APR-B-2
RE-ENTRY FOR BRIEF RETURN TO DC/DERWOOD
BETWEEN FAR EAST AND AMAZON
IN TIME FOR EASTER CELEBRATION
WITH THE AUKWARDS
April 11, 2004
The hardest part about the long trip to the Far East was returning from the final flight to get back into DC.
I made it with more than enough time to spare from the long flight from Narita to MPS and noted that there was a flight to DCA just ahead of me at about 1:04 PM, even though my bags were tagged on the 3:05 PM. That allowed me time enough to get to an electric outlet and conclude the travelog of the Taiwan trip, and also a chance to download some of the files into the Traveling Disc “Thumb”. This attachment does live up to its name as “Cool Disc’ even if it does not have an easy time in transferring my large collection of photo files into it, as I had hoped. I then boarded the flight to DCA in the nadir of my long day and flew on into DCA.
I waited for my bags to arrive. The offloading of the bags from the flight took over an hour and a half, and my bags with plenty of time to make the transfer, were not among them. I was going to go to the baggage claim office, and had to wait until it opened and was attended. When it finally was, I could see my two bags were on the floor, having no doubt made it onto the previous flight even if they did not want me to try to board the earlier DCA flight. Now, I can carry these two bags with the two I already had as carry-ons, to the Metro.
Let no one tell you that terminal A is Metro Accessible. It is half a mile away, something I re-learn each time I am schlepping bags. Even the one bag with wheels requires that one be able to flex knees in the process of walking, and it is hard to do this while it is banging on each step in preventing freedom of movement of both legs. But, each of the “moving sidewalks” weren’t, and the escalators were out, and the final trains of the evening were running rarely, but I had just missed the blue line train as I was struggling up the escalator under my own power, since it is a weekend and they can get by with turning them off. I finally made it back on Metro and went to GW for the film drop off and the pick-up of the Audi. I have to reprogram clocks in view of daylight savings time having transpired in my absence, but cannot do it on such an automated vehicle without reprogramming the computer.
I picked up only the most urgent of the office mail, and sent out an arrival messages by email, then drove home passing the signs advertising gasoline for over a dollar a gallon—it seems like I had returned to the California of Tahoe gas prices. I was beyond being tired at this point, so, with no film to sort or no mail to open, I thought I should use this unoccupied time to unpack, re-pack and launder the stuff that needed it in between. I did this until after midnight, and got ready for most of the items needed for the Amazon trip, with the addition of some things I should be able togged from Derwood, although it may still be too difficult to overhaul all the stacks of stuff to move back in.
I got a series of calls from Joe Aukward, asking me to come over to help them celebrate Easter, with a bit of the kids going for an Easter egg hunt. Remembering that I am down to zero functioning cameras, I figured I would have to first get my back up systems out of Derwood and come over to join them in the afternoon.
I also had a call from Sandy Shelor who had called earlier in the day. She was all excited that I see Derwood in the pristine beauty of the all newly arrived furniture being positioned in all the right spots. She had come over to check it out right after the cleaning crew that DG Liu had come in and clean the place, and she thought they had done very well. The furniture was then moved in with all the lamps put in exactly the right places and all the furniture placed with the pillows fluffed. She put down a rug with a big series of signs on it, “Do Not Walk on the Rug” and thought she would hear all the good things from me about how it was perfect. When she came back on Saturday to re-check, she was distraught. The painters had come in to do follow-up and touchup and everything was now turned around and covered with plaster dust, and even the rug marked so carefully was now trampled and would need clearing. She had further lamps and furnishings to be arriving on Wednesday and she called mike to say that this should be held up until we know that the inside construction work is really done before she brings in any more “white glove” furnishing. She left a message that she thought she had heard that Dale and I were getting together on Tuesday to hang up the trophies—which I hope is here error since I have Monday blocked for this and have several doubled up meetings on Tuesday. So Sandy, the interior designer, was disappointed that I would not see it all perfect on the get-go. But, I will see it in some fashion before leaving again and then returning to work hard on doing the last bit of sorting.
EASTER
SUNDAY:
A GATHERING
WITH THE AUKWARDS AFTER A RAINY DAY VIEW OF DERWOOD
Sandy Shelor was right. The whole of her plans were disrupted and the major new furniture pieces brought it in the “white glove” placement are now messed up and covered with plastic sheeting. But, worse, is that upstairs they had to move everything off the floors to carpet the other rooms and hallway, and so they crammed together all the stuff out of the two storage rooms into the finished master bedroom. It is now all mixed, with none of the rational patterns of the way things were once stacked. Worse is the attic, where the old carpet from the guest room was pushed up through the attic and toppled stacks of audiotape boxes which spilled and all the cassettes came tumbling out, being separated from their annotated sleeves. The same happened to the plastic photo album sheets. There is a shortage of space and a lot of stuff, so the cedar closet upstairs was used to store some of the things. I can find nothing, of course, for which I had come over. I knew that I had isolated one of the back-up cameras, so I found that where the trophy heads have been stored, but otherwise, I have to write off as trash just about everything that I had spent the long days of last summer carefully sorting and storing.
The dumpster has been moved around to the rear of the house where the vines were cut off and the brick power washed. The new pressure tank from the well is added in to the plumbing. A call on the answering machine tells me that the new propane gas tank is being installed on Monday if someone is there to see that it is put where it is supposed to be. The new ceiling fans in the Great Room are in place and working. There were lots of lights on in the house and the heat was on—all of which I hope has not been happening for the months that I have not been there. My electric and heating oil bills have been far higher when I am not there than when I am.
I had had a request to find the audiotapes for the Malawi music II had taped last year, and I had to wade through quite a lot of disruption to accomplish this in the attic. I am just carrying over some papers to be put away, and can in no way get them to the boxes where I had stored them, so I will just have to start a new stack, in returning the lecture materials and slides from this last trek and also to try to prepare for this next one with only the materials I have in hand, since all else is, for all practical purposes, irretrievable. At present, the hose is still not livable, since I cannot get out a bed or a place for one, and the kitchen is still being worked on, although the ventilation hood is up and the refrigerator is recessed into its position as are the ovens. The furniture for the Breakfast Room is in place, but it is covered with boxes and trim materials for the other rooms. Sandy had left a message that she had originally scheduled the remainder of the furniture for delivery on Wednesday the 13th, but will delay that until she is assured that it is re-cleaned and that the jobs are really done inside, so more does not fallout on the newly arriving stuff for which she would like a finished product completed.
I did not note if the chimney flashing and capping were completed, but I did see that the “Heat-o-lator” fireplace grill is gone. I did not check to see if the gutter guards are capped off, but I did note that the dumpster now behind the house had a number of doors and other items in it that had not come from Derwood. I will have to focus on the things I can do with out having to get access to the house or its contents until after the return from the coming trip. I have packed up all that I can do for now to take along on the next trip which will also have me out of the environment for another month. By the time I get back it will be a year since I had lived there and had spent the last months packing things away. I believe it will take the coming year to unpack most of it and find my way back into it as a home base. So, the general rule has held up well—Twice as long and three times as costly as it is expected at the outset.
The Derwood flowers are out in force! I saw the daffodils all along the drive, and a few of the floral trees are starting to bloom, it being beyond the redbuds and dogwood already.
EASTER PARTY WITH JOE AND FAMILY
It continued as a drizzly rain, the prediction of the next three days. I went to the Aukwards’ house where we scattered the Easter eggs inside the house so that the kids would not get cold and wet. We had a light supper and celebrated a bit of the Easter traditions together. Then I saw a short clip on PBS TV about Joe’s aspirations to be in the Olympics and his continued training to get there. He is now the seventh ranked blind runner in the world, and is training consistently to get to the level of the Olympics at this year, his last try to go to Athens. He had had a hamstring pull, and is not sprinting for another week of a four week layover. He is going to continue in the tryouts until he gets there or is “at peace with being a runner in DC and Bethesda” which will allow us to be doing many more of the long runs together—for which I am long overdue.
By this time
in every other spring, I would have done a marathon or two already and have
several others planned to follow. So, I
am almost, but not quite, back home!