I Have Not Failed

I've just found several hundred ways that won't work.

I have closed up shop.  For good.  We are applying for retirement visas, so I need to retire.  I had, however, imagined myself selling ToldemArt (the business) for millions and retiring in style.  Instead, I will save some jewelry samples as souvenirs and mementos and I will donate the rest to charity.  This is my "How Not to Succeed in Business" post.

LOVE

Although under-capitalized, ToldemArt was off to a rousing start in 2008.  Early in the year, I was working with a trendy retailer in L.A. who thought ToldemArt was the greatest idea she had seen.  She was affiliated and — to my eventual dismay — enamored with the Hollywood tabloid set and was convinced they'd all wear (and give to their mothers) inexpensive gold-plate enamel jewelry with fake gemstones.  (OK, the concept is unique — designs created using the letters of the words they illustrate — but it is what it is... good-quality, inexpensive jewelry; not something the tabloid princesses have been known to fancy.)  We finally had a parting of the ways after the mother of a tabloid-princess bride decided that the jewelry she loved a day earlier wasn't expensive enough to remain in the gift bags for the bridesmaids the day of the wedding.  The mother was everything she was reputed to be in the tabloids.  My day job was giving me no pleasure.  My trendy retailer was giving me no pleasure.  Solid gold and real gemstones might have made all the difference, but that wasn't a possibility.  Besides, my trendy retailer had already cost me enough money.

KA CHING

Later in 2008, I got my Good Luck Collection placed at MGM Grand and Bellagio with the potential of expanding to all MGM Mirage properties in Las Vegas.  The jewelry sold like hotcakes (not that I've ever sold a hotcake) for the first four weeks.  A solid future was "guaranteed."  Then, the economy tanked.  Everything stopped selling.  No new orders could be placed.  Two months later, the corporate buyers left the corporation.  When the economy finally recovers in Las Vegas, we'll have been living our Spanish adventure for a good long time.

I spent part of 2009 creating The ToldemArt Zoo.  I had a a great time.  The doodling of designs remains a complete joy for me.  I sold the collection retail while developing wholesale opportunities.  Finally, in 2010, The Zoo was placed in two large venues, again with the potential of expanding to many properties — this time, around the country.  But, the economy continued to be uncooperative.  The corporate buyer remained confident, but the orders are not pouring in, and that visa application awaits.

Another Great Idea

I have an idea for my next career.  I will become a business consultant specializing in start-ups.  If you need to know if it's a bad time to start a business, you can check with me.  If I've just started one, it's a bad time.  (Well, so much for that.  I just gave away the entire premise of my business consultancy.)

I'm not finished having fun with my word-play designs.  They've been floating in my head for as long as I can remember.  I've kept a few sites at zazzle.com where I can see what the art looks like on a variety of products.  They are zazzle.com/ToldemArt, zazzle.com/BlockLetters, and Zazzle.com/TalkTrashy.

Oh... TalkTrashy.  I didn't mention that I had a less wholesome line of designs.  Since my blog is G-rated, you'll have to figure out these last two images for yourself... although I have included hints-like-bricks in the captions.  Wearing one or the other of these discreetly beneath my shirt and tie — during my last miserable year or two working for someone else — helped me make it through the worst days.  And looking around in meetings to see one or another of my colleagues wearing the same was definitely reassuring.

But now, no regrets about the many careers that never had enough meaning or the businesses that didn't make me rich.  You have to move on.

AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON

IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE

Why We Will Never Live in a Tent — Part 2

Jerry was lost in the Green Mountains of Vermont.  Judy was sound asleep.  And I was being swamped by a mini mudflow.  I grabbed everything around me and made a quick dash for the screen house.  We had dropped the plastic side panels before we went to bed.  The inside, although damp, remained clean and dry.  I spread my wet belongings around the interior.  In the damp, there was no hope of their drying, but it seemed to make sense at the time.  We had a little clock in the screen house.  It was 5:30 a.m.

TASTES LIKE SMORES

I decided I would make a nice hot pot of coffee.  I grabbed the pot and filled it from the water jug.  Smart campers don't leave their food stores out at night to attract wild animals.  So, I realized I'd need to make a quick dash to the car to get the coffee...  The car.  Jerry had the car.  I was really worried about him and hoped he was alright.

OK.  I will boil myself some water and pretend it's coffee, I thought.  I just needed to light up the cook stove.  We were smart and had kept the matches safe and dry...  In the car.  Jerry had the car.  He had me worried.  I hoped he wasn't in a ditch.

Judy continued to sleep.  Well, at least I could take a nice hot shower.  That would make everything seem better.  I took a large green trash bag and cut a whole in the bottom.  I grabbed a slightly damp towel, popped the trash bag over my head like a poncho, threw on my baseball cap and ran down the muddy hill in the driving rain to the little building containing the showers and toilets.  I was worried about Jerry, but we weren't far from Bennington.  He should be fine.

ARMHOLES WOULD HAVE HELPED.

I stripped down and stepped under the shower head.  That was when I remembered the slot and the knob.  The slot was where you inserted the quarter that would enable you to turn the knob that would produce the hot water.  Crap.  I didn't have any change.  I would have to get dressed, throw on my trash bag poncho and baseball cap, and get some change.  From the car...  Jerry had the car.  I worried.

The jerk had better not be in a ditch.

I got dressed, put on my trash bag and cap, and went back to the screen house.  For the next two hours, I drank cold water from a brand new enamel cup and pretended it was hot coffee.  It continued to pour.  The campground was slick mud.  At 7:45, Judy arose.  She came running in refreshed and smiling.  Then she noticed the car was gone, "Where's Jerry?" she asked.  I told her.  She said a hot cup of coffee would be great.  Had I made any.  I told her.  Oh. She sighed,  a hot shower would feel so good.  I told her about the quarters.  Finally, I poured her a cup of pretend coffee and we both sat staring through the screen at the pouring rain.  We worried about Jerry.

We agreed that if he hadn't gone into a ditch, he was going to wish he had. 

At 8:20, the rain miraculously stopped.  The sun burned through the remaining clouds.  We sat in a warm mist.  We lifted the rest of the panels on the screen house and peered through the trees at the deserted campground.  Around the curve appeared the Trooper, canoe on its roof, with Jerry behind the wheel.  He pulled up in front of our tent and hopped out wearing fresh clothes and a glowing smile, the obvious result of a good night's sleep.  He had shaved.  His hair was perfectly combed.  He was beaming with contentment.

Judy and I sat calmly, both imagining what we were going to do with the body.

THE HAPPY CAMPER

But, Jerry then produced a paper bag from behind his back.  Hot coffee and a dozen donuts.  "Hey," he said.  "I have a great idea.  There's a motel just up the road.  Let's go check in.  You can take showers and we can go out for a nice breakfast.  We can come back here and 'play-camp' for lunch and dinner, and then we can get a dry night's sleep at the motel tonight."  He said he hadn't noticed the motel last night when he drove into Bennington but had spotted it on his way back this morning.  He had stayed at a very upscale place in town, but this would be "just fine" for us.

Well, he was right.  It was definitely fine.  The rains returned that evening right after dinner.  We left everything at our campsite (except for the food, the matches, and the money) and spent the next two nights eating Fig Newtons and watching TV. 

Although the canoe had never left the top of the car, we were proud of what good campers we were.  We may not have slept in the tent after the first night (Jerry, at all).  But we cooked our meals, washed up, managed to build a campfire before the rains started again (I can't for the life of me remember where we found wood dry enough to burn), and enjoyed Smores before heading to our motel.

For the next time — there would, of course, be a next time — Jerry and I just needed to consider getting ourselves a bigger tent and a battery operated nightlight.

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE COMING WEEKS:
The story of our camping adventure with Blair and Marie on the Saco River in Maine during the 1992 Democratic National Convention, well-fed raccoons, and why we never bought a six-person tent.

Why We Will Never Live in a Tent — Part 1

When I was in college, I had a friend named Jean who had plans to go skiing for the first time in her life.  The week before the event, Jean was so excited that, like many first-time skiers, she went shopping.  She returned with a spectacular pair of skis, boots, bindings, poles, goggles; and a beautiful snow bunny outfit all in white, including a parka with fake fur around the hood.  She added a dash of color in the form of a sky blue six-foot-long wool scarf that she imagined trailing in the wind as she schussed the black diamond trails.  Jean was going to be amazing.  She unpacked all her goods and, to the delight of her roommates, modeled every last thing, including the skis.

Small living rooms are not designed for skis.  Jean got her skis crossed, tripped over the coffee table, and broke her leg.  She spent the next two months in a cast and gave her ski gear and snow bunny outfit to her sister Mary.

We have been more successful

at camping than Jean was at skiing.

We have not broken any bones.

One spring day in Guilford, Connecticut, we were visiting a friend at her cottage on Lake Quonnipaug when she asked us if we needed a tent.  Until that moment, we had absolutely no need for a tent.  But, now that she mentioned it, we did already have a canoe and a matching Isuzu Trooper.

I had been a boy scout and my father had been the scout master.  (It's a good thing I was too young to understand I was gay or the Boy Scouts of America would have kicked me out and I might never have learned how to make hunter's stew or use a compass.)  I had been camping on the Sacandaga River when I was in college.  Jerry had gone camping when he was in grad school and after.  We had both enjoyed it.

Anyway, our friend had a 3-man dome tent she was looking to sell.  It was like new and the price was right, so we bought it.  We then began planning our first camping trip.  We already had a great camping cook stove from Jerry's father (I don't know why), so we went out and bought sleeping bags, pots and pans, glazed enamel dinnerware, a huge water jug, lanterns, canteens, a couple of coolers, a folding shovel, and everything else of interest at our local camping supply store.  We practiced setting up the tent in our backyard.  We were ready to camp.  Being from the prairies, Jerry prefers open spaces and is not at home in deep, dark woods.  Being who I am, I do not like latrines or cold showers.  So, we carefully researched campgrounds and found the perfect place in the Green Mountains of Vermont.  Large campsites, flush toilets, hot showers.  Lakes and rivers nearby for the canoe.  And 10 minutes from Bennington.

Judy, the intrepid adventurer, flew in from Seattle and we made preparations for our first camping trip.  We watched the weather forecasts with concern.  Heavy rains were predicted for New England.  Judy said we shouldn't worry.  The morning our adventure was to start, it was raining in Guilford.  Jerry and I were hesitant but Judy said, you never know what the weather will actually be doing in Vermont,  What was a little rain?

So, we loaded up the Trooper, strapped the canoe to the roof, and headed out in the rain.  The rain continued at a steady pace until we reached Amherst, about half-way there.  It cleared a bit for the rest of the drive.  We arrived under threatening skies at a spectacular and entirely deserted campground.  So, we quickly set up camp and drove into Bennington to buy a 10 x 15-foot screen house with drop-down plastic panels to enclose it from the elements.  In a steadily increasing drizzle, we erected the screen house; no small task — nothing seemed to fit the way it was supposed to.  We finished just ahead of the downpour.  Inside our dry and safe enclosure, we cooked a delicious spaghetti dinner, we then took hot showers, and settled in for the night.

I don't know who does the ratings, but three-man tents are not designed for three men — unless those three men are little people.  Nor are they designed for two men and a woman, no matter how petite that woman may be.  Or maybe three-man tents are just not the best idea when two of the men are Jerry and me.  Judy immediately fell contentedly asleep.  Being from Seattle, the damp was her familiar friend.  Jerry and I tossed and turned trying to find places for our legs in the cramped quarters as we listened to the rain pound the nylon tent and we felt the damp settle into our bones.  Finally, at 11:30, Jerry had a meltdown.  He muttered furiously that this was impossible and he couldn't take it anymore.  He unzipped his mummy bag, unzipped the tent flap, and took off in the car.  I had no idea where he was going or when/if he was coming back.  Nor, clearly, did he.  The headlights of the car flooded the tent with daylight as he backed away from the campsite.  Judy slept.

I spent the rest of the night worrying.  The rain had become a constant torrent.  Where had Jerry gone?  Why did my sleeping bag feel wet?  Why had the ground beneath the tent gone soft?  Was Jerry coming back?  Had he gone off the road?  Had the car been washed into a river?  How could Judy possibly sleep through all this?

And was it my imagination or was that a river of mud to the left of my sleeping bag?

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

"FOR SALE: Antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers."

On Sunday, we donated the contents of our Las Vegas storage unit to Goodwill.  We kept the antique desk for ourselves (not the one in the picture suitable for a thick-legged, large-drawered lady) along with several other antiques and family heirlooms.  It was a very satisfying start to getting rid of "stuff."  Goodwill of Henderson made it easy.  And they were gracious, efficient, and professional from start to finish. 

There's a reason people are paid to move furniture.  Case in point: the 9-foot-long wall unit that Jerry and I struggled with last year trying to fit it through the entrance in the storage unit.  After some unsuccessful maneuvering, we took a moment to compose ourselves and consolidate our formidable brain power.  We figured out the correct angle of incline, precise vertical and horizontal pitch, width/height of furniture to width/height of door and narrow hallway outside door, subtracted by the avoidance of damage to hallway fire extinguisher and ceiling fluorescents, multiplied by the number of fingers and toes we preferred to keep, and we finally squeezed all 10 pounds of mud (the wall unit) into the 5-pound sack (the storage unit).  In using the mud/sack analogy, I'm paraphrasing Dollie Parton here who made the comment a long, long time ago at an award ceremony when her "dress busted open."

As we began to explain to the driver the perils of fitting that 9-foot-long monstrosity through the doorway and what worked best from our careful mathematical calculations, he smiled, gave it a sharp tap with one hand, and popped it into the hallway in a single smooth move.

If I still had a day job, I wouldn't quit it.

A trash hauler came and carted away the like-new mattresses that Goodwill could not accept.

The best part was that all this great furniture went to charity.  And, when the trash hauler saw the quality and condition of the mattresses, he said he would give them to a friend who had hit really hard times.  So, we feel great about what we accomplished.  And we're well on our way to lightening our load.

The one wrench in the works:  Budget Car & Truck Rentals of Henderson.  Our plan was to load up the items we kept and drive them back to Irvine to be stowed in our garage.  We, unfortunately, waited until a few days before our trip to make arrangements to rent a small van in Irvine that we would drive round-trip.  So, Jerry was unable to get the vehicle we wanted.  But, he was very pleased to make arrangements with Budget Rentals in Henderson, NV, for a small 10-foot moving truck with low gas mileage.  He arranged a one-way rental and we would caravan the four hours back to Irvine.  So, Monday morning, we headed over to Budget to pick up the truck.  I won't detail here the disturbing limitations of the less-than-customer-service-skilled person behind the counter.  But, charm and professionalism were clearly not words familiar to her.  After processing paperwork, we headed out to the lot to check out the truck.  OK, this truck had definitely been around the block a few times.

While someone was loading up the furniture pads Jerry had rented, I stole a peak at the instrument panel and saw that there were 93,000 miles under this low-mileage hood.  Jerry then looked perplexed and asked, "Is this a 10-foot truck?"  The guy said, "No, it's 16.  We didn't have any 10s."

Nice of them to tell Jerry he wasn't getting what he had requested.  A 16-foot truck is not simply 6 feet longer than a 10-foot truck.  A 10-foot truck holds 400 cubic ft (2,770 lbs) of stuff.  A 16-foot truck holds approximately 850 cubic ft (5,780 lbs).  And a high estimate of the weight of the furniture we had to haul:  200 lbs.

Now, there are two important things to remember.  1)  I am a New Yorker.  2)  Jerry is a Midwesterner.  I have learned over the years that if Jerry is handling something, I need to keep my mouth shut.  If I'm handling something, he stays out of the way.  We have both learned to respect the boundaries and to use the personality types appropriately.

I looked at Jerry and said, "Is this OK?"  He shrugged and said, "Yeah, it's OK."  So, pads loaded, we drove away.  Jerry behind the wheel of the truck.  I behind the wheel of the Honda.  The plan was to drive the 10 minutes back to our storage unit, park the truck, go have a nice breakfast, and then load the truck with our very little bit of furniture for an easy drive home.

When we got back to the storage unit, Jerry got out of the truck and said.  "There is no way I'm driving that over the mountains.  I had to floor it just to make it up the little incline to get here.  Both armrests are broken.  And it will probably brake down on the way home. He said, "Did you see how many miles it has on it?"

So, Jerry phoned Budget and after three attempts got through to the Henderson facility and Miss Congeniality.  We had a quick breakfast at McDonalds and then returned the truck.  Jerry again explained the problem to Miss Congeniality and told her she needed to process a complete refund.  She did not apologize.  She didn't know what code to enter to cancel the rental, so she phoned in for assistance.  I stood in the background and listened.  She listed out the options to the person on the phone saying she didn't know which to select.  Among the options:  rented from a competitor, vehicle not available, dissatisfied with service...  WAIT!!!, screamed the voice inside my head.  DISSATISFIED WITH SERVICE!  DISSATISFIED WITH SERVICE!  IS THAT NOT OBVIOUS TO YOU?

But, the Midwesterner was at the counter.  So, I stepped outside taking the voice with me.  When I returned I heard Jerry calmly say, "We did not rent from UHaul."  Miss Congeniality said, "I know.  I was just kidding."  She then asked, "Do you want to rent something else?"  to which the Midwesterner politely replied, "No, thank you."  But there was that voice inside my head again, "RENT SOMETHING ELSE?  WHY, DO YOU SUDDENLY HAVE THE TRUCK WE RESERVED IN THE FIRST PLACE?"  And, having wasted two hours, we left Budget of Henderson.

When we got back in the car, I asked Jerry what the UHaul reference was about.  He said that, when I stepped outside, Miss Congeniality told the person on the phone, "They probably rented from UHaul."

Just so you know, although the voice inside my head sounds very loud and out of control, the only thing that I usually let out is the "hint" of sarcasm.  I am not cruel.  Also, the Midwesterner has very happily used the New Yorker often over the years, whenever some dirty work needed to be done.

So, the good news:  On the way out of town, we stopped at "M" Resort for a free buffet breakfast (we had received coupons in the mail).  We drove home together, which is a lot more pleasant anyway.  We will be back in Vegas with Linda and Tom at the end of the month, so we now have time to rent from here the vehicle we really want for the trip -- a simple van.  The New Yorker gets to write a letter to Budget.  And, by early January, the Vegas chapter of our lives will officially be over.

You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

People keep asking me, What if?

What if Seville isn't the right city? What if you don't like the weather?  What if you give away your things and then miss them? What if you just played tourist for a while and then came home?  What if you move to Spain and decide you don't like it? What if it's too different? What if the dollar should weaken even more?

What if something should happen to you?

Regarding the last "what if," there is a much more serious question to be asked.  What if NOTHING should happen to us?

BROTHERS

To be honest, the question that weighs on me the most is:  What if my mother or my brother should need us? But, we won't be much further away than we are now (California to New York... Spain to New York). My brother has a wonderful group-home/independent-living situation. The apartment is managed by AHRC, an exceptional organization staffed by exceptional human beings.  He has a good life in NY.  He usually flies out to visit us on his own once a year.  But, he and my mother are now planning their first visit -- together -- to Spain.  She'll give him the help he needs getting through customs and he'll give her the help she needs with her bags.  And they'll have one another's company.  Their first visit is something exciting to look forward to. My brother would prefer to visit us in Vegas (even though we haven't lived there for a year and a half)... or else someplace with a professional baseball team. We'll have to get him hooked on soccer.

As for the rest of the what ifs:
We plan to love Seville. We plan to be very happy living in Spain. We plan to do a lot of train travel. We plan to enjoy our new adventures. We plan to be healthy. If any of these things turn out to not be the case, we will plan what we want or need to do next.

FUDGE FACTOR

 So many people are worried about our money. I worry about our money, too. I have always worried about our money. I have worried about it when we have had a lot and I have worried about it when we have had a little. But, so the other worriers in our lives will relax a bit, I can tell you we have very carefully planned this move. We have planned and diligently developed a budget (not something we're known for -- budgeting, that is; we're great at developing plans) and we know exactly how much we'll have and very nearly exactly how much we'll need. We have built in a major fudge factor -- sorry for the highly technical financial terminology -- for the ups and downs of the exchange rate. In short, we are financially prepared and will be able to live very comfortable lives.

Despite the title of this post, we do have parachutes. So, stop worrying about us. If all else fails, my mother says she can tolerate having us in her apartment for a few weeks. Then, we'll just move into Linda and Tom's basement in South Dakota. They already have a space heater.

Resetting the GPS

Monday night, Jerry and I re-opened another discussion.  And that discussion has brought us back from Jerez de la Frontera to Seville.

We have made great connections in Seville and are learning more and more about the city and its neighborhoods.  And we're loving what we're learning.  We haven't had the same success in our research of Jerez, which I'm sure is still a great place. To make our trip in January and our move in May less complicated, we have decided to return our focus to Seville. 

And that is our final decision... for now.  There is no guarantee we won't change our minds again.  Our minds, after all, were clearly made for changing.  But, as of today... this morning... well, this moment, we are determined to find an apartment in Seville.

We may not make the right choice the first time out, but at least we'll have chosen.

After our first lease is up, and we have a year of local knowledge under our belts, we can move someplace else if we like.  We don't expect we'll need to, but change is always a possibility.

So now we just need to connect with the perfect rental agent and home will be a lot closer.

Up a Hazy River

They have a canoe. (near the Saco River in Maine)

In 1989, Jerry decided he wanted -- no, needed -- a canoe.  We were living in Southern Connecticut on the Long Island Sound at the time.  There were beautiful salt marshes, small and large rivers, idyllic lakes.  What this meant was that everywhere we went we saw cars with canoes strapped to their roofs.  And every time Jerry spotted one of those canoe-carrying cars, he would say, "They have a canoe."

In 1990, we bought a brand-new Isuzu Trooper... because it would look really good with a canoe on top.  One extremely foggy early morning in summer, we went with our good friend Judy -- an avid hiker and camper who was visiting from Seattle -- rented a beat-up aluminum canoe for about $25 for the day, and paddled into the Connecticut River to see how it felt.  The fact that the fog was so thick that we couldn't see more than two-feet in front of us was a bit off-putting.  But, we appeared to be the only ones on the river and it was quiet and serene.  We were able to paddle around some of the small islands and marshes.  We shared the water with birds we had only been able to see from a distance before.  Coming out of the fog, we were stunned to find ourselves face to face with a magnificent pair of mute swans.  When you're down at water-level with a pair of mute swans you're struck by how huge they actually are.  And how much damage they could actually do if they so chose.  Which is why we paddled as fast as we could when the male rose up off the water with his wings spread and his held high and back.  Huge.

We paddled for hours.  The fog had lifted and it was getting warm, so we decided to head back upriver to return the canoe and head home.  We paddled out of a peaceful cove to find that the serenity we had experienced earlier in the day was gone.  Powerboats and cabin cruisers flew by.  The trip was no longer bliss.  Each time a boat whizzed past us, we aimed for the shore to avoid being swamped.  I began to get a bit frantic.  At one point, we shot into a tiny beach, paddling so fast that the front of the canoe wedged into the muddy shore.  A snake sunning on the shore was taken completely by surprise by our sudden arrival.  It coiled and lifted it's head, ready to strike.  To avoid the snake, I leaned my upper body so far back that the back of my head was nearly in Judy's lap.  Jerry burst out laughing when he saw what I was cowering from.  It was nothing but a harmless rat snake, he told me.  Harmless?  Not to the rats.  It was a snake.  It was ready to strike.  And if it could eat a rat, I figured it could do me some damage.

But, except for the rat snake, the attack swan, and the powerboats, I had to admit I had a really good time.  The basic lesson learned was that the Connecticut River wasn't a great place for me to be canoeing. 

So, I finally caved and we bought a canoe.  But, not just any canoe.  We bought a 16-foot Mad River canoe in beige with taupe and wood trim to match our white Isuzu Trooper with its taupe trim and taupe leather interior.  It really looked great on top of the car.   

We had a canoe.

I suddenly became very frugal or, perhaps, penny-wise/pound foolish (well, that really wasn't anything new for me).   Our canoe, top-of-the-line paddles, life jackets, seat cushions, and additional canoeing paraphernalia, to my great consternation, cost us approximately $1,600.

The first time we took our own canoe into the water, we had a very relaxing paddle through some salt marshes.  I have to admit it was bliss.  When we were done, we strapped our canoe to the top of the matching Trooper and I told Jerry, "Well, that trip cost us $1,600."

The following weekend, we took our canoe out on Lake Quonnipaug in our little town of Guilford.  The lake was picturesque and charming.  And boats with motors were not allowed.  It was, again, bliss.  As we paddled at the far end of the lake, away from the few summer cottages and year-round homes, a snapping turtle the size of a Volkswagen Beetle appeared to our left and swam directly under the canoe.  The tail was still well to our left while the enormous head had already passed to our right.  I was fascinated. Jerry's comment: "Paddle fast!"  Odd.  He wasn't even the least bit concerned when I was nearly eaten by a snake.

The rest of our paddle was uneventful.  When we strapped the canoe back on top of the matching Trooper that day, I told Jerry, "Well, that trip cost us $800."

Over the next couple of years, there were some more blissful trips around Connecticut salt marshes and along the Saco River in Maine, as well as a rained-out camping trip in the Green Mountains of Vermont when the canoe spent the entire time strapped to the top of the matching Trooper.  In early 1993, Jerry was surprised to be offered a new position in San Diego.  A huge moving van arrived and our Mad River canoe, the matching Trooper, and everything else we owned, were loaded and taken on a week-long drive across the country.

When we arrived in San Diego, we were disappointed to discover that, even with all that ocean, we had very limited local options for the blissful canoeing we were used to.  To top it off, the canoe would not fit in the garage of our condo, so we had to pay for storage -- making it even more difficult to get use of the canoe.  We soon sold the canoe and all the paraphernalia for next to nothing.  We kept the matching Isuzu Trooper.

I told Jerry, "Well that cost us about $160 a trip."

About a year later, as we were driving by Mission Bay, Jerry had a revelation.  "They have a kayak," he announced.

Globe Spinning

Until I heard Jerry himself answer the oft-repeated question "Why Spain?" during our Thanksgiving visit with family in Eugene, Oregon, I had completely forgotten one important factor in the deeply researched and highly scientific process we used -- based on our initial criteria -- to determine our relocation options. 

After first agreeing that weather was of primary importance, we averaged the approximate latitude of San Diego and Palm Springs (our two favorite climates).  Jerry then spun a globe and marked a line through the areas corresponding to that latitude.  He then listed all the geographic areas encountered by his circle and we then, as you know, narrowed it down to Southern Spain.  A little more precise than just spinning a globe and pointing a finger.

This brilliant process was suggested by the intellectually organized and process-gifted Jerry (who can't keep his desk -- or any surface -- clean for more than 15 minutes).  His brain is a wonder.

Family Fishing

“Jerry,” I whispered, “I have to pee.”

“Here,” smiled his mother from behind him, as she offered me an empty Maxwell House can.

It was my first visit to the Midwest — and Jerry’s parents. We were fishing for walleyes and crappies, fish that don’t swim in the waters off Coney Island, where I had grown up.

We sat in the only boat, in the middle of the only lake in the town of Ihlen, Minnesota. Population 107.

Jerry and I had been together for almost a year. He had met my parents when they paid us a visit in Boston.  So, we decided it was time for me to meet his parents. We had left Boston five days earlier for a week of home-cooked meals, home movies, photo albums, and fishing. A chance for me to get to know Jerry’s parents. A chance for them to get to know me. It had been an exceptional week — up until that moment.

My middle-class, East Coast, Jewish upbringing had not prepared me for that moment. In my family, there was an unwritten law that men did not ‘go to the bathroom’ in front of women. Nor, for that matter, in front of other men.

In my family, toilets flushed and did not have “Good to the last drop” printed on the side.

But, this was not my family. And I was not in Brooklyn anymore.

We sat in Jerry’s father’s tiny fishing boat on a late-spring afternoon. A light breeze played with the leaves in the old oak trees before gently dancing across the lake, a breeze just cool enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. We all four wore sweatshirts. To protect us — I had been told — from the damp air. But, after watching Alice as she cast for the first time that day, I learned that what the sweatshirts really protected us from were Alice’s wildly flying hooks.

Alice had vainly scanned the lake before her to see where her bait had touched down, while Jerry gingerly removed her hook, line, and sinker from the shoulder of my sweatshirt. A couple of hours had transpired since Alice’s hook had attached itself to the crotch of my, thankfully heavy, Calvin Klein jeans. Her casting skills had improved as the day wore on and, finally, we all sat tranquilly, having been calmed by the rhythm of the water gently lapping the boat and the call of the pheasants from the mist at the far end of the lake. I had just drained my third can of beer when it struck me that there was no place on this over-sized rowboat for a bathroom.

Jim — a huge, bear of a man with a huge, deep voice to match — sat in back holding his fishing rod, a devilish smile playing at the corners of his lips, a glint in his brown eyes as they peeked from under his John Deere cap.

Jerry held a worm between his fingers, about to bait his hook.

Alice, her green eyes catching the colors in the sky and water, her blond curls bursting forward from the snugly-fitting hood of her navy blue sweatshirt, still held the coffee can in her large Norwegian hand.

And I sat, mortified, desperately trying to hold my water.

“I can't go in that!”

“Why not?” asked Jerry — knowing full well why not.

“Well, not in front of your mother!”

“I'll turn my back,” she offered.

‘Oh, isn't she helpful,’ I thought.

“I can’t. You’ll still hear it,” I sputtered. I could feel the blood rushing to my head. My face must have been as red as the night crawler Jerry now gleefully impaled on his hook. 

“So, just go over the side into the lake,” Alice offered.

           

And Jerry, ever the loyal son, nodded his agreement. And, for the first time, I noticed they had the same sinister smile.

There was an interminable silence as I tried to regain control of my lungs. I must have looked a fool, sitting there with this family of evil Midwesterners, my face red with embarrassment, my legs clamped tightly together.

Then Jim, still smiling (but was it malevolently now?), gently set down his rod and reel and tugged on the outboard motor.

“Where are we going?” asked Jerry.

“To shore,” replied Jim. “There’s a biffy on the south side of the lake.”

“A biffy!” Jerry squawked. “You never motored us to shore when we had to go to the bathroom. We always used the coffee can.”

‘Oh, God,’ that couldn’t possibly be the same coffee can that Jerry and his sisters had used more than twenty years before. Could it?

“Well, Gerald. Mitchell here is a city kid. You can’t expect him to do everything our way the first time out. We’ve got to introduce him to this stuff gradually; we can’t take away all his luxuries at once. Let’s let him use the biffy this time,” Jim lectured, but I could hear the repressed laughter in his voice as he motored us to shore.

‘What’s a biffy?’ I wondered as I peered into the dark trees in the distance.

And then I saw it. ‘An outhouse!’ My heart sank and I thought, ‘Luxuries? He expects me to go in one of those vile, foul-smelling things? And for this I’m supposed to be grateful?’

But, then I remembered I didn’t have much choice. It was the outhouse or the coffee can.

When we reached shore, I leaped from the boat and quickly ran to the outdoor toilet — as quickly as a man can run with his knees held tightly together. I pulled the door closed behind me. Of course there was no lock. I hoped the 107 residents of the town of Ihlen had their own outhouses. I was in no mood to share.

I looked up.

‘At least there’s ventilation in this thing,’ I thought.

But, the tiny screen windows above my head did nothing to lessen the stench from the fetid mass in the hole below. I unzipped and then held my breath as I emptied my full-to-bursting bladder. Mosquitoes buzzed in my ears and hungrily fed wherever I could not reach with my free hand to swat them away.

The pheasants cried.

The three Lowells waited, planning my next humiliation as they sat in the only boat, on the shore of the only lake in the town of Ihlen, Minnesota. Population 107.

CATCH OF THE DAY

Vis-à-Vis a Visa... Etc.

We think we've got all the steps mapped out--and understood--for obtaining a residency (retirement) visa for Spain.  The Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles has an amazingly helpful website that clearly lists everything needed for every kind of visa.  So, we're just going down the list and making sure we do everything we're instructed to do... translated into Spanish... in duplicate (or triplicate)... and within three months of our departure date.

The list is daunting but, as I said, the LA Consulate has done a tremendous job of indicating every bit of info required along with detailed instructions.  I was going to repeat all the requirements here, but I don't want to lose you!

I'll keep you posted as we go through our process.  Health insurance is required before we can apply, and traveler's & repatriation insurance are also required for the first year.  Jerry is already getting the costs and making arrangements for all that.  We've also started looking online at apartments (a leased or owned residence is needed to apply for the visa).

Apartment/house-hunting is one of my favorite things to do.  I especially love when they provide floorplans (which they don't do very often).  As a kid I used to love to get lost in the NY Times Sunday Magazine real estate floorplans.

For Spain, we've got our cheat sheets handy (mine in the form of an electronic "sticky note" on my desktop) translating all the rental terms from Spanish to English.

The most important rental term for Jerry: Calefacción...  Heat.  Jerry likes to be warm.

JERRY.
NOT WARM IN BERGEN.

Surprisingly, calefacción is not all that common in what we've seen listed.  Jerry has been known to check out of hotels on business trips (and vacations) because the hotel didn't allow him to control the heat in the room.  He hates those centrally controlled thermostats.  He has left a trail of space heaters around the country--all purchased when he couldn't find a room with a guest-controlled heating system.  He even snuck out of his sister's house in South Dakota one night to check into a hotel because he was cold.  Being the polite Midwesterner, he didn't want her to know.  Of course, he got caught the next day.  She's an early riser and discovered our rental car missing from the driveway at 6:30 a.m.  And, boy was he in trouble.  When he got back, his second-grade-teacher sister dragged him--almost by the ear--to the thermostat explaining, "You see how this works?  All you have to do when you're cold is turn this little dial up and the... Oops...  I forgot to turn the thermostat back on last night.  Well, still, you could have just told me you were cold!"

He wasn't off the hook.  But, complements of Jerry, they now have a space heater available for other thin-blooded guests. (In all fairness to our wonderful hosts, I slept with the window open that night.)

So, yes, we'll definitely need calefacción.  And aire acondicionado, which I think you can translate on your own

And, speaking of calefacción, when I talked in an earlier post about the weather and how we settled on Southern Spain, I forgot until Jerry reminded me today that we started off in Barcelona.  We then discovered that winters, although not bad, are not as mild as we'd like.  We worked our way down to the spectacular city of Ronda, but it sits on top of a cliff at about 2,100 ft. and experiences a fairly cold winter.  THEN, we landed in Sevilla and, well, you now know the rest.


For our visa applications, we'll also need clearance from the FBI stating "absence of police records."  No worries there.  A clean bill of health for each of us.  Ditto.  Ditto.


So, that's it for today.  I can't say I'm heading off to Peet's, since we've already been there.  Hot chai latte this time.  And yet another walnut chocolate chunk scone.  Maybe a little exercise on the side tomorrow before this week's Thanksgiving binge begins.

What Do We Do With All Our Stuff?

Downsizing.  It's the catchphrase of the decade and we have not been immune to the idea, and the necessity, of it in recent years.

In 2000, Jerry and I both had solid careers and a 5-bedroom house in San Francisco, filled with furniture and furnishings.  By July of that year, we had sold the house and poured all our money into a bed & breakfast style hotel in Palm Springs, California.  What couldn't fit in the guest rooms was packed into a 10 x 20 storage unit where it sat for two years.

Our hotel was the first in the country created for gays & lesbians with children, their families and friends.  It was a great idea (we still think so) and, thankfully, we chose to do it because we thought it would feel good to do and not because we hoped to make a bundle.  We did, however, hope to make ends meet.

So, when the reality of the market turned out to be smaller than what we thought was its potential, we took a breath and plowed on.  But, when the events of September 11, 2001 soon followed causing, among so many other things, a 43 percent drop in tourism in Palm Springs, there was no hope of digging ourselves out of debt.

Thanks to Jerry, we found ourselves in Santa Barbara, California, where he had landed another good position.  Our stuff came out of storage and we moved into a large 3-bedroom rental, filling every square inch with our things.

About five years later, we moved to Vegas where we went back into five bedrooms and filled every square inch with our personal belongings.  But, once again, times grew tough.  So, after a year, we rented a 3-bedroom apartment, sold some furniture and stashed in the garage whatever we couldn't fit into the apartment.

Another year went by, times got better, and we moved back to Southern California into a 2-bedroom apartment (that cost a lot more than that 3-bedroom in Vegas), leaving behind a 10 x 15 storage unit full-to-bursting with our excess furniture.

So, here we are getting ready for a move to Spain and in possession of an over-furnished and overstocked 2-bedroom apartment, a garage stacked with boxes leaving no room for a car, and a storage unit in Vegas that could furnish a decent-sized house.

Some days what to do with all our stuff stresses me more than anything else we have to do in order to legally live in Spain.

First, we're donating the contents of the Vegas storage unit to Goodwill.  Big furniture.  No use for it.  Great donation.

You know all those collections you have because, as you were told at the time, "It's a great investment"?  Well, it's only a great investment if someone is willing to pay when you're ready to cash in.  Selling on ebay and receiving a mere pittance is not very satisfying or worthwhile.  The tax deduction (i.e., donating to a museum or a charity) may be the most practical way to go.  Does anyone collect art glass from the '80s?

Family heirlooms are going to family... early.  Now we just have to get them to the middle of the country without breaking the bank -- or our backs.

We'll take some things with us, whatever it doesn't cost too much to ship.  Like my mother's artwork and needlework; our family photos (ALL our family photos, more than 100 in frames and more than a dozen albums); Jerry's plaster sheriff from Wall Drug circa 1952; my plaster flower child from my sister circa 1971; our computer equipment since it's in good working order and more expensive to buy in Spain.

We've got to go through our clothes (yet again) and donate what we don't need.  The suggestion to "just donate everything to charity" sounds great, but pulling it off means we've got to go through everything first and then pack it all up.  Can you not tell how this is stressing me out?

I'm sure I'll have plenty more to say in future posts about down-sizing.  In the meantime, I've got to go pay for service on a leased car we'll be returning in the spring.

After this whine and that waste I'll deserve my cafe Americano at Peet's.

While enjoying my coffee (and walnut chocolate chunk scone), I'm going to get lost in my paperback "Don Quixote," although I worry that in my state of mind reading about a man who lost his may not be the best of ideas.

Why Move? Why Leave? Why Spain?

To the first and second "why" questions, there are so many answers.  But, the easiest responses are, because we can and because we want to (or vice versa).  We have talked for years about living in Europe.

I thought of moving to England in the late '70s.


Jerry and I considered the Netherlands in the '90s (those "Bush the First" years).  Coming from San Diego at the time, we decided we could if we had to, but the weather would be an adjustment.

Then in the "George Jr." years, we considered Ireland (a job prospect in Dublin for Jerry) but again decided the weather would be an adjustment, along with some social/political/religious issues.  Not to mention the fact that we weren't a legally recognized couple and I, therefore, would have no legal right to go/stay with him.

Our next thought during the George Jr. years was Norway.  Specifically Bergen.  We thought, well, we love Seattle.  And Bergen reminds us in so many ways of Seattle.  We figured, we can tolerate the weather in Seattle (well, no, we really can't), so how difficult could Bergen be?  Our family in Bergen loved the idea of having us as neighbors (no, really, they did).  But they thought we were nuts if we believed we could tolerate the weather.


We then did some research and learned that Seattle gets 37 inches of precipitation a year.  The total isn't significant except that it's continual drizzles.  (Seattle Rain Festival: January 1-December 31).  But, Bergen, hold onto your hats, gets EIGHTY-NINE INCHES OF PRECIPITATION a year.  And it's almost all rain.  And the rain falls sideways. There's no escaping it.

Southern Spain is a popular and easy-to-reach tourist destination for Norwegians.  So, we thought we could spend half the year in Bergen and half in Southern Spain.  But that still meant at least, unscientifically speaking, 45 inches of rain.  And, as I just mentioned, in Bergen it rains sideways.

So, we're still here.


Until we had our hotel in Palm Springs from 2000-2003 (that requires another post), we had talked a lot about retiring there.  And when we returned to Southern California from Vegas last year, that was back as the top possibility.

But the problem was that Palm Springs, although beautiful, just didn't excite us anymore.  There isn't anything new for us.  So, we bought "Retirement Places Rated" for the U.S. and studied.  And we still couldn't find that spark.

A few months passed and we started to talk about Europe again.  We decided to list out our requirements in order of priority and then narrow down to regions, countries, and cities based on those factors.

The top priority (I'll admit to being a bit shallow on this one):
THE WEATHER.
We realized a pleasant climate -- a la San Diego -- was what we required.  That knocked off a whole bunch of countries.

The second priority was political/social climate:
Admittedly this went hand in hand with weather.  Cuba's sunshine and ocean breezes can be quite charming, but we're not rushing off to live there.

Other requirements (and no longer in order of priority) were:
An interesting culture and history; a population that welcomes outsiders; safe and secure living conditions; a language we could learn; national/nature parks; good healthcare; good public transportation--local, regional, and national; easy/cheap access to other parts of Europe; and I can't remember what else right now.

That led us to Southern Spain--Andalucia.  But we didn't want to end up in an expat community surrounded only by other non-Spaniards (and Andalucia has a number of beautiful communities filled with expats).  So, we did more research, talked to more people, and finally narrowed down to Sevilla.  After deciding on Sevilla, we re-opened the discussion (we re-open discussions a lot) and decided to look in the outlying area for smaller cities where we could more easily relax (and where our money would go further).  We decided to follow the train line down from Sevilla to Cadiz.  And there it was, Jerez de la Frontera.  Home to sherry, the horse, and the flamenco.  Also  home to the Motorcycle Grand Prix (not really on our list of interests).

Speaking the Language

I'm immersed in Rosetta Stone Spanish for Spain.  I studied Spanish for 7 years starting when I was 12.  You'd think I'd be passably fluent, but it's been a really long time since I've used it beyond a very superficial level.

I was in Spain on business about four years ago.  During that trip I spent an hour in a taxi with a driver who spoke no English.  We spent the hour in conversation... in Spanish.  At the end of the hour, the cab driver told me I did really well.  I said, like a 2-year-old.  He said, no, 5.  Trust me, he was being extremely kind.  After completing Level 1 (of 5) of Rosetta Stone, I feel like I now speak and comprehend Spanish like an at times slow and at times gifted 2-year-old.

I look forward to fluency.  I'm not very patient.  I'm no perfectionist.  I'm quite good at slapping something together and saying, "That'll do."  But I don't like not being able to do something perfectly immediately.  The big difference between me and a perfectionist--in those situations when I can't immediately do something perfectly--is that I might just throw in the towel.

But I love languages and I do pick them up quickly (I hear them as music in my head).  So, although I'll get frustrated with my lack of fluency I won't stop working at it.

Jerry speaks Russian.  We don't expect that to come in very handy in Spain.  So, he's counting on me to be translator (everything is relative) when we visit Andalucia in January.  Jerry's sister and her husband rented an apartment in Nerja on the Costa del Sol last summer.  One day when they were out for their regular morning stroll, they were greeted by the owner of the local grocery.  As they walked by, she waved and said, "Buenos dias!"  Our brother-in-law waved back and said, "Aloha!"  I don't think he's going to be of much help.


Once we move in May, we'll both immediately enroll in language immersion programs.

In the meantime, we are also trying to understand everything (well, a lot) about Spanish history and culture.  Jerry is the academic in this household.  He can get himself lost in any, dry, non-fiction tome.  And he can then quote information and statistics for years after.  I barely got through one academic hard-cover on Spain and I returned two others to Jerry after the first chapter.

I keep hoping to find a historical novel to give me all I need to know in a format like Michener's "Hawaii."  Michener did actually produce one book on Spain. Unfortunately, it was a work of NON-fiction.  In the meantime, I'm reading every travel guide and have just found a book "The New Spaniards" that holds my attention.  Surfing the web provides an endless source of info in as small or as large a bite as I'm interested in at any given time.

So, now it's off to Peet's for a newspaper and a cup of coffee.

First Things First

I move often.  It could be that I'm always running away from something or that I'm always running to something.  But, since I've been with my partner (now husband) Jerry for 29 years, and we have been running away from or to something together for all that time,  I suppose it doesn't really matter.  We move often and we like to move.


Of course, that's not to say we don't find moving stressful.  We just find staying in one place worse.

So, we're getting ready for another move.  A big one this time.  In the spring of 2011, we will leave Southern California and head to Southern Spain.

And, although we've done lots of homework, planning, and 16-page spreadsheets in preparation for the big move, this post is another first step for me on that trip.