Please Help Me, I'm Moving...

Proud renter that I am of two -- count 'em - two houses, at the moment, I am daily exhausted by the sense of belonging nowhere. My present address in La Boquita is packed into boxes previously used in my initial escape from US reality. They were flattened and stored, lo, these past nine months. and again contain most of my earthly possessions. Plus two beds, a desk, an armoire, a few tables and two rocking chairs. Salvador, the cuidador here, has promised that his friend with a truck will be here on the 23rd to move boxes and muebles (furniture) to the new house. My sixty-fifth birthday, incidentally, is moving day.

My next address is a mess at the moment. Piles of gravel, stacks of galvanized pipes and rolls of chain link fencing adorn the porch and interior living room. These materials are the components of the 60-meter fence I need to contain the dogs. A crew of four are working to secure the vertical supports in cement, and will weld the chain link fence to the pipes in between the verticals. It will be a fence to contain Godzillla. I tried to explain pound-in metal bars and woven fencing that I had in my old yard, which cost about $60 and lasted at least 12 years. But here, they use steel pipes, cement, and chain link, which has cost me over $1,000. So far.

My sentimental soul is clinging to each successive ocean sunset as moving day approaches. Here is tonight's display:

I sit with the dogs in the Grecian temple called the gazebo and we all watch the sun go down. Little Susie is growing like a weed, and has an engaging personality. She and Brynn play together well, and I'm eager to see how they like the new place.

Words cannot express my appreciation for the brothers Uriarte and how well they have seen to my many and varied needs over the past few weeks. Stefan designed the tile plan for my kitchen and the garden fence, and handled the water tank purchase and installation. Parzi took me shopping for necessities for the new place, besides treating me to a truly wonderful ceviche dinner of black clams that was heavenly!!! I really love these young guys, and if I could lose forty years, I'd jump both sets of excellent bones!

Reading James Joyce -- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- I have never found my own frustration with the way Catholicism was jammed down my throat articulated in such a gut-wrenching account of shame and hypocrisy. I wish someone had told me to read this book before Ulysses -- now I will have to re-read the masterpiece and, presumably, will derive more satisfaction the second time around. I have also been reading Virginia Woolf. I love her reviews of books and authors -- such wit and depth of knowledge. I hope to receive enough Amazon cash for my upcoming birthday to order her five volumes of diaries. (Which are not on Kindle, hint hint.)

I am of two minds -- ambivalent (thank you, Sawyer) --about the next two weeks. I have loved living by the sea. I cannot begin to imagine how much I will miss the thrum of the waves and the muted rumbles of the breaking waves. I have lived by the angle of the sun, and have greedily slurped up every sunset for the past nine months. My new home holds the promise of cooler climes, a vigorous salad garden, convenient transport to Managua and Kaiser University (more on that soon) and my own place, mine, mine, mine. Mike and Beth have been friends, housemates, and guides in this new life. But now, I do want to make it MY life. Amen.