April at Home 2022
The Road Home
The persistent, late snowstorms in the Pacific NW made our drive home uncertain but ultimately, they didn’t slow us by much. We were lucky to arrive at the closed road over the pass into LaGrande, OR from the east, the day before our trailer service appointment, at Hour 15 of the 16 hours of closure. We didn’t know at the time when the freeway would re-open, but it happened to coincide nicely with finishing our cold lunches in the truck. Full bellies made it easier to concentrate on the barely-OK road conditions over the pass in the reduced visibility.
Our unusually brief annual trailer servicing appointment the next day allowed us to hit the sweet spot for the icy roads on the 2nd pass immediately after the work was completed. We’d planned to stay a 2nd night in LaGrande but the shorter “to-do” list encouraged the technician to keep it moving. He knew too well about the sweet spot, the window between 1:00 and 2:00 pm, for “getting through” when the UV radiation peaked and penetrated the overcast, warming the road surface a tad. LaGrande was on about Day #10 of being periodically snowed-in and he had his own stories to tell of diverted semi’s lining the city streets during the long hours of pass closures both in and out of the remote cowboy town.
While settled in a Pendleton RV park at the end of the afternoon after our successful traverse of the snowy western pass, a series of emails alerted us that our new apartment had no heat for the 2nd day. The building’s heat pump had failed and the needed parts were due in 5 days.
The Road Home
The persistent, late snowstorms in the Pacific NW made our drive home uncertain but ultimately, they didn’t slow us by much. We were lucky to arrive at the closed road over the pass into LaGrande, OR from the east, the day before our trailer service appointment, at Hour 15 of the 16 hours of closure. We didn’t know at the time when the freeway would re-open, but it happened to coincide nicely with finishing our cold lunches in the truck. Full bellies made it easier to concentrate on the barely-OK road conditions over the pass in the reduced visibility.
Our unusually brief annual trailer servicing appointment the next day allowed us to hit the sweet spot for the icy roads on the 2nd pass immediately after the work was completed. We’d planned to stay a 2nd night in LaGrande but the shorter “to-do” list encouraged the technician to keep it moving. He knew too well about the sweet spot, the window between 1:00 and 2:00 pm, for “getting through” when the UV radiation peaked and penetrated the overcast, warming the road surface a tad. LaGrande was on about Day #10 of being periodically snowed-in and he had his own stories to tell of diverted semi’s lining the city streets during the long hours of pass closures both in and out of the remote cowboy town.
While settled in a Pendleton RV park at the end of the afternoon after our successful traverse of the snowy western pass, a series of emails alerted us that our new apartment had no heat for the 2nd day. The building’s heat pump had failed and the needed parts were due in 5 days.
A new arrangement of entryway greeters
A Rocky Start
Bill did a great job of once again slipping our trailer into its extremely tight covered slot where it would stay until September. Unexpectedly, when I next stepped out of the truck, in the apartment building garage, I was having a brain-snowing back pain event. I was slow to recognize it—I’m still learning that significant pain from my lumbar discs or facet joints doesn’t register so much as pain but as exhaustion and brain fog; it was the pronounced limp that alerted me to it being a back issue.
After getting the heaters and fireplace going and eating a quick-cook dinner, I went to take a tub bath, hoping to sooth my body and being, but the water at the tap was lukewarm. Initially, it was baffling because we understood that the water heater’s boiler was separate from that of the building’s heat pump.
After independent sleuthing efforts, we both concluded that the owner had created this problem when fixing a tub facet leak in the fall while we were away. Fortunately, it was a minor issue and we both took hot showers in the shower stall in the 2nd bathroom, but it registered as another disappointing loss when we’d expected to be elated upon our return.
In the kitchen, there was no denying that the single pull lever on the sink faucet instantly shut-off if the water was run at anything other than full-on. It was annoying, not a crisis, but we were frustrated because we’d doubled our rent with the move and were now dealing with weird quality control issues everywhere we turned soon after crossing the threshold.
The next evening, Bill set the dishwasher to run at bedtime. Fortunately, moments later, I popped into the kitchen and noticed a small fountain of water at the top of the sink. We were baffled; we couldn’t imagine what the problem was but the dishwasher was clearly unusable. The sink faucet problem had been annoying but, now having to hand wash all of our dishes, made it REALLY annoying.
That was it: Bill had been looking online for fixes, hoping to quickly make the plumbing repairs himself, but the list was now too long. We had a tight turn-around for our departure to Europe and a number of appointments were on the calendar, beginning in another day. Our mojo for the busy several weeks ahead of us had collapsed with the string of discomforts and disappointments; it was time to conserve our remaining time and energy.
The big, blank wall was now a focal point.
Luckily, the heat pump boiler was fixed on Monday like predicted and our plumbing was made right a day earlier than promised, on Tuesday. Those dramas were behind us but it would be days before we could reclaim the delight we’d anticipated from returning to our renewed apartment.
The day after we returned, Saturday, the day between discovering the first and the last of the 3 plumbing failures, we eagerly went to pick-up 17 packages from our recent online ordering binge but the overworked owner, buried in shoulder-high stacks of boxes, could only locate 9 of them. He’d been working alone for weeks, had no hope of hiring, had stopped answering the phone, and had stopped checking packages into his computer system.
Fortunately, over the next few days, the frazzled man located our missing boxes. Again, no crisis, but more wasted time and stress from uncertainty while we helped him sort through the chaotic jumble of toppling boxes and reviewed our records. Two weeks later, his situation hadn’t improved and it took about an half an hour for us to locate our single, last delivery until fall in the mess. Formerly simple things like heat, hot water, and retrieving packages were anything but simple our first weekend in town.
The unusually penetrating cold weather when we arrived home and what was forecast to be a record-breaking month of rain for April, did not help matters. We were getting no exercise and didn’t care. My great resolve to haunt the apartment building’s staircases by doing laps, to use our vertical climber on our little balcony, and to explore the small fitness room, evaporated along with our joy in the first hours of problems. Even though the unheated stairwells and fitness room would have been warm enough for exertion, all I wanted to do was hunker-down, to cocoon myself: having an outward focus had only delivered disappointment and I felt a need to withdraw and regroup emotionally.
In Search of Simple Successes
I had appointments with 2 different specialty chiropractors on Monday and Tuesday of our first week, practitioners that I didn’t know, plus a familiar ‘subtle arts’ energy bodyworker on Wednesday. All the visits were in hopes of sorting out my chronic butt pain issues.
Interestingly, my best tip for self care in those 3 days came from a massage therapist I had booked at one chiro’s office because our sports massage guy was out of action with a replacement surgery. This young woman quickly found a sore back muscle that was a familiar source of pain and, when I asked, she identified it as the “QL” or Quadratus lumborum. I had been unsuccessful in determining which of the layered muscles in that area was my troublemaker, so outing this big guy was a huge help in giving me direction for proceeding with my own treatments.
Another vignette of sentimental favorites.
My easily-irritated gut wasn’t pleased with either addition to my diet but I punted and added enough of both products to my bulging overseas suitcase for 4-month trials. The innocent looking 2 tablespoons of cranberry dust per day added almost 3 pounds to my big duffel but only 130 of the garlic ‘pellets’ would cover me for the same time. Then, in the eleventh hour, I made another leap of faith and, with its own heart-stopping, nightmare delivery scenario, I barely landed a handheld cold laser with which to experiment as well. I hoped it would ease the pain in my arthritic finger joints and in some of my muscles. “Hope springs eternal,” though for me, hope is fueled by acting, not waiting, and I had a bonanza of new strategies for pursuing our shared goal of ‘exceptionally successful aging.’
Past, Present, & Future
We’d been overly absorbed by the much revered ‘present moment’ with all our apartment and package retrieval woes and then, some unexpected future fun came our way. Much to our surprise, 2 shy women from the desert hiking club accepted our invitations to join us in the Alps in August.
Both strong hikers have husbands who have dropped-out of their previously shared active lifestyles, so both women travel on their own for adventures, including internationally. Unfortunately, neither feels she can leave ‘the husband’ for long, so they will only join us for 4 to 7 days.
These two women don’t usually hike together but they independently decided to visit us in the Dolomites during the same week! They aren’t staying with us or each other and are on their own for meals; we are only providing ‘local knowledge’ and guide services. We helped them with trip planning logistics while we were working on our own. A bit later, we learned that English friends that we met over 20 years ago in a French campground would likely drop by for a visit while we were in Bristol in June. These were unexpected pleasures during a trip we weren’t sure would happen at all.
Ghosts from the past also appeared during this compressed interval at home, diverting my dwindling time and energy. It was the matter of the new hike leader who performed poorly in March that again intruded. Our club president had done a masterful job in guiding us through the highly emotional, messy situation. I had hoped that the last step in gaining closure to the event would occur before we left for England, but it was not to be; after a burst of emails and strategizing, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop when we left for England.
“I Love This Place”
After a few more days at home, our halls began echoing with our daily comments like: “I love our apartment! I’m SO glad we moved! It’s this wonderful? I love this place!” Even with the overlay of distress when we arrived, we were dazzled by all that our friend Robin had done to decorate our new space, especially given the owner’s “no holes in the wall” restriction.
We loved the new cranberry-colored shower curtain & its coordinating shaggy chenille mat.
Several friends were appalled that we would delegate complete control of our apartment decorating to Robin without knowing much about her taste or being directly involved. I, on the other hand, was thrilled to have the work done without my input. I long-ago abandoned needing to have things just so or to be my way. My priorities were all focused on my health and our exercise, not on choosing colors or in saying “A little to the right” about a picture’s position. I viewed our apartment interior like it was a hotel room: as long as it was nicely done, I didn’t care about the particulars. Robin’s credentials were being an artist; being a passionate, thrifty shopper; and understanding that livably supersedes decorating ideals.
Sacred Space
Bill had achieved a lifetime accomplishment in preparation for our September move into our new apartment by shedding mountains of stuff, stuff that ultimately was included in his summary statement “I’ve been surrounding myself with garbage.” I didn’t disagree: it was both physical and mental garbage. In hindsight, my prerequisite of a major cull before a future move after our very traumatic move in 2009 allowed our new home to become a sacred space. Dislodging his demons gave us the spaciousness to unfold ourselves—it achieved what our prior dabbling with Feng shui could not do.
Being in our new apartment for a second time, it became clear that we both had deep healing to do from the lack of a tranquil, nurturing home for 22 years. We could feel that it would be a slow recovery process that had begun with the move and that would continue even when we were away, but would accelerate during our visits home. Like the contentment from a fine meal or a stellar view, the nurturing would ripple into our beings long after the event had passed. Just knowing that we now had a real home was profoundly comforting; it gave us long-overdue closure. Twice a year we’d be immersed in the special space to accelerate the healing.
Barb improving her back mobility in our lightly-furnished living room.
Relative to our usual tempo, I felt like a soccer mom dashing about, being jerked around, all day. With the approach of bedtime each day, regardless of whether we were ending on an up note or a down note, I would review the day’s journey and always said “What that just today?” because of the volume of emotionally intense events that had occurred. Even little, unseen things rippled large, like the building heat being restored. The palpable relief that it was indeed days, not weeks, without the central heat and acknowledging that it hadn’t been horrid like anticipated, only a deep disappointment, was important in maintaining our equilibrium.
Even smaller blips registered large in our generally agitated state, like holding our breath each time we turned on the dishwasher or the tap at the tub. Intellectually, we knew that their failures our first 24 hours in the apartment were one-offs that had been fixed, but the background chaos had deepened their imprints on our beings at the time; it was taking time to return those gestures to mindless ones. It was a good reminder of the power of trivial occurrences to leave deep imprints when one has lost their grounding.
Books move over! New display space in our bonus room.
Blue Light Madness
After 11 nights in our apartment, we finally understood why my sleep had been so poor and why I suddenly was laying awake in bed instead of conking-out in minutes: it was the lights. We loved the nearly 30 flood lights recessed in the ceilings and over the bathroom sinks in our new apartment, plus the great under-cabinet lights in the kitchen. Our north facing apartment in a frequently gray climate was bright and cheery with the abundant lights, big windows, and 9’ ceilings. But when I went to bed and closed my eyes, I felt like I was in a scene from a sci-fi movie with landing lights of a space invader hovering over me.
I struggled for days to find a way to describe to Bill this totally new, bizarre pattern of sleep disruption. “Jet lag” was my best descriptor, but it didn’t make sense—at first. Fortunately, as soon as I could better describe my experience with the space invader’s landing lights image, Bill accurately diagnosed the problem: blue lights. The blue light of computers, TVs, and light bulbs are known to disrupt sleep whereas yellow light is the best wavelength for supporting slumber. Disappointingly, the blue-blocking coating on my big lenses wasn’t enough shielding of my eyes to protect my sleep.
Bill immediately went into action with his shoebox of Hue lightbulbs. He’d installed some in our trailer but hadn’t done so at home and he was on it. The first night after the diagnosis, he had replaced the 6 bulbs over the bathroom sink that I used and the next night, after buying more bulbs, he did the fixtures in his bathroom. Though we loved having the bright lights on, it was a loser for me in the evening.
The switch to dimmed yellow lights worked like a charm the first night. The flying saucer landing lights disappeared from my brain and my sleep was restored. I believed that my sleep was incrementally better on the 2nd and 3rd nights as well, perhaps even improving for a week. Blue lights interfere with melatonin release, the sleep hormone.
Most people need a reduction in blue light 2-3 hours before bedtime for their best night’s sleep and I was closer to needing 3 hours of relief. I could feel the familiar, shocky effect of the bright blue lights when I walked into the kitchen at dinnertime. At my witching hour, which was a little different each evening, we switched off the overhead kitchen lights, only used the less potent countertop lights, and kept the other lights off as much as possible. Upon arising before the sun was up, Bill delighted in walking down the hall, flipping on light switches, and we basked in the brightness of the great indoor lighting until the sun was up.
New shapes: one of our 2 new blanket ladders.
A New Puppy! Almost….
The vacuuming robot Bill bought for our new apartment was almost as fun as a new puppy! It was among the missing 8 packages when we arrived home in the middle of April that were finally found, but it wasn’t until the night before we left for our summer overseas until he had time to set it up. But man, did that thing rock once it was out of the box!
Like an energetic puppy, it took off running in a straight line, then suddenly dodged in a new direction. We were entranced, watching and wondering where it would go next, and occasionally yelping with surprise when it headed towards us.
It’s amazing whiskers, reminiscent of weed eater filaments, flicked little debris bits from the hard floor or carpet towards it, and then they are gone. None are left behind: as soon as it pulled something in with its whiskers, it was captured! The robot seemed obsessed with our 2 new tilted blanket ladders, returning to sweep behind and in front of them repeatedly. We didn’t understand what beckoned it, but those tight circles almost seemed like a rest phase for it.
We held our breath, wondering if it would manage the flat area rugs in the kitchen and entry way. They proved to be no problem at all, and it effortlessly went on and off of them in its quest to feed. The new plush bathmat on a hard floor was also no problem. The new, long white rug in the other bathroom that was over carpet and a real toe-pleaser, was almost too much.
Memories abound!
The gorgeous other bathmat, a cranberry-colored shaggy chenille with its floppy tassels, was more than the robot could cope with. With part of its base on the hard floor, it valiantly proceeded, obliviously wadding the trailing mat behind it. I didn’t wait as long as with the white rug to remove the chenille one from the robot’s path. We were stunned by the success and efficiency with which the robot navigated our varied terrain and obstacles and didn’t consider these difficult rugs as failures but instead, only beyond its design specs.
While studying the robot’s prowess, it suddenly did a u-turn, traveled the length of our apartment, and returned to dock on its base. After a moment, there was an alarmingly loud, sucking sound, and it neatly emptied its contents into a hidden reservoir. We were delighted to have it dispatch its finds without leaving dust in the air or the area. Then it was off again like a puppy in search of new adventures.
When the robot had finished about 2/3’s of the floors in our apartment, it again self-docked on its base, announcing on Bill’s phone app that it required an hour and eighteen minutes of rest, and rest it did. At the appointed time, the robot was off and running again to finish the job. Its performance was wildly entertaining on a serious evening of trip prep the night before our departure and it spared us the lumbar-disc-irritating job of using our upright vacuum to freshen the new, plush carpet.
Of course, unlike a puppy, there were no accidents to clean-up, no boarding arrangements to be made, but it would eagerly entertain us when we returned home in the fall. The vacuum robot was an extravagant but welcome upgrade to life in our new home.
Our new vacuum robot was fearless.
Unlike the cold, disappointing arrival to our new apartment almost 3 weeks earlier, we were ending our stay on the happy note we’d expected to begin it with. Usually, it’s the departure interval when we are stressed and frustrated, but not this spring.
A first-ever: we’d checked everything off our our “Must-do” and “Nice-to-do” lists by the time we locked the door behind us for 4 months. Of course, there were still the long “Hope-to-do” lists, like dealing with the masses of cables dangling from our stand-up desks; cables in our new, miniature business corner with the printer and charging stations for our small devices; and the shelves with TV and internet cables. It didn’t seem likely that we’d get to them in during our shorter stay in September either, but they were strictly aesthetic issues, not functional issues. “Priorities” is our watchword and we definitely gained on the list of chores that made life in our pleasing new apartment easier and more comfortable as well as having low anxiety when finishing our trip prep and packing.
We had reveled in the new pleasures at home that are ordinary to others. Having our own washer and drier in our apartment was a new, precious luxury after more than 20 years without them. We delighted every time we did laundry and especially on departure morning, when we like to wash the towels and sheets. Having secure, covered parking for our truck, without having to go anywhere, was also a game changer. Not having to make arrangements for its storage for 4 months, not having to hire rides to and from the site, and having it available to us for the first and last minutes at home was so soothing. These little pleasures underscored again the more comfortable lifestyle we had bought ourselves with the recent move to a better apartment.
And our timing was perfect! While on the train to Seattle on May 4th, Bill read that the covid cases per 100,000 in the UK, which had been falling, just dropped below that of the US, which we knew was on the rise. Also that morning, we received a second alert about controlled burns in the Bend, OR area, where we were driven out by high levels of wildfire smoke last summer. And on this day, the governor of New Mexico asked for a federal disaster declaration so as to qualify for additional federal funds to fight the 7 wildfires already raging. The early start to the wildfire season in the West broke our hearts and yet we felt lucky to be escaping the toxicity of the smoke which would likely soon intrude into our region. We left our new home calm and contented and were expecting the best for our overdue summer abroad.