2010 - Year Of The Geezer

It's a darn good thing nobody reads this stuff, or I'd be in big trouble. Last Monday I promised I'd write this in a couple of days. Well, guess what - I didn't. I could make up a long string of excuses for you, but the truth is much more easily swallowed: I just didn't feel like it.

So here we are on Jon Hondorp's favorite day of the year, the day after all of the madness ends and the world gets back to normal. It's a good day for a grinch like me, too. For those of you keeping score, Jon was a part owner of Mystic Scenic Studios in Norwood, Massachusetts until he was asked to leave in the spring of 2007. He started up his own shop in Somerville, and for three months in 2009, while I was laid off from Mystic, I worked for Jon. But that's another story. I'll eventually get there over at "The Business Of Show."

The year began in Albuquerque, New Mexico with a major phase of my transition to geezerdom. I was basically confined to my bed and my recliner with a deep vein thrombosis and a pulmonary embolism. Blood clots. I was tethered to my oxygen concentrator for my lung and keeping my left leg elevated. I was taking anti-coagulants and being hauled to the hospital every couple of weeks to have my blood tested for its coagulation factor. And the most telling sign of geezerdom: I started wearing a compression stocking on my left lower leg.

Meanwhile, we were following up on my admission that I probably did have some hearing loss ater twenty five years of loud power tools every day. Once I was off the oxygen, we made an appointment with Sandia Hearing Aids to pound the final nail into my geezerly status. Starting at the top, I now had a bald head with a fringe of greying hair, trifocal glasses, two hearing aids, a compression stocking and orthotic arch supports in my shoes. I was reminded of Allan Sherman's parody "Second Hand Nose" "...I'll melt the girls' hearts. They can't resist a man with interchangeable parts..."

Meanwhile, Carmen was deep into the search process, exchanging information packets with congregations looking for ministers, having phone interviews, and flying to far flung destinations to "precandidate" with congregations. The three finalists were: London, Ontario; Brighton, Michigan; and Meadville, Pennsylvania - all very much a part of the Lake Erie lake effect snow belt. We were destined to buy a snow blower. Part of the search process is that there is a time and date at which it is permissable for the congregations to call their choices. At the proscribed time, all three lines into the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque lit up simultaneously. London, Brighton and Meadville all called Carmen as their first choice to be their candidate. Carmen chose Meadville, and broke the hearts of the other two search committees.

So, in April we flew to Erie and drove a rental car to Meadville. Carmen had events scheduled nearly every day during the ten days she was here, and I had some as well. The second day here we were hauled all over town by a realtor, looking at about fourteen houses that met our criteria - three bedrooms and two bathrooms being the lion's share of criteria. Late in the afternoon we made an offer on a house very close to the church, and by Sunday afternoon we had a signed contract. On Monday evening we had it inspected, and by the time I drove back to Erie airport on Wednesday morning, the mortgage was in motion. I was going home alone to take care of the kitties.

Also on Sunday, the Albuquerque congregation had a special meeting at which they decided to be Carmen's ordaining congregation.

The following Sunday, after Carmen's second Sunday sermon. the Meadville congregation voted to call Carmen as their next minister, starting in August. Suddenly we had a firm destination and a definite time frame. I started calling moving companies and assembling boxes.

During May I did a lot of work at Albuquerque Little Theatre mounting "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas", for which they paid me a small stipend. At the beginning of June, my previous employers in Orlando, FX Group, were installing a news set in Albuquerque, and I got myself on board for two days of the install before people began arriving from all over the country for the Ordination on June 6th.

During the rest of June I was packing and organizing while Carmen was elevated to Assistant Minister for a month at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque. Her last day was Sunday, July fourth. That night, the whole country celebrated with fireworks.

On Monday the fifth, Shyanne Moving Company came and loaded nearly all of our stuff on a semi trailer, and on Tuesday the sixth, we loaded our two kitties and a Rav4 load of stuff and set out for Pennsylvania, stopping for the night in Oklahoma City, St Louis and Columbus. The Gospel Of Rand McNally contains the details of that adventure.

So Friday afternoon we entered our newly acquired house and discovered that the three / two house we bought was really still a two / one - the seller had not even come close to finishing the work he was doing converting the attic into a "master suite." We opened an account at the Home Depot. So from mid-July until mid-October, my task was to finish the upstairs so that it could serve as Carmen's sanctum, and build fourteen foot wide by seven foot tall bookcases for the living room, to accomodate most of the 120 boxes of books we moved to Meadville. In Mid-December, the plumber finally came and hooked up our toilet and sink upstairs, and work on the house was pretty much done.

In mid-September our little girl Yin died and we were very very sad. Then in mid-November a little black and white kitten came to live with us, and she's a major source of joy and laughter. Even grumpy old Remus Lupin is in love with Lucia. OH - and the latest Lucia news: two of her declawed claws grew back! Her Indian name is "Little LuLu Two Claws"

But the huge news: after a year and a half of diligent searching, I finally landed a job as "part time sales associate" at Sherwin Williams in downtown Meadville - in walking distance ! ! ! I am the delivery geezer, driving the van all over northwestern Pennsylvania and even into the wilderness of Ohio. If nothing else, The Gospel Of Rand McNally will benefit from this development.

Carmen's first Christmas season went well. I made another ox head for another Christmas pageant, as well as a donkey. Her Christmas Eve service went very well. And - you won't believe it - she has had many days off since Christmas Eve, and she has spent most of that time... wait for it... relaxing! Tomorrow she is back to work with evenings booked as well nearly every night this week. She's a busy girl, that girl.

So I guess that's it. A very busy, very eventful year has drawn to a close, and so must this post.