buckle-up

Never let it be said that moving home is an easy assignment. There is death, divorce and then there is moving house and I am not sure which is the most traumatic. For now, though, I think moving house tops the list even as I am familiar with the other sources of angst, I was never truly prepared for this latest adventure. Call it an assignment or even a task but the reality is, it is never pleasant and it never goes to plan.  All the while Margo and I have soldiered on keeping our business activities on course even as we keep on supporting computer community events worldwide. Perhaps the biggest aspect of our most recent move is how we managed to think we could hold on to so much stuff even as we knew our new place of abode would be much smaller. While I am not going to dwell on the downsizing aspects, we have so many pretty things, as Margo likes to call them, where will they fit? For me there’s a particular aspect of the move that I would like to see completed and that is the hangi

They often say that home is where the heart is. When you move more often than you care to, do you begin to lose heart? Or, more to the point, is there a level of restlessness that develops so that home is less important than where you happen to be, such that it is with whom you are that takes on greater preeminence. For Margo and me, having just celebrated our silver wedding anniversary (against many odds, mind you, that is what Margo keeps reminding me of), setting up a new home has been a steady constant in our joint lives. Margo bears the bulk of the burden and if I had a good voice I would be singing her praises more loudly. Moving to Boulder in the mid-1990s to a front range bungalow, then to a condo by Boulder Creek before settling into our Niwot new construction we embarked on in 2000, somewhat foolishly, as it turned out. But even with the Niwot home, just a few years later we were challenged by the need to be based in Omaha and we managed to do so for a year – the commute was

OK, so not fresh from the garden but you get the idea … If you had been wondering about the impact of the winter conditions we have faced, then worry no more as the thermometer has come to life. Once again, we see a gradual but steady rise in daytime temperatures, so much so that shortly it will be a return to driving top-down in our convertible. It has rained but not that much and earlier when it did rain, it turned to snow but hopefully, there isn’t a whole lot more expected. For Coloradans, we are always just a little skeptical when weather warms this early as we know that March through April it always has something in reserve that has as yet not been revealed. I only make this observation as come March, when the heavy lifting associated with our home moves takes place, we will have our fingers firmly crossed even as our most recent prayers are for something a little less extreme than we have witnessed during previous transitions to spring. Can’t wait to see he flowers in bloom so

But I would not give you false hope (no) On this strange and mournful day Looking out across our home’s deck as the temperatures plummeted, the dreariness of the scene hit me rather hard. As the thermometer continued to drop into the minus teens Fahrenheit, memories of walking along the beach at Manly or taking in the view from our cruising yacht seem to be fading quickly. And yet, as Paul Simon wrote so long ago, on this strange and mournful day , I would not give you false hope as it wasn’t just the drop in temperature or the bleakness of the scenery that led to our melancholy but rather, the very clear ending of one of life’s chapters. Doors may close, they say, but windows will open. Or is it the other way around, I can never seem to get this right. But the combination of birthdays, anniversaries and an upcoming change in scenery has hit us hard and a reminder, as you might guess, that you cannot wait-out time. And have we had many memorable times particularly those that left us