No, we are not dostadning
That is what the Swedes call removing unnecessary things to make your home nice and orderly when you think that the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet, to save precious time for our loved ones after you are gone. Translated, it means "death cleaning".
My bucket list is far too long for me to contemplate an early departure but we have made an effort to reverse the American trend to be pack rats. Each time we return 'home', wherever that may be at the time, we have an opportunity to take a fresh look at all our stuff and decide if it has seen a better day and should reside in someone else's closet.
We too have things that we have hung onto for far too long and occasionally reinforces the 'let's keep it just in case' mindset when years later we do find a need or purpose for it. The one thing we seem unable to part with are pictures. OK, maybe pics of our exes are the exception :) Striking the right balance is challenging, but we are making the effort. The thing is, it takes a lot of stuff to do all the things we want to do.
It's not an easy life we lead.
Welcome to our modest abode
We often have great off the wall experiences wherever we happen to be, but this one definitely stood out. Last summer, we were puttering about when a friend docked his boat at our island, unannounced. Fair enough, but he had 6 people with him who came to visit at his suggestion and decided our place would be just fine to stop for a glass of wine.
You know you are on good terms with friends when they feel comfortable enough to do that kind of thing with nary a second thought. Turned out that the folks that were with him were all Turks (you know, from Turkey) with limited English but with a translator. The story was that the leader of the pack had just bought a local private school and was here with his entourage to see to its launch, so to speak.
Some of his administrative staff were going to be coming and going for a while so he rented our friend's island home for the year. Seems that the good fellow owned other schools too. As in hundreds of them, from K to universities all over the world in dozens of countries with a total of some 190,000 students.
Mr. Man was clearly a big dog. It was at this point that our friend quietly mentioned that the fellow just happened to be a Billionaire. That is spelled with a "B". Not being able to count that high, I ran into the house to Google it up (it's a thousand times a million dollars) and quickly returned with adoption papers for him to sign in the event that the subject should inadvertently come up. Any wonder why I suffer from low self-esteem? As hard as it was for me to admit, I was seriously outclassed.
He was a most unassuming fellow who was curious about everything (he pretty much took a self-guided tour of our cabin) right down to the functioning of our Swedish composting toilet system. He didn't even flinch when I broached the subject of the attempted political coup in his country. Wise way beyond my years, his focus was to spend the rest of his life providing as many free scholarships as he could to needy students all over the world, to educate them and turn them into responsible productive citizens. With his billions and my hundreds, we could surely make things happen.
After barely 10 minutes of conversation, he invited Janice and I to visit him when we returned to Europe. Not wanting to look to anxious, I resisted the urge to run inside to pack. This might not be a big deal to you, but breaking bread with billionaires is out of our league and all jokes aside, we saw it as a great opportunity to understand what makes this kind of man tick...ok, and to see his country from the deck of his 104-foot (34 meter) yacht. Alas, the initial invitation was not extended beyond our initial meeting. Pity.
The moral of the story is don't invite us to visit you unless you really mean it, because we will show up.
The moral of the story is don't invite us to visit you unless you really mean it, because we will show up.
This month's news
Janice, the arborist, climbing up to trim one of our 100+ trees. I told her that female arborists excite me. Janice says that just her breathing excites me. Point well made.
Other than working our buns off on our current projects, we have made time for a serious amount of goofing off. All work and no play makes us seriously cranky. This month we attended the Menton (name of city) Lemon Festival. Think of it like the New Year's Rose Bowl parade, with floats, costumes, parades and the like, only here it lasts 2 weeks.
There are numerous festivals in this area (they have never heard of a party they didn't love) for all manners of reasons and occasions. The lemon festival though, was new to us and not a disappointment. We walked through about 20 of the static displays, some as tall as 50 feet (17 M) and up to 100 feet (35 M) long. The name 'Lemon Festival' is partially correct as they use both lemons and oranges to create the floats and displays.
As seen above, the 145 tons of fruit used are all held by rubber bands, preserving them to prevent rot and to allow them to be removed after the event and sold for consumption, for commercial buyers to make orange juice, marmalade, limoncello or donated to charitable organizations.
Next, we had friends John and Claire and 3 of the kids from our old stomping grounds in Brittany who planned to join us for a week-long visit. We had not seen them since we sold our home there and we planned to catch up. Unfortunately, we had massive storms that prevented the plane they were scheduled to take from arriving from Geneva and they were re-scheduled for a flight 3 days later. This killed their trip.
Days later, island friends, regular Epistle entries and fellow party animals, Ian and Lyne who have a second home nearby, showed up for a few days and joined us to take the short drive to 'La Turbie'. It is the Roman trophy erected to Emperor Augustus above the hills overlooking Monaco.
Speaking of the dynamic duo, they will accompany us next year where we have already reserved a place to stay on the canals in Venice Italy, for the world-renowned carnival there. Meanwhile, we put our new pizza oven to work.
Next, we had friends John and Claire and 3 of the kids from our old stomping grounds in Brittany who planned to join us for a week-long visit. We had not seen them since we sold our home there and we planned to catch up. Unfortunately, we had massive storms that prevented the plane they were scheduled to take from arriving from Geneva and they were re-scheduled for a flight 3 days later. This killed their trip.
Days later, island friends, regular Epistle entries and fellow party animals, Ian and Lyne who have a second home nearby, showed up for a few days and joined us to take the short drive to 'La Turbie'. It is the Roman trophy erected to Emperor Augustus above the hills overlooking Monaco.
Speaking of the dynamic duo, they will accompany us next year where we have already reserved a place to stay on the canals in Venice Italy, for the world-renowned carnival there. Meanwhile, we put our new pizza oven to work.
The Epistle loses a reader
For the first time ever, we had a reader who wrote asking to be removed as a recipient of our monthly newsletter. He is a neighbor in California who said that he wanted to be removed because he did not care for our politics.
I am well aware that not everyone shares my (our) point of view on all manner of things and that is fair enough. I try not to be particularly offensive to anyone, albeit not always successfully. This is not a news magazine intended for public consumption, but our monthly letter to family and friends, sharing our news about where we are and what we have been up to in the past month. I am not trying to build up sales figures here.
Each month, there is often a bunch of blah-blah-blah about what we have built or renovated because, well, that is what we do. Other than that, as you know, we write about how our lives are affected by where we are and what is happening around us.
I want to keep it real and transparent. I have no problem with anyone reading it and thinking "...there goes Michael, again" but I want to -and I will- write what I think without the PC police diluting the content. I know some will not agree with my point of view on all subjects and that's OK, because I don't necessarily agree with theirs. Friends accept each other's foibles. Family has no choice.
The good news is that I am sincerely and genuinely sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings by what I write. The bad news is that I still mean every word of it. You get this blog because I believe you have expressed an interest in keeping you in our monthly loop. We do not want to ever foist ourselves on anyone, so if that is not the case or you are losing sleep over my insensitivity, I will renew my offer to remove you from the mailing list for 4 easy payments of just $29.95 ...
"...There goes Michael, again"
News of little use: The
chip
I like my salsa and chips like my
women. Blazing hot. Of course, in this household, I seem to be (understandably)
the only one to appreciate that kind of prison humor because, I don' t really think like that, right honey?
...Right.
Still, I have come across an interesting challenge. Seems that the Paqui tortilla chip company will sell you one (not a typo) chip for a mere $79. Reportedly the hottest tortilla chip in the world, it is a blistering spicy chip to rival the NYPD pepper spray. If you chose to indulge, please report back, as it will surely be Epistle worthy.
...Right.
Still, I have come across an interesting challenge. Seems that the Paqui tortilla chip company will sell you one (not a typo) chip for a mere $79. Reportedly the hottest tortilla chip in the world, it is a blistering spicy chip to rival the NYPD pepper spray. If you chose to indulge, please report back, as it will surely be Epistle worthy.
