Is it a bird? Is it a plane? NO!!!
It's SUPER Grandpa!!!!
Impressing one’s grandchildren isn’t like it used to be. Time was when reading a bedtime story or taking them to the park would suffice but today’s grandchildren have expectations that are hard to keep up with. While recently spending time with our favorite little ones, the family came up with the bright idea to string 1700 mini lights on their 40-foot (13 meter) Pine tree at the entrance to their property for Christmas. After all, they figured, their dad owned a crane with a sixty-foot boom (20 meters) and an industrial safety harness so all they needed was to hang ‘someone’ from the end and have him string the lights.
The qualifications were pretty straightforward. What was needed was someone big, dumb, heavily insured, with a short life expectancy and completely expendable. Not finding a volunteer it was decided to put the
matter to a secret vote and I was unanimously elected.
Risking life and limb for my grandchildren’s entertainment,
I was hoisted up, up and away!!! As an added measure of security I was given my 3 year old granddaughters fairy wings to wear.
After hanging for almost two hours at the whim and mercy of my favorite son in law, the job was done.
TA-DA!!!
The kids are excited about the fact that the tree will have grown taller next year…..
Letter from the editor
For some time now the Epistle has gone from a folksy, back of the envelope family and friends newsletter to an intercontinental full featured publication. Complete with color photos, insightful witty reportage and sharp intellectual editorial, we are proud of the fact that we have not accepted one cent from advertisers. (Mind you that would change in a New York minute with the first offer!) We are much like the pre-approved credit card offers you get in the mail, once you are on our list, we maintain a strict no cancellation policy.
Always on the hunt for new ways to better serve our readers, I hired a European software programmer (Ok, so it was my buddy Malcolm next door in France who volunteered) to help me set up a translation feature for The Epistle. Now by simply clicking on the appropriate flag in the upper right hand corner of this page you can read The Epistle in any one of 8 languages as translated by ‘Babel fish’.
Cape Cod
As I mentioned last month, our first week away from the Island was spent on the seaside in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. A mere 90 minutes from Boston, we picked up our baby girl Cassie and made our way to a stunning home that we had arranged as home exchange on the cape. The owners will be in Brittany in May after we leave so it worked out rather well.
Unbeknown to us at the time, the home has been featured in “Cape Cod Homes and Gardens” magazine and the owner, an award winning interior designer, was fully deserving of the honor. Cassie was awestruck when she saw the house and her room and we all felt that we had really scored. Much of the week consisted of laying about, taking naps and long walks on the beach, generally being useless lazy slugs.
A little American humor.....We did make our way over to “P” town as the locals refer to it (AKA as Provincetown). Long known as a Mecca for its largely artsy fartsy and substantially homosexual community,
our timing seemed perfect. We arrived in the middle of a transsexual convention of some kind with dozens of six foot, 200-pound beefy guys in pretty strapless dresses, high heels, coiffed long hair and jewelry strolling (or should I say “trolling”) the streets. Travel ensures that there is never a dull moment.
'Fairy' nice men
It was wonderful spending time with our youngest, prior to flying home to California.
Daughter number three
Second youngest in the rat pack of five is daughter number three, our 22-year-old Mandy. Currently studying European Law at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, Mandy is having the time of her life. She first went to Germany as an exchange student for a year after being awarded the ‘Congress Bundestag’ scholarship as one of only two students from each state per year. As required by the program, she returned home for a year to graduate from high school before following her dream of returning to Deutschland (Germany).
After completing the academic requirements to continue her studies there, she was accepted to the University of Bonn. Despite her linguistic skill level she still found the study in German to be daunting and chose to transfer to the English Law program at Maastricht. In spite of the fact that she has been living away from mom and dad for some time, thanks to the Skype computer telephone program, we speak almost daily.
It has been fun lately with her e-mailing me some of the legal briefs she has been working on. Clearly out of my element, I have been of little use beyond pointing out a few spelling mistakes. Don’t you just hate it when you reach the point when your kids are smarter than you?
Naturally, our being in Europe part of the year allows us to connect and has even allowed her to tag along on some of our travels on the continent. A resourceful puss, she has finagled ways to sneak in a trip or two back to California, a visit to Honey Bee Island and Washington DC. This as well as take advantage of opportunities to take short trips with friends around Europe.
Never far behind is her ‘beau’, Markus. This man in her life, is studying aeronautics nearby in Aachen. Clearly more than a boyfriend but careful not to be fiancee, he and Mandy have been an item for 3 years. I say ‘careful’ because together, they have been meticulously calculating in staying within the boundaries that permit Mandy to continue to receive parental financial support for her education (being single). They have done the math and determined that the R.O.I. (return on investment) is higher for them if daddy writes the checks while she is in school instead of ‘Mr. Wonderful’. All attempted bribes and other inducements to elope have failed to budge my wanna-be son in law.
I have a lot of respect for these two who are clearly going to go far.
SLO goes upscale
It is always interesting coming home every six months and seeing the gradual changes that have occurred in our hometown. Something that was under construction six months ago is now open, some shops have relocated and some have gone by the way of the buggy whip.
This time was different. We have never seen so many new seriously upscale businesses spring up in such a short while. SLO (San Luis Obispo) now has a plethora of classy high-end clothing shops, outrageous lingerie stores, home accessory shops, specialty restaurants, wine bars, cigar aficionado bars and even shops that specialize in a single item like olive oil with dozens upon dozens of varieties from the world over.
We now have a shop that sells what are locally know as ‘Freedom fries’ but some still remember as ‘French fries’ with Belgian beer. It is hard to think that this is a big deal except that they offer a large selection of exotic spices and sauces to go with the fries, making it quite a unique treat. This being a college town, it is wildly popular.
Once a week there is an evening farmers market. The name is misleading because besides limiting the main streets to pedestrian’s only traffic, it is more like a Mardi Gras street fair. It is a virtual party where it seems that the whole city attends. There are bands and musicians galore, various street performers like magicians or fire-eaters and even the religious lunatic fringe ‘whack jobs’ carrying signs proclaiming that ‘The end is near!!’ For those familiar with the area, it is fast becoming another beautiful Santa Barbara.Seattle
The last half of this past month was spent with our daughter Amy’s family in Seattle. The grandkids are all growing like weeds of course and are doing very well. Amy is 6 months pregnant with rascal # 5 so there is never a dull moment at the Lindor’s.
It was great to see our #1 son Wesley there also before his planned move back to Sandpoint Idaho. A free spirit, he has not decided exactly what will await him there.
The original plan was for our visit to provide an opportunity to help my favorite son in law insulate his 5000 sq ft business warehouse (460 sq meters) but he pre empted the plan to insulate and finish a tool storage room from where he can work on his large machinery in an adjacent garage. Vance’s business is buying large used machinery from commercial auctions like Boeing aircraft and reselling them on the open market. Having a shop to make minor repairs and adjustments to the equipment is critical.
This month in review
Earlier this month the big news was all about the fires in California. We got an up close and personal look because we actually flew over them coming in to Los Angeles from the East Coast. At the peek there were 900,000 people evacuated from their homes as 15 separate fires raged 
over a 750 square mile area (1942 square kilometers) and destroyed over 2000 homes. That is like 900 times the population of our village in France. Many kindly wrote, concerned that we were in harms way. Fortunately we were not as the fires were several hours away further south.
Southern California endures fires every year due to the desert climate that ensures plenty of dry grasses and brush to act as fuel. This year’s was particularly bad and was not helped by the fact that two of the larger fires were arson.
Another milestone in our world is that a few days ago we celebrated my 3rd anniversary of my managing to stay out of prison. In other words, I have been out 1/10 th of the time I was in. By my reckoning, that is 2 years and eleven months longer than most of the other ‘guests’ of the system as the recidivism rate is horrendous. The secret to my success? Clean living and pure thoughts…….. This retirement gig is all that it is cracked up to be!
We also spent a week doing our by-yearly maintenance on our home. Clearly not trying to make any improvements per se, we are nevertheless trying to keep it up both for our renters as well for ourselves when we finally decide to return. Too poor (read that as “cheap”) to hire it out, it allows us a hand’s on approach to keeping tabs on our renters and the condition of our home. We have been fortunate in having our neighbor and friend Holly as our property manager during our absence. She is a dear with us but all business with our renters.
Welcome “home”
Three times a year we get warm welcomes from friends and family for finally coming back “home”. It’s all relative of course, as in each case friends feel that wherever we just came from was just being away on a long trip but now we are ‘back’. Meanwhile, we just left friends who feel that where we are going is just being away on a big long trip but that we will be back home when we are done. We are flattered that each would think of us being home when we are with them but we feel very much at home wherever we are, for the time we are there.
California
What's not to love?
That maybe one of the most fascinating parts of this big adventure but there are some noticeable differences. In California, people are more open to a transient lifestyle and are easier going regarding our coming and going. In The Thousand Islands, there is much more of a temporary mindset in the ongoing friendships as everyone there ‘lives’ somewhere else and either owns a cottage or a yacht and spends the summers there but then moves on when the fall comes. In our village in France there is a much greater expectation in people staying put permanently. Our leaving seems more disruptive to the ebb and flow of relationships but we do our best to transition as smoothly as we can and make a real effort to keep in touch on a frequent basis during our lengthy absences.
We have been asked if we find it hard to ‘spilt ourselves up’ 3 ways like this. Actually we don’t see it as a 3 way split but as an extraordinarily enriching experience that we would not want to miss for the world. It’s either that or a case of schizophrenia of the worse kind. We enjoy 3 times as many friends and varied experiences than we would otherwise and we are very grateful for the opportunity. Meanwhile we await the day when daughter #3 finishes law school so that we can finally return “home”…… for at least a few months of the year.
Enough! We have a plane to catch in a few hours. Next stop: Paris
