Travels

It’s raining this Wednesday morning…..well, that’s kind of normal lately. Amsterdam is green….except for the buildings (and even they are a little green with moss!)
I’m given to understand by those who should know, that the weather we’ve experienced in the two weeks since our arrival is quite unusually wet for this time of year. No matter, we love the rain….and are generally starved for it at our home in San Diego, CA.

As I mentioned…we’ve been here for two weeks already…arrived on June 11th. However, the story started some time before that:

BJ has been to the Netherlands a couple of times before on work-related trips, (for a week or two at a time), and has told me often that she really likes the culture and the countryside. So when she told me she’d decided that it had been long enough since our last ‘real’ adventure and that we should go to Amsterdam, I pictured a week or two in ‘windmill-ville’. “Sure”, I said, “Sounds like fun”. Well, it turns out that her company leases a couple of apartments here and that she’d been offered the use of one for as long as she chose to stay. Somehow the two-week trip became two-or-more-months! “If we’re going to go that far away”, she told me, “let’s go for long enough to see everything…..you know, get immersed in the culture”!

Yeah…OK….that sort of makes sense. My Scottish heritage was quickly pointing out that this could be a very thrifty way to see the Netherlands in particular and Europe in general, although there was another little voice in my head…..the one responsible for making sure I don’t work too hard, screaming that I was ignoring all of the obvious logistical problems and that there was no way in the universe that I could solve them all in the few weeks before our projected departure date!

Perhaps I should have listened.

Issue Number One:

We have two grown children….our daughter lives in San Francisco, (well,….currently Hayward), has a lifelong disability, (with which she deals admirably…but it still makes some things difficult for her), and attends a Community College there. She hasn’t declared a major…..maybe life-long-learning…and has always been just a little bit dependent on us for moral support (and sometimes morale support). Our son lives with his girlfriend in LaMesa and has also been dealing with some medical issues that have affected his quality of life. Recently, he may have finally solved those issues and now will only have to deal with the normal problems….the economy, further education, etc. Leaving both of them alone for that long, even with communications technology at our disposal, is going to be difficult.

Issue Number Two:

We have three dogs. One, our Cairn Terrier ‘Butch’ is growing very old. He will be 14 in July. There is some fear that he won’t last until our return. That’s unlikely as Butch is a tough old guy, but it’s a troubling possibility.

My German Shepherd, “Brogan”, is two and is possibly the smartest dog I’ve ever had. The problem with that is that he’s a handful. He’s always figuring out new and different ways of doing things he’s been told not to do. Sort of pushing the edge of the envelope…..like a ten-year-old boy. It will take someone special to take care of him…..hell, it will take someone special to WANT to take care of him.

Finally there’s ‘Gadget’…our almost two-year old Papillon….Gadget seems to live at a hundred miles an hour….and he’s a thief! He requires that his keepers have eyes in the back of their heads.

Issue Number Three:

We have two homes. One in San Diego and one in Sandpoint, Idaho. Someone has got to take care of those…..see that the bills are paid, perform routine maintenance, etc, etc. Houses like to be lived in!

Well, to make a long story short, and since you already know that we’re here, I’ll just say that the two kids are, after all, adults and should therefore be able to take care of themselves. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!

BJ’s parent’s, Bob & Pat, graciously offered to move into our SD house and care for it and for the two small dogs. (Wow! That was easy!) I cut post-dated checks for all of the regular bills and Bob & Pat interface with us on Skype or by text to handle any surprises.

I found a reliable landscape maintenance company in Sandpoint to care for the property there and a friend of mine, Sky, checks on the house periodically.

Finally, Nick, the son of our friends in Poway, is caring for Brogan. Nick’s got a great rapport with animals and Brogan is responding well to his ministrations. Nick spent a couple of mornings with me and Brogan learning the dog’s quirks and ways before I left and with that small amount of guidance is doing terrifically well with Brogan (who is a long-hair and weighs about 100 pounds).

At that point I looked around me and found that I really didn’t have any more problems to sweat. My logistical voice shut up for a while and took a nap and I started wondering what the trip would be like.

I guess it just goes to show that the universe will indeed give you what you need if you’ll let it.