeaster is beating the coastal areas north of Washington DC with more than a foot of snow, so we can count ourselves lucky, I guess. The pear trees around the pond are flowering with white blossoms and everywhere on campus red and pink blooms appear also. Today I purchased an armful of daffodils and filled two vases for shut-in friends and one for ourselves. Spring is coming, and we are so looking forward to the warm summer. Island girl that I am, I can’t wait.

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until next time!

Ronny