Home!

Yes, we raced the winter storm home.

We won.

It started raining shortly after we left Bethany, MO. The Super 8 Motel was nice, having two comfortable beds and a lounge chair. I enjoyed sitting back to read with my feet up and managed to finish the 3rd and last of the "Girl Who..." series. Steve hit the bed, intending to use the wi-fi later, but woke when I did the next morning instead. Breakfast was a choice of carbs, not even the hard boiled eggs of the last Super 8 we stayed in in Soccoro, New Mexico. It was further spoiled by the TV blaring all the bad weather news for where everybody was heading. It seems you had your choice that day: nasty snow/ice combinations or possible tornadoes. Time to hit the road.

We were in rain, as it turned out, the whole rest of the day. It tried to turn over to hard stuff a few times, iced the walkway of a rest stop before we used it, but we just kept pushing and made it to Forest Lake before we really saw anything white. Roads turned out to be fine the whole way, though we mostly stayed behind a semi with enough tires to kick up anything off the road before we had to travel on it.

1900 miles in three days. Uff da! I gave myself the next day off to recover. As it turned out, that was the day it really snowed anyway, more where we live than down in the metro. I mostly sat back and started catching up on recorded TV shows on the DVR box - over three weeks of them since I wasn't watching that much before we left, busy preparing for the wedding and the trip. Two of my favorites had their season finales (so far) that I've seen. Steve and I had a "Wheel of Fortune" marathon - made easier by skipping everything but the actual puzzles, leaving about 12 minutes of actual viewing time per episode. Mostly he's been in his room catching up on his shows, stuff I'll watch on occasion when there's nothing in the whole world better to do for a while, including sleep.

I've had two days back at work now. Last night was mostly spent driving home from Des Moines - something all too familiar, but I wasn't about to turn down the run to Des Moines. I'm working on playing catch-up on the bank account, since there's no such thing as a paid vacation when you are an IC working on commissions. I've spent time unpacking - to a point, hope to finish this weekend - figuring finances, going through emails that I've missed out on while on the road. Then there's the in-head time, spent in high quantities back in Arizona. Let's see, we'll do this with this room, change that one like so, dig out those and replant with.... And so it goes.

For the first time this winter there's enough snow on the ground up here to cover the brown grass. The roof melt is creating its usual icy patch right at the entryway, and we're finally starting to dig into the bag of ice-melt. The ice scraper has been getting a workout on the windshield and car windows. We now know the house across the street has been foreclosed on because there's a plow drift blocking their driveway - plus the little sign on the door, of course.

I can't help but wonder if this is - hopefully - the last such time we'll see this. Next week is supposed to bring 50's and melt all this, and after that, who knows? It still serves as a reminder of why we're turning into snowbirds. Memories surface of bringing the family back from 4 years in Georgia just in time for the winter of '81 with it's 16" snowfalls and cold temperatures, the constant prompter for the question, "We came back for... this?"

Meanwhile there's cleaning to do, and financing for the new home to gather. Yesterday I discovered what - yes, I know - I should have known, namely the penalty for early cracking of some of my different CDs. It changed my plans for which to cash in. For example, one will cost me a little over $100 on a CD worth about double of one that from a different bank but with a similar interest rate will cost $600. Guess which one I'm cashing in? This next week that's my first priority, since by the end of the week the purchase price plus add-ons minus deposit will need to be wired to the title company. I think the paperwork is all signed. I've gotten insurance on it - about a third of costs here. Taxes turn out to be just over a fifth of taxes on the house here, and due, not May and October, but October and March.

Then there's income taxes to finish, and lists to start actually committing to paper. In splitting up possessions between two houses, what to we move? What do we keep here? What needs to be bought, and when? There'll be more money available next March, so whatever can be postponed should be. That includes as many furniture purchases as possible, so the default choice for furniture is move it down there, replace as needed when we return here next spring. However, some things can be postponed long enough for us to shop estate sales down there and be picked up piecemeal. Then again, the good transportation will be the moving truck, and that's when there'll be helpers.

But there'll be moving costs: the vehicles, gas, motel rooms, meals on the road, and that's after actual packing materials. Who's going to help and how do we figure that out for both there and here, taking into consideration various work schedules?

Repairs, cleaning and painting will be needed in the new house, and which will wait and which won't? For example, one toilet leaks around the floor seal: this would be a perfect time to replace it with one with a higher seat so our knees won't need to be strained so much during use. No sense paying a plumber twice, much as I sympathize for their need for employment. Some exterior doors don't meet code and should be replaced. This is not such a big deal while the house sits empty, or while we're living in it, but should be tended to before we leave next spring, leaving possessions behind. Carpeting needs to be removed during the moving-in process, but the new floor coverings can be dealt with next spring or even the following fall: concrete and throw rugs is livable for a while.

Between the carpeting and the screens which need to be removed from the screen porch, converting it back to a covered patio, a dumpster will need to be procured while we're just moving in. It'll also hold some nasty cactus we're going to have pulled from the back yard as a hazard to both dogs and humans, in addition to being malformed and ugly. Conveniently, the screen panels in their frames will make great carrying slabs for hauling the stuff out to the front yard and tossing it into the dumpster, and we're already bringing down the long-handled gardening tools. That's on the mental list too.

Time to start writing it all down.

Maybe after breakfast.

And some more TV.

And....

Why You Don't Ask

There's a question I've learned not to ask. It doesn't matter how hard I'm thinking it. There is a reason.

If you've been following Jordan's trip, you remember that her luggage got lost, the form letter they sent out to file a claim also got lost, she ran out of funds to get home (extra charges for suitcase and food). Seems like plenty to go wrong for a 17-year-old on her own, even through a organizationally sponsored trip, for nearly 6 weeks in SE Asia.

Yesterday I got a call from her father. She'd texted him that she'd arrived in LA and everything was fine. Whew! Safely back in the USA. Now there was just the flight back to MSP, with a stop in Denver. I could relax, "knowing" that everything else was being taken care of, that Steph and Ben were heading to the airport around midnight to pick her up, bring her back to their house to sleep off whatever she needed after all that flying, and help her decompress before returning to the "real world".

Around 10PM I got another call from her father. Turns out her flight from LAX was delayed, enough for her to miss the connecting flight. She was going to be put up at a hotel, brought back to the airport, and put on a different flight back here in the morning. And no, they apparently hadn't lost her suitcase this time. That was part of what was worrying her. She had a total of $20 in cash left, and feared they'd charge her the usual $30 for the suitcase for that final leg of the trip. And what would she eat? Seventeen-year-olds don't tend to carry credit cards for such situations.

I suggested he text her that since there was to have been only one fee for the full LAX - MSP trip, that there shouldn't be another fee just because the airlines gave her a different flight than the original. He commented he'd already texted her that if they gave her any hassle, she should try tears. Let everybody else at the ticket counter see the big mean airline as bullies giving a kid a hard time, and the PR problem alone should solve the issue. And if that didn't work, get angry!

I'm trying to stay uninvolved, emotionally. I just want to jump in and fix it. I don't care what "it" is, just make it go away. I'm still telling myself that it's not my problem, there's nothing I can do, that she's pretty grown up even if stressed out by the traveling, and hope for the best. Fingers crossed. And above all else, I'm telling myself not to ask the question.

You know what it is. We all ask it occasionally. What else can go wrong?

Problem is, every time you ask it, somebody comes along with an answer.

Keep On Reading. Really!

The "Final Update" got emailed to Jordan for her trip and forwarded to me. I figured it was the usual old boring confirmation we're-ready-to-go, be-happy-to-see-you crap, so wasn't really paying attention at first.

Earlier this month, Rustic Pathways canceled its first four departures of the month for Thailand.

Oh yeah, heard about the unrest, wondered what they were going to do and whether it affected the kids. But cancelled? That would be the elephant program, the piece that made the whole thing worthwhile for Jordan! Yikes! Oh wait....

Almost all students who were booked on Thailand programs scheduled to operate in June have...

Whew! Not affecting us, then. Her trip starts in July. It's still on, but what did they do with the program? Are they planning that the unrest will be over by then?

While we operate almost exclusively in very rural areas of Thailand that were unaffected by the Bangkok protests, we believe that the most prudent course for us to follow at this time is to cease virtually all of our Thai operations north of Bangkok for the balance of the summer and continue with what has become a successful program of moving all of our students onto parallel programs in neighboring countries.

OK, they've planned for the whole season. Good thinking. But what about THE program? There followed a long list of all the programs operating in Thailand and what decisions had been made and what the options were. Sort, sort, sort....

This program has moved to an elephant camp in beautiful Luang Prabang in Laos. ...Students will wear the same uniform, undertake the same training and have the same wonderful experience here as they would in Thailand.

OK, cool then. Oh wait, how about the southern coastal Island Hopping and Diving experience? That's also Thailand, her next scheduled two weeks.

...will run as originally scheduled in Southern Thailand. The only change in the program is that students will now fly from Singapore directly into Phuket (Southern Thailand Islands Area) at the beginning of their trip, and fly out of Phuket to Singapore at the conclusion of their trip. Otherwise the program is the same.

OK, that sounds fun. Problem solved. Enough reading for now. Time to go about the rest of my business, and there is certainly enough of that to keep me busy right now.

Of course last weekend while she was up Jordan raised a couple of logistical questions about the flying part of the trip, trying to get it all together in her head so she's prepared for her first completely solo flying experience. She'll get on the light rail near Steph and Ben's house and ride to the airport on her own in the wee hours, find her airline check-in, and do all the usual to get to LAX. And then what?

I promised to find out for her, and sent both an email query and made a call earlier this week to get some info. Yes, she needs to claim her bag herself at LAX, then head to .... and join her group, all of whom will be wearing the same shirts as she will have on. It's all in the packet sent out with her shirts - she did get them? I confirmed she had, since she mentioned that they were a bit large which was just fine with her.

I called Jordan and let her know she already had most of the info she needed to answer the questions she'd raised with me. Just read it! Again, job done, get on with life.

Then I got the email info in response to mine, saying they would send a repeat of her flight info from LAX onward, with a quick query: was she taking the Laos option? She needed to tell them ASAP. A quick email to her with a heads-up, job done. Move on.

Yeah, well, not so quick. This time she called me, just tonight, letting me know that there will be an extra $150 charged for the change in countries, with them absorbing half of the cost change. In other words, it was a $300 change. I went back over the email Jordan had sent me detailing the trip change. Sure enough, there it was, down at the bottom, a bit after the point where I'd stopped reading. Yep, me this time. No biggie, I'll send off a check. Oh yeah, and continuing further, it was due to be confirmed by June 4th!

Oops.