When I lived in Spain I wrote regularly around this time of the year about how spring had appeared and then disappeared again within the course of a few days or a week. This week I experienced the same thing in Cincinnati.
I knew I was being foolish last weekend, but on the basis of three days of feeling much too warm in my winter clothing in 70s-type weather, and because I had a large box clearly labelled "Spring Clothes" in my closet, I unpacked the box and found several items that I could be using right then. The trouble was, in order to find proper places for the spring clothing in my closet, I had to put away some of the winter clothes. No problem, I thought. I started by piling up the really warm long black socks and tights that had kept me comfortable for the past several weeks. Then I added the ultra warm sweaters and indoor jackets that I have accumulated over the years from Spain, Argentina, and Scandinavia. I hated to pack these away, because they are long-time favorites, but they not only looked but felt far too smothering in the sudden spring warmth. Then I got really foolish and added my array of turtlenecks and the warmer neck scarves to the put-away piles. I did not pack them up into the box that had recently held spring clothes and that was destined for the storage room in the basement. I'm not that dumb. I packed them into the large drawer under my bed, the one that can be rolled out only if I also move the night table away from the bed to give roll-out space.
Well, so far this week I've moved the night table twice to accommodate a sudden dip back to 39 degrees F. Now in my closet hangs an eclectic collection of short-sleeved shirts and even sleeveless sweaters, and the absolute warmest thing I own, a long sweater-jacket that I bought in the airport at Reykjavik, Iceland many years ago. I have my fleece-lined pants and fleece tops back as wear-around-the-house garb, and I'm facing the question each day of what can I put on that doesn't look wintry but still keeps me warm?
For the last several days we have had sun for a large part of each day and I have been too warm in my south-facing windowed office during the afternoon; but I had to step briskly because of the cold when I walked outside yesterday afternoon--which was the point of the exercise break anyway. I revel daily in the satisfaction of living in a location where I can "walk around the block" and actually accomplish some shopping, too. Yesterday I stopped at CVS for some toiletries and a neighborhood liquor store for a bottle of white vermouth that we like as a marinade for our fruit salad at lunchtime. And then as I rounded the last corner I noticed that the Mexican restaurant that we have yet to try advertises itself as not only a restaurant, but a bar, too, so theoretically we could eat out and enjoy a drink and not have to worry about driving home. Something to look forward to as the evenings stay light longer in the weeks to come.
Then this morning the ultimate sign of spring arrived. As we clicked in to the morning news from Denmark via the Internet, we received the welcome greeting that last night Europe had undergone its seasonal time change, which never occurs at exactly the same time as in the Americas. A joy to be officially in "summer time," and a settled feeling for me, knowing that once again we have "the proper" six hours difference between my friends in Denmark and Spain and my life here. The two periods of the year when we are out of sync with only a five-hour difference disorient me beyond all proportion, but six hours seems balanced and normal to me. With the time right, I know that regardless of what the weather is, we have changed seasons.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Hanging On
We had been coming through a very busy time. Just as we finished the major part of our move, we were hit by a series of social events--good things all, but in the sort of squeezed sequence that makes you wish you had a bit more control over the timing of so much goodness. But that's life, and we were hanging on and enjoying it.
We spent an interesting evening sampling an Indian dinner, won at a church benefit auction months ago. We entertained non-family visitors for the first time in our new house--the Scandinavian Scribblers from whom we receive stimulation to write and enjoyment from sharing experiences. We made it to the local cinema--on Senior Discount Day, no less--to see The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We met a new group of people at the Torch Club of Cincinnati and heard an excellent overview of recent genetics research. We attended a Danish Dinner with talks about Piet Hein and Jørn Utzon, and samples of æbleskiver and homemade pumpernickel bread. I lead a book discussion on A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman, at my new reading group, and I molded my mind to applying a developing knowledge of XML protocols to a web publication. We attended an evening lecture on current Alzheimer's disease research being conducted in Cincinnati and Lexington, Kentucky and I was contemplating whether I should offer myself as a subject for (I hope) a control group.
And then in the space of just one hour after a pleasant but uneventful lunch of green salad, mixed fruit, and working on the Word Game puzzle from the daily newspaper, it went from every-day routine to crisis. An emergency trip to the hospital, which we had remarked casually only days before was just 15 minutes away, never dreaming that we would need it so soon. A harrowing time as I saw my husband become faint, weaken, go into shock, and lose consciousness from acute internal bleeding. He revived slowly after IV fluids started dripping into his arm, but not before I realized with a conscious certainty that I had not experienced in awhile that I really was not ready quite yet to go into that next phase of my life alone.
He hung on through the night and through the corrective procedure the next morning, and then he hung on well enough through the day so that he was released from the hospital by supper time. And we are hanging on during this weekend, following doctors' instructions meticulously. And in all the days ahead I will try to hang on mindfully to that conscious awareness that I experienced during those few interminable hours of crisis, for the perspective it can provide when I am faced with irritations that should be small.
We spent an interesting evening sampling an Indian dinner, won at a church benefit auction months ago. We entertained non-family visitors for the first time in our new house--the Scandinavian Scribblers from whom we receive stimulation to write and enjoyment from sharing experiences. We made it to the local cinema--on Senior Discount Day, no less--to see The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We met a new group of people at the Torch Club of Cincinnati and heard an excellent overview of recent genetics research. We attended a Danish Dinner with talks about Piet Hein and Jørn Utzon, and samples of æbleskiver and homemade pumpernickel bread. I lead a book discussion on A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman, at my new reading group, and I molded my mind to applying a developing knowledge of XML protocols to a web publication. We attended an evening lecture on current Alzheimer's disease research being conducted in Cincinnati and Lexington, Kentucky and I was contemplating whether I should offer myself as a subject for (I hope) a control group.
And then in the space of just one hour after a pleasant but uneventful lunch of green salad, mixed fruit, and working on the Word Game puzzle from the daily newspaper, it went from every-day routine to crisis. An emergency trip to the hospital, which we had remarked casually only days before was just 15 minutes away, never dreaming that we would need it so soon. A harrowing time as I saw my husband become faint, weaken, go into shock, and lose consciousness from acute internal bleeding. He revived slowly after IV fluids started dripping into his arm, but not before I realized with a conscious certainty that I had not experienced in awhile that I really was not ready quite yet to go into that next phase of my life alone.
He hung on through the night and through the corrective procedure the next morning, and then he hung on well enough through the day so that he was released from the hospital by supper time. And we are hanging on during this weekend, following doctors' instructions meticulously. And in all the days ahead I will try to hang on mindfully to that conscious awareness that I experienced during those few interminable hours of crisis, for the perspective it can provide when I am faced with irritations that should be small.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Settling In
It's not quite four weeks since we moved furniture into our new house. and although we are not completely settled in, we are functional. Just yesterday we moved the last of the boxes that had been standing in that open area in the kitchen that I want to use for additional cabinets in the near future. These were the ones that got packed up the very last day (February 27) that we brought things over from the apartment: laundry supplies, because we continued to use the washer and dryer there throughout February, the few items that had languished in the dishwasher waiting for any additional ones that turned up in cleaning out, and the miscellaneous forgotten or odd-shaped things that were just the last to be transported.
We have assembled shelves and more shelves for the books, papers, and work area in my office, shelves with doors for the extra china and cutlery and serving dishes in the dining room, organizers for the clothes closets, new shelves for the pantry that had been turned into a wine cellar and then a laundry area by previous owners and now is returning to its original purpose, and a whole range of sturdy shelves in the windowless basement "study" that is going to serve us as a grand walk-in storage room to hold the still-unpacked boxes and out-of-season and seldom-used but essential items. Yes, we do intend to get it completely unpacked "soon," but at least for now it is organized.
We have also dealt with the aches and pains of adjusting to the mechanics of a new-to-you house. The first little problem was a leak on the basement concrete floor in the laundry/utility area, just beside the water heater. We have experienced a burst water heater once before in our lives, and we though we did not think this was an emergency yet, we didn't want it to become one. So we contacted the home warranty company--home warranty being a new type of insurance that we had never had previously in any of our houses. They told us the name of their authorized service partner to contact, and we did. Due to the unusually cold weather and the unprecedented number of calls, the authorized service partner never got back to us, so a week later, when the trickle of water was getting stronger, we contacted the warranty company again and got referred to another company. That service provider came the next day and fixed the water heater, without having to replace the whole thing, so we were lucky.
We didn't think we would be so lucky with the furnace. We had noticed that the gas-powered heater was surprisingly quiet at the beginning, and soon we noticed that--again with the unusually cold weather we were having (below zero Fahrenheit)--it was awfully cold in the house. When we lived in Spain I complained regularly about how cold it was in the house, but those houses were built without central heating. We were supposed to have central heat in this house! When we realized that the thermostat regularly indicated that the temperature was ten or more degrees below what we had set the thermostat for, we contacted the warranty company again.
The first diagnosis was the timer. Then the blower. Then a circuit board. Finally we had practically a new furnace and we spent a night in toasty warm, without having to turn on the small space heater that we had invested in during the cool days. And then we woke up the next morning to 55 degrees. Our frustrated call to the heating contractor went unanswered, but we left messages. Twice. A call came through that he was on his way, but two hours later he was still on his way. True, there was the unprecedented snow and bad road conditions that morning... When he did get here later in the morning last Thursday, the problem this time was a sensor. Now we have a really almost new heater, and now, several days later, the heat in our house has stabilized and we feel we have achieved some control over the thermostat. And the weather this week is supposed to warm up to human temperatures again.
This evening we have rearranged the living and dining room slightly in preparation for entertaining a dozen or so of our fellow "scribblers" from the Scandinavian Society of Cincinnati tomorrow. Our hosting this event is something we have long awaited and we are happy to have it now occurring in our new home. And we are especially happy that we can do it in a warm house.
We have assembled shelves and more shelves for the books, papers, and work area in my office, shelves with doors for the extra china and cutlery and serving dishes in the dining room, organizers for the clothes closets, new shelves for the pantry that had been turned into a wine cellar and then a laundry area by previous owners and now is returning to its original purpose, and a whole range of sturdy shelves in the windowless basement "study" that is going to serve us as a grand walk-in storage room to hold the still-unpacked boxes and out-of-season and seldom-used but essential items. Yes, we do intend to get it completely unpacked "soon," but at least for now it is organized.
We have also dealt with the aches and pains of adjusting to the mechanics of a new-to-you house. The first little problem was a leak on the basement concrete floor in the laundry/utility area, just beside the water heater. We have experienced a burst water heater once before in our lives, and we though we did not think this was an emergency yet, we didn't want it to become one. So we contacted the home warranty company--home warranty being a new type of insurance that we had never had previously in any of our houses. They told us the name of their authorized service partner to contact, and we did. Due to the unusually cold weather and the unprecedented number of calls, the authorized service partner never got back to us, so a week later, when the trickle of water was getting stronger, we contacted the warranty company again and got referred to another company. That service provider came the next day and fixed the water heater, without having to replace the whole thing, so we were lucky.
We didn't think we would be so lucky with the furnace. We had noticed that the gas-powered heater was surprisingly quiet at the beginning, and soon we noticed that--again with the unusually cold weather we were having (below zero Fahrenheit)--it was awfully cold in the house. When we lived in Spain I complained regularly about how cold it was in the house, but those houses were built without central heating. We were supposed to have central heat in this house! When we realized that the thermostat regularly indicated that the temperature was ten or more degrees below what we had set the thermostat for, we contacted the warranty company again.
The first diagnosis was the timer. Then the blower. Then a circuit board. Finally we had practically a new furnace and we spent a night in toasty warm, without having to turn on the small space heater that we had invested in during the cool days. And then we woke up the next morning to 55 degrees. Our frustrated call to the heating contractor went unanswered, but we left messages. Twice. A call came through that he was on his way, but two hours later he was still on his way. True, there was the unprecedented snow and bad road conditions that morning... When he did get here later in the morning last Thursday, the problem this time was a sensor. Now we have a really almost new heater, and now, several days later, the heat in our house has stabilized and we feel we have achieved some control over the thermostat. And the weather this week is supposed to warm up to human temperatures again.
This evening we have rearranged the living and dining room slightly in preparation for entertaining a dozen or so of our fellow "scribblers" from the Scandinavian Society of Cincinnati tomorrow. Our hosting this event is something we have long awaited and we are happy to have it now occurring in our new home. And we are especially happy that we can do it in a warm house.
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