Travels and Getting the House Ready to Sell

On April 17 Duke finished his first tax season working for H&R Block. Since then we shifted into high gear in our drive to get our house ready to sell so that we can move. We have lots of other stuff going on too.

One of my daughters was moving so last Saturday morning we helped her transfer a load of furniture to her new place and then we headed towards LA. Duke’s girls’ choir had a recital and one of the girls had a solo. The recital was great and the solo (her first time singing in public) was very impressive.

After the recital on Sunday night we drove to Escondido to my parent’s house. Monday morning we took Mom to have an MRI and an EEG. Mom goes back to her doctor this coming Friday. My sister Barbara and her husband will be with her for that. We are hoping to get a better diagnosis for the cause of her Parkinsonsisms.

On Wednesday we drove from Escondido to Reno. It always seems odd to me that Reno is essentially due north of San Diego. The road goes east of LA and then straight for many mile right past Edward’s Air Force base and up the East side of the Sierras. The mountains are beautiful. I climbed Mt Whitney 9 years ago so It was fun to go through Whitney Portal again.

On Thursday in Reno we had lunch with my Mom’s brother and his wife. Then we looked at a few apartments. Our plan is to get our house up for sale and then rent a place in Reno to use as a home base while we decide where we want to move for the next stage of our lives.

We looked at several places and think we will rent a house in a Del Webb Active Adult community, for people 55 or better. (Duke just turned 55 and I will turn 55 this summer). For less rent than they were asking for the apartments that we liked we can have a new house with a two car garage and use of the club house with indoor pool and walking track. I don’t think it is the kind of place we want to live in eventually but it should be perfect for the next year. It will be right around 240 miles from the old house to the new house.

The list of things we want to do before we sell the house is long. Before we left last week we painted our bonus room and now we are laying solid oak hardwood on th floor. Next we will lay porcelain tile in our laundry room and in the one bathroom that still doesn’t have it. Next we will get scaffolding and paint the walls and ceiling of the living room with the 24 foot ceiling. Those are just the first 3 big items on the list. In the next month we will also be helping Duke’s girls move and helping my parents move from the assisted living place back to their house.

June 10 is our target to have the house on the market so May is going to be a very busy month!

 

The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle

Our book club book this month was the Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle. I wasn’t going to write about it because I really did not enjoy reading it, but we had an excellent discussion of the book last Tuesday night so I think I’ll summarize what was discussed and how it changed my view of the book. I’ll be interested in other people’s views of the book too.

The book is about a liberal couple, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, and an illegal immigrant Mexican couple Candido and America Rincon. Both couples live in Topanga Canyon near Los Angeles. The book contrasts their lives. Boyle is a very talented writer. I have a very clear mental picture of the people and places in the book. His descriptions  and language are what someone called transparent. You don’t notice the language it just paints the picture for you.

Boyle also uses a lot of symbolism. Tortilla Curtain does make you think about illegal immigration and all its complexities. I can see why it is apparently a very popular book to study in High School.

Tortilla Curtain is very obviously intended to be like Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. In fact it makes me want to read Grapes of Wrath again because I remember that although both books are disturbing I could appreciate Grapes of Wrath and Tortilla Curtain just annoyed me. I’m not sure why Grapes of Wrath works for me and Tortilla Curtain doesn’t.

One thing that really bugs me about Tortilla Curtain is that nothing good happens to the Rincons. Candido is hit by a car and later mugged. America is exposed to harmful chemicals by the one person who hires her and then raped by someone else on the way home. They have a blind baby. They start a wild fire. They are caught in a mud slide. Every time Duke asked me how the book was coming I had one more calamity to report. If some one writes a book and the plot contains only good things the book is considered ridiculous but when only bad things happen as they do in Tortilla Curtain it is apparently OK. It reminded me of the book A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry  because nothing good happened in that book either. Yuck!

What the book club discussion helped me realize is that Boyle apparently enjoys shocking people and Tortilla curtaian should perhaps be seen as fable or satire. It didn’t help me like the book but it made me realize that maybe it does succeed in what it is trying to achieve.

Samantha is Gone

Our wonderful dog Samantha died suddenly on Thursday.

The girls and I adopted her almost exactly 13 years ago. She was an amazingly sweet and loving little Jack Russel terrier mix. We are really going to miss her in a lot of ways. Every time I look out into the back yard I expect to see her out there sunning herself or keeping an eye out for squirrels and birds. She was one of a kind and I miss her.

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Rachel Z at Yoshi’s

Last Monday night Duke and I went to see Department of Good & Evil featuring Rachel Z at Yoshi’s. It was the CD release party for their new CD named the same as the group name. What a talented trio. Rachel’s piano playing just dazzled me. Maeve Royce  who played the acoustic bass and Bobbie Rae who played the drums were fantastic too.

I wish I was a more educated music listener. One of my favorites of the pieces that they played was an arrangement of Sting’s “King of Pain”. Unfortunately I can’t remember the original or if I have ever heard it. I certainly enjoyed the performance Monday night and now I want to listen to the Sting song.

Many of the one night stands that we have been to at Yoshis have been awesome. They are usually not sold out so the feeling is very intimate and I often discover something new to me and very special.  Rachel Z is exactly that.

Another blog I always Read

Millie Garfield’s blog My Mom’s Blog by Thoroughly Modern Millie is on my short list of Blog’s I read regularly. She had a great posting back in January that I am just getting around to linking to. It was titled My Trip from 65 to 81 .  I’ve got about 10 years to go before I hit 65. I do think a lot of what she says about her journey provides lessons for all of us. I like her attitude and the fact that she started blogging when she was 77. I hope I never stop learning and doing new things.