Monday, March 18, 2024

Rabbits, Easter, Quick Update

 

In lieu of an actual post, I offer you the above graphic and a short update:

1)  The trip to New Home 2.0 was a success after a bit of a rocky start - due to a malfunction at the computer check-in, we ended up being delayed by 5 hours to the arrival of our final destination.

2)  That said, apartment hunting was very successful.  We found a unit that a) Is only about a 50% reduction in total square footage from our current house; b) Is within our price range; c) Is approximately 10 minutes from the new job; d) Is actually rather close to local transit to the airport, something which will help ever so much with The Ravishing Mrs. TB's trips here (and anyone else that comes).

3)  The rest of the weekend was spent seeing the broader local area, with spectacular results.

4)  New job starts today, likely as you are reading this.

Tomorrow we return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

On Long Friendships

 One of the highlights of my visit home this weekend was dinner with Uisdean Ruadh and The Director.

The gathering of the three of us, or of any two of us, is the continuation of a conversation that has been going on for over 40 years as, in the Long Ago on a certain day in March (I always think 14 March, but the date is not really important) a curly haired mature teenager that would be The Director introduced to a flaming red head who he met in drama and would become Uisdean Ruadh to the dark haired socially awkward kid he met in band (I will leave you to figure out who that is).  Even over 40 years, the personalities still hold true:  The Director is mature and thoughtful, Uisdean Ruadh remains as flamboyant and outgoing as what is left of his flaming red hair would suggest, and I remain as socially awkward as ever.

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The conversations are always easy, picking up in many cases at the last place they may have left off - whenever the last time we met.  We arre able to separate into two groups that whirl and change like a couple at square dance:  the Director and I talking on the couch about his advisory trip, Uisdean Ruadh and The Director's Wife talking about life in general.  Later, those situations reverse at dessert and The Director and Uisdean Ruadh discuss The Director's ongoing work and I catch up with The Director's Wife.  The conversation is never forced, always free flowing and engaging - something that seems remarkably rare to me in the environment (modern business) that I have spent so much time of late, where almost nothing beyond the task at hand is discussed.

Dinner, with the four mentioned above as well as with The Director's children, focuses almost exclusively on us getting the latest update on the Director's ongoing dissertation work.  It is the sort of conversation that seems almost lost to me now on an ongoing basis:  The Director explaining, Uisdean Ruadh or myself digging deeper or making suggestions ("Have you thought about this?"), then listening to responses.  My hope is that in some way we are sharpening his thought process.  My joy is that I get to hear his thought processes as they are happening - or as I tell him later, "I get to live dissertation writing vicariously through you."

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The fact that we three have remained not only in contact at all but close friends remains something of a mystery to me:  so many high school friendships never survive meaningfully beyond the first year or two of college, and we all had different routes that took us away from Old Home.  Uisdean Ruadh remained here taking care of his parents, only gone long enough to train and serve in the Reserves.  The Director went away to school and then graduate school until he returned.  I, too, went away to school and then graduate school and then returned - until work lead me farther and farther afield; the upcoming move to New Home 2.0 will be the closest I have been in 15 years.

And yet, through all of that, we remained connected in a way that others have not.

Through weddings, divorces, the birth of children, the adoption of children, the death of parents, the loss of jobs, health emergencies - we have somehow managed to stay together in a meaningful way that enabled us not only to continue to speak with each other, but get support from each other in a way that I feel few friendships I have known can offer.  Not just the well meant "approval" button on social media, but in a way that is truly supportive.  If I have a problem, if I have a harebrained idea, if I need guidance - these are the ones I reach out to.

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One of the oddest things about growing older is not the fact of growing older - that is as it may be - but that friendships like this grow older.  More and more I find myself my working with people younger (or much younger than me.  Their youth is not nearly as confounding to me as the fact I have a friendship that is older than they are.  Explaining that fact is always somewhat revelatory as well:  One mentions the age of the friendship and then just steps back as they start doing the math.  More often than not, there is this revelatory sense of that a relationship has lasted longer than they have been alive.

Is this unusual?  I would say the answer is largely "Yes", at least in my own sphere.  I am used to thinking and hearing of marriages lasting this long; I am not used to hearing of friendships enduring this long - especially if they involve people that are geographically separated. Too often it is just easier to readapt to the current "place" than pull those relationships along with you:  They take time.  They take effort.  They take commitment.

It strikes me as I write this that outside of my relationship with my sister and cousins, this friendship is the next longest thing in my life.  It has existed longer than my marriage, than blogging, that Iaijutsu - longer than any other thing.

It saddens me - deeply, profoundly - that this is not, or at least no longer, the norm.  Like so many other things in our modern culture, we have become a mile wide and an inch deep to our detriment.

And besides - there is nothing better than a running joke which been running for forty years.

Friday, March 15, 2024

New Home 2.0 - Away!

Friends, as you read this post The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I are safely in New Home 2.0, where we are beginning a day of apartment hunting.  We actually arrived yesterday, but I keeping finding reasons to not post from Seneca on Thursdays and he has begun to suggest I am avoiding him.

When your own alter ego is pointing things out, it might be time to pay attention.

As some may recall, we had a home finding tour assigned as part of our relocation package.  In a bit of interesting impacts on planning, if we came prior to my start date the entire trip - airfare, lodging, meals, rental car - would be covered. If it was after I started, only airfare and rental car would be covered.  Perhaps not surprisingly we chose to come directly before I start the following Monday.

Today will be a day with our relocation consultant visiting apartments.  At the moment we are looking at something with two bedrooms and a single bath, the extra bedroom to accommodate any visitors that we might have (as Na Clann have never been to New Home 2.0 it seems likely they may come, and host of folks that were previously out of range are now within an easy flight).  As you can imagine, there is a financial consideration as well as for the better part of a year we will be carrying both a rental contract and a mortgage payment.  My hope is that we will walk away with at least one actual apartment we can look forward to moving into in April.

Saturday and Sunday are now left to visiting locales in the area.  We are both in the position of not having been in this area for many, many years - for me, likely over 30. As our dining is covered, The Ravishing Mrs. TB has already selected some restaurants for our enjoyment.  I am certain they will be both delicious and something I would never have thought of otherwise.

The other thing that is on my mind as we do this is at least starting a discussion about the next several years.

If I am honest with myself, this job potentially represents the "last lap" of my career in this industry. It has the potential to make things happen, perhaps even at a quicker pace than I had anticipated.  This year also brings additional changes:  if all goes as it seems to, likely we will have one house in New Home with some aspect of income and rental, an apartment, and The Ranch with at least one rental (The Cabin) and other possibilities.

In other words, like it or not things are changing a great deal.  The changes have every possibility to make other things possible - if properly managed and consciously decided on.  And I am not always the best at both of those criteria.

It is only a starter discussion for sure; we do have things to enjoy over the weekend and I am sure that I will immediately be submerged into my work and starting to establish a new routine.  But better conscious thinking than unconscious blundering.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

The Collapse CXXXVIII: Sorting

09 July 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

Pompeia Paulina, when a suggestion is made, does not delay – unlike myself, who can often push things off to when choices have been effectively eliminated and only one decision is possible: “procrastination”, I believe is the vulgar term. Within 12 hours of my thought that we might want to examine everything we owned in order to organize it for the future, a list had been produced and a categorization matrix presented.

I should watch myself around this wife of mine, Lucilius; a suggestion can be a very dangerous thing.

The categorization presented itself into three buckets:

A) Items which are required for survival (e.g. food, shelter, protection);

B) Items which are not required for survival but make survival “better” (better, of course, being a somewhat subjective term);

C) Items which have limited or no intrinsic or extrinsic value in the current environment.

Category A is pretty well defined: items for food, shelter, and protection are rather self evident at this point as we have been in the situation for almost a year now. And Category C is also pretty well defined, although in some cases I do not know that getting rid of things makes sense: for things like lamps, they take up little enough space and a refrigerator can be used for simple storage. And DVDs, while useless, have no more use to anyone else than they do to us – except, I suppose, as potential targets.

Category B, items not required for survival but which make survival better, is the sticking point.

Many things can be considered to fall into this category. Books? Not every book I have is directly related to survival or survival skills, but does every book have to be? At some point who knows: I may end up with the last copy of Dostoevsky this side of the Mississippi. Decor? It adds nothing to surviving, but it does break the monotony of walls and even prehistoric man may have “touched up” their living quarters.

I wrote of things like dehydrators, where the tray may have benefits while the unit does not, or even my clothes washer, which might have parts of value while the unit does not. For now, these things have been parsed out as things to consider; we are in no immediate rush to get rid of anything.

Even before everything essentially stopped, I had made a conscious decision to minimize my needs and wants – that said, it is apparent that this had not extended to the possibility that things might drastically change. I had based my thinking on what seemed likely to happen, although I will be fair to myself: worst case scenario thinking sometimes seems beyond the Pale to us in normal circumstances, except when suddenly it manifests itself in ways we did not expect.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

(Postscript: Following up from my last letter, my initial discussion with Young Xerxes went well. He actually discussed it with a couple of other people. I need to flesh out the idea soon, which gives me a perfect topic for the next letter.)

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Tuesday Morning 0930

I write this from the comfort of a house warmed with fire as the rains drizzles down outside.  It has drizzled down since around 0230 as I recall; the forecast calls for the same most of the day.


Today is an odd bonus day, the sort of day that only periodically appears:  unplanned, unexpected.  Back at The Ranch, I find myself with almost nothing on my calendar for the day:  some picture selections for the upcoming funeral, a visit with The Director this evening, cleaning for my early morning departure tomorrow.

I have consciously made a decision to temporarily halt any packing or additional moving activities, partially because we will return in about two months for the funeral (and more packing for Na Clann to take things home) and partially pending the settlement of the estate:  any move to rent the house now will wait pending final settlement.  And if we are not going to sell the house, keeping some of the furniture that we might have gotten rid of makes perfectly good sense.  

It also represents a sort of last moment:  after this, all trips here will originate from New Home 2.0, not New Home.  The locus of all originations and returns shifts.


This is now third Spring since my parents left, but life here know nothing of the ultimate arrival and departure of humans.  The cattle slowly move through drizzle, eventually ending up under the cover of trees.  The turkey flock that was in the Upper Meadow this morning migrated back into the forest, their daily rounds curtailed by the wet.  The jack rabbit I surprised in the front of the house this morning fled to the back of the house and down the slope, black tipped ears erect.

The plants, too, are in their awakening mode.  The daffodils so beloved by my mother have erected their heads and are blooming, weighted down this morning by rain drops; behind them the poppies have begun their climb to glory.  The Meadows are themselves turning green as this year's new growth slowly overtops the remaining stems from last year.  The irises, remnants from my maternal grandmother's garden, stand with their leaves sword-straight, waiting for their turn to shine in the sun.

The mist obscures the mountains beyond but they, too, register little of the mortal lives of humans.


I have written before that one of the things that marks a transition between immaturity and maturity is the realization of kairos, those specific called out moments of time which were originally "the right or critical moment" versus chronos, the simple passing of time.  A useful distinction, that: as with many things, Ancient peoples had a way with things that we moderns lack.  

When we are young our world seems to be filled with chronos moments, the passage of time that seems to go on and on. At some point - early for some, later for others - we realize that things end and we had not been conscious of that ending.  Certainly, we recognize some things:  the graduation from our various stages of education, the beginning of a married life (or the end of it), the birth of child, the death of our parents.  But these are hardly the sum total of all the chronos moments:  they exist far more often than we think, often only caught out of our eye as they pass (if we are lucky) or in the rearview mirror of life as we realized the last time we did X or saw Y was many years ago.

This - this day, this time, I suddenly realize - is such a moment.


It is of course not "a moment"; there are still things that need to be done and events that need to occur.  But this time, this day or even series of days and weeks even to the end of the year, represents multiple transition points.  It is the beginning of a change for the ownership of this place and this land, of the assuming of responsibilities and active management in a way I have not done before.  It is the beginning of a new job (well, in less than a week) and the beginning of a new locus of focus in my own life, as New Home 2.0 becomes "home" and New Home becomes a place I have a house and where some of Na Clann and The Ravishing Mrs. TB dwell (for now).  

In a way - even though in some ways this has been true for the last three years - this is the beginning of my life with almost of all of my parent's generation gone in my family. In the cycle of life, we have now assumed the position that they, in turn, inherited from their parents.  

I remember that transition for them.  I can scarcely think of a time I realized the burden would fall to us.


I realize with a start as I write this (12 March), is is birthday of my father.  He has been gone almost two years now.  That seems like forever and yet no time at all.  The moment he left was kairos, the time after has been chronos.  The difference has suddenly never been clearer in my mind.

Sighing, I look outside.  The rain has slowed to a fine mist, a sort of falling haze seems almost as timeliness as this moment, a continuous motion machine as the drops hit the earth and flow down the sidewalk or stems and into the grasses or streams below.  Heaven and Earth seemed joined for a moment in a sheen in which can only detect motion if one closely examines it.

The fire quietly sighs and pops, a reminder of the passing of all things.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

On The Estate

 

My sister, The Outdoorsman, and I met with a lawyer yesterday about the settlement of my parents' estate.

For various and sundry reasons, I will (obviously) not be discussing most of the details here publicly - not that there is anything really to hide or secretive, just that with most legal processes I am sure that the less said about them in public, the better.

In general, it appears to be a rather straightforward process - again, many thanks to my parents' who planned so well against this day.  One or two minor paperwork matters and then the settlement of the accounts can begin. 

We will need another appraisal of the property.  This was recommended course of action - not that we do not already have one, but having a second one after the death of the second parent would resolve any potential issues about value. Also, it serves as a good faith effort to make sure the estate is being settled equally, which is just as important.

As before, we have essentially confirmed that my sister is interested in the cash and I am interested in the property.

I am having mixed feelings about all of this.

On the one hand, the fact that we are at this point makes the passing of my parents a very real event.  It is easy for me to segregate their passing in my mind from the reality of their things.  Now, in a very real sense their things are passing - to us - and their memory is what will remain.

On the other hand, there are my own considerations to be made.  There will be an increase of expenses in my own account, as the estate will not cover the ongoing expenses (nor should it after the departure of my parents).  It is good that I have a job again; it does meant that there are additional considerations and planning to made.  

The process was never not going to happen; like many things, we cannot predict when it will start - until it actually does.