October 2024 Island Trip – Day 1

At this juncture in the day/evening, things feel settled, warm and relaxed. The rain is impressive and I’m thankful the trailer-buffeting winds have eased off. It took turning the electric heater up to it’s higher setting 😳 to warm Stella up above 60º, after hours of it running at it’s regular setting. Granted the interior temp was 45º when I arrived 😏.

After emptying the truck of 6 bookshelves (which were my MIL’s) that my neighbor to the east can use for her clients, for whom she works in setting up housing, getting everything into Stella, and the barns, I stopped to see my tenant. I brought her a ‘grabber’ that extends one’s reach, and a case of Trader Joe’s mineral water whose flavor she enjoyed when we were here last. She was glad for the ‘grabber,’ but disappointed that its ‘pinch’ wasn’t strong enough to startle her husband 😂. I was on my way to an estate sale being held by a high school friend. There was sewing stuff. My tenant came with me!

When David told me his mom sewed and quilted, and he needed to find a home for her supplies, I could not have imagined what I walked into today. There are so many boxes of fabric that they can’t display them all for this estate sale. Another sale is planned for spring. Of course, there’s far more than sewing supplies and fabric at this sale. I shared with David that seeing his mom’s collection put into perspective my own fabric acquisition proclivities… It’s not that I have that much less, it’s that it’s organized, accessible, and not forgotten. My tenant bought a lovely Lane chest, for almost nothing, that fit in the extended cab of the truck. Her husband and I will extract it tomorrow, and get it into the house. Then we’ll remove from it the Very limited pieces of fabric that we purchased!

I had a grounding conversation with Tim this evening. Grounding in that I’d tried to get a hold of him for most of a week over three different phone numbers with zero luck. This is worrying when you’re friend is 85 5/6th years old. Email was the trick! He wrote back, and after a couple of voice mails we connected. I realized, when I was in a worry about not hearing back from him, that he’s one of the last few connections to my parent’s. Yes, we have our independent relationship, and he can whip out a story about my mom or dad in a moment, which are precious. This connection is not unique to Tim. Mom’s best buddy Adam is now 91, and is not responding to communications. His daughter, our friend, visited him a year ago overseas. There are so many communication barriers that should he be here, we could help with, but because he is 8000 miles away, we can’t. 😓 Our AN, who made it possible for my parent’s to remain on this property for so long, is teaching us how to live every single moment, every single one. You just don’t know if you’ll be diagnosed with something that is essentially untreatable, even if you give one of the last months of your life trying treating the untreatable. He is a wise man and decided to knock that shit off. If you only have 5-months (average) after diagnosis, why spend anymore time, than the first try, at a cure? Quality over quantity, I said to him when he told me he was done with chemical warfare. We’ll take him the last jar of my plum jam I could find this week. He loves it! Apple butter, and rhubarb, ginger, apple jam too. And my MIL, while physically OK, is slipping away. I am losing my adults, and it sucks.

I’m thankful the power is still on. No power-no water. I’ve got drinking water in spades, and about 4-gallons of ‘flushing’ water at the trailer. There’s more in the pump room, but I’d end up soaked to the skin if I had to fetch it now!! 💦