The Day That Wasn’t

Blog 3313, 30 April 2024, Tuesday                                        

Dear friend,

The first doctor had said this is serious, look into it. The second told me to relax, for it really wasn’t serious. The first words frightened me, like receiving word that you probably have cancer. The second said, “No. It’s only a rash.” Relief comes like a splash of carbonated water, a little fizzy. But between the first sentence and the second was a day that you could have fit a whole lot of emotions into that canyon of time between the first word and the last. Yet it’s safe now to let those spoken words be forgotten, except the eye doctor recommends I have an MRI on my head (I want to see what’s inside) and an EKG (my heart) to check the bodily extremities. What the doctor desires is not always what the insurance cares to provide. I wait patiently to hear from the non-doctor, curiously named Humana.

Tomorrow is the day we were scheduled to leave. We were supposed to drive up to Everett, pick up the motorhome, drive to Cathy’s and unload her house and our car into the RV, and be gone until the first of May. Instead, we will be leaving next Monday, five days later, and will be returning in just over three weeks. We’ll have to drive a little further each day but it’ll be a lot easier for us who are riding than those (think she) who will be pedaling. Jean will do some bike riding with her, no one knows how much. It will be an adventure, unfortunately I’m at that part of the journey that dreads what’s ahead more than eagerly anticipating it. It’s always that way, and I think it’s always turned out to be better than I could imagine. It’s the same belief I have in my faith-life, but the latter has much higher rewards.

This blog has three paragraphs: the first was yesterday, the second will be tomorrow, and this third and final paragraph covers today. But today is a blank, left that way for the sake of getting ready to go. It’s the 121^st day of the year, 245 remain, four months and a third of the way through the year. Best, it’s free and we’ll make it an active day as we try to anticipate what lies ahead. I peeked ahead in time and saw if we’d have left tomorrow, the chance of rain was almost zero with a temperature in the mid-fifties. By leaving on the following Monday, five days later, we have a chance at fifty-fifty weather: 50 degrees with a 50% chance of rain. I wish I didn’t know that, a thought I have quite often. Blessings, with love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 6:30 a.m., Tuesday

Relax, All Is Well

Blog 3312, Also 29 June 2024, Monday                                

Dear friend,

I left this morning with the unmusical phrase “central retinal artery occlusion,” a condition that leads to blindness. “Naw,” my doctor said sweetly today, “You have an ocular migraine, a pain-free, mostly temporary, short-lived headache of the eye, no harm done. Relax, Marvin.” Hear the depth of my deepest sigh. ‘Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!.” Jean gets these things of heaaches; it’s a vast improvement over the standard migraine,

A short blog, a happy blog. I’m just sharing the good news.

Love, Jeannmarv                                 Written and Posted: 1 p.m., Monday

A Week from Today

Blog 3311, 29 April 2024, Monday                            

Dear friend,

Time slips away so quickly when I’m home. What did I do last week? I don’t remember unless I read my own blog, but those reminders of the week enable me to recall even more. Without blogs, it would feel I was living in one of those science fiction props: the stasis field. That’s a zone without time, a pause in living until you wake and everyone around you has aged but you haven’t. These machines do exist, we call then “the lies we tell ourselves.” Staying home is the easy way; keeping up with Jean is the hard way. Next week, we’re bound for Canada for most of a month. That will be memorable. It is good to do memorable things with friends.

Jean doesn’t do things just to do things, but if you check you’ll find out there’s always a friend at the heart of everything she does. Probably the only time we’ve taken a vacation by ourselves was when we lived in Tanzania; we flew to South Africa on a safari after members of St. Andrew’s bought one at an auction. I think six couples chipped in on the prize and gave it to us. Every other cruise, trip, walk, and now bike trip (although we’re not actually pedaling) we’ve been on included others.

Yesterday after the church service, we had a memorial reception for Meg Marcrander, a special lady with the gift of understanding faith and education, especially with children. As the party was splitting up, I was talking to someone who suddenly developed a halo around his head, and then there was a tweed pattern of twinkling lights in every direction I looked. We went to an Urgent Clinic and the doctor said I may have a “central retinal artery occlusion.” It passed, but it was similar to what I had in February, except this time it was in the other eye. Tomorrow, it’s back to the doctors. Details later. There are many unanswerable questions right now. Everyone my age has something. There are so many ways life can go wrong. Blessings to us all. Love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 7 a.m., Monday

Golden Birthdays

Blog 3310, 28 April 2024, Sunday                              

Dear friend,

It’s a new term to me, to have your “Golden Birthday.” A Golden Birthday is when the number of your birthdays matches the number of the day of the month you were born. When you’re beyond 31, you don’t have any more golden birthdays. Jean’s Golden Birthday would have been the day she turned 8; if you were born on the 28^th, your special birthday would be on your 28^th birthday. It sounds a bit like a Hallmark^© sort of holiday, a make-believe but a fun day. That’s one of things we celebrated with family yesterday. Ah, the things we learn.

One of the decisions we made yesterday is that we are going to be taking our two-bike rack that attaches to the back of our car and the motorhome so Jean can take her newly repaired bike with us. We returned the three-bike rack to its owner. Jean won’t ride every day, she won’t ride for six hours, and she probably won’t be able to keep up with our friend, an experienced distance rider. I tried to ride Jean’s bike but it isn’t nearly large enough to accommodate her large husband. I had a flashback to my Peace Corps days when, to reach all the schools I was to teach in, they gave me a 1972 Honda 35 to ride. I looked like a Russian bear act for the circus. When I rode back to the house I was staying in, I’d get off the bike and pick it up and carry it up the six steps and put it in the house. I’d carry it in my right hand only. I used to grab it under the front of the seat and just walk away with it. I found a picture on the Internet of a 1972 Honda motorcycle that looks like mine, but without several parts missing. The ads used to show two people riding the Honda, I don’t know where they found people that small; one Finn was enough. It would be like me getting into an elevator and reading that the maximum load was 150 pounds. I’d get out and look for a stairway, not willing to hit the “UP” button.

All this was to say I won’t be taking my bike on the trip; I’ll just have to stay with the motorhome and endure all of its luxuries. Why am I smirking? Love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 3 a.m., Sunday

‘Tis the Season to Be Trolling

Blog 3309, 27 April 2024, Friday                   

Dear friend,

Trout are to be found in Washington lakes and rivers year-round. Fishing season usually begins on the fourth Saturday in April and ends on the 31st of October. “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I fish,” I paraphrase Robert Frost. Today is the opening day of fishing season, usually I’ve made more plans than necessary to paddle out into the lakes or fish from the dock, but not this year. This year we’ll be at our grand-nephew’s and his wife’s birthdays, celebrated together but never before on the opening day of fishing. Jean would be more supportive of my fishing but we have at least a dozen meals still in the freezer, waiting for us to use them. Honestly, my grief would have been much greater had we not had that many frozen fish. Usually, they are gone before spring. This year I won’t fish until after the Canadian trip, some time in June. It’ll give the newly planted fish time to grow a little larger (an inch a month in these first three months), that’s true for those who survive the horde of fishing folks who will emerge today from their winter caves.

REI called me yesterday to inform me that Jean’s bike is repaired, the new seat is mounted securely and all is well. They had fixed that which I had tried to fix, only they did it the right way. They’d had to order a different size seat-post, that pipe that holds the saddle (a.k.a., seat) in place. The ad in Amazon never mentioned size, the new seat arrived in a clear package with nothing to guide me, only my address. Either they didn’t know or they thought everyone would be able to figure it out. I showed them! From this experience, I did learn not to buy any form of plumbing stuff from them.

A final fishing thought, I’m always overly cautious when I get into the canoe the first time every year, and the second time, etc. My bulk hasn’t changed much, my weight is still 16 pounds less that it was a month ago and barely holding steady, and every year my balance is off a little more. When you’re in a canoe, that’s not a good thing. Some year I will give up on my canoe, but not yet, it shall not be this year.

Love, Jeannmarv                                 Written and Posted: 4:30 a.m., Saturday

An Easy Day

Blog 3308, 26 April 2024, Friday                   

Dear friend,

When the only thing you have planned is to eat in a new restaurant, it’s a good day. We shared a lunch with a fellow missionary. All three of us were former Lutheran Bible Institute professors, he was in missions, I was in English, and Jean was into everything. She was first the Director of Christian Expression (worship and music). After our year’s sabbatical in 1992-93, Jean filled in for the head of the Youth Department for a year, the next year she filled in for the Christian Education Department, and then she became the Academic Dean until we left in 1998. She and I also mowed the lawns, painted, and did whatever needed doing. She was at LBI for 26 years before God dragged us away and blessed us with Africa. Our friend’s story is not dissimilar to ours. Better than the food was the conversation; better than the conversation was the sense of the companionship throughout our lives.

Despite my best efforts, I’m being caught up by the Mariners again. As I was actively ignoring them, they’ve taken three series in a row, clawed their way up to first place in the American League West, and have hit just well enough to score more runs than our pitchers have yielded, which hasn’t been many. The Mariners are like a car wreck, I should just drive by but I keep sneaking peeks at the carnage because I want to know what’s happened but I don’t really want to see. It’s embarrassing. I am a weak person. And every time that baseball team wins, I rejoice. When they lose, I am in anguish and dismay. That sounds like someone who cares, doesn’t it?

Today will be a more active day, yesterday I gave myself permission to relax, I barely walked, and now I can’t sleep. I need, literally, to be more active. Alas, but with love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 2 a.m., Friday

Oh, the Things We Sometimes Do

Blog 3307, 25 April 2024, Thursday                               

Dear friend,

No matter how far short I come from maintaining the standards we were required to maintain when we were missionaries, I think all who served have learned to try to live according to that higher level of standards. There are some obvious standards: Thou shalt not kill, A stitch in time saves nine, and other platitudes (a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement) or clichés (phrase or expression used so often that it becomes stale) which helped us maintain our behavior. The hardest one for me was “Do what is right.” Oh, such good advice and so impossible to do.

I say that because yesterday I did something sort of questionable. A month ago we received in the mail a notice that one of the companies we deal with had overcharged its customers and had been ordered to refund some money to those who had been shorted. We were such victims. We set aside the notice and finally, on Monday, read the letter to make sure it was something we were rightfully due. That’s like at 10 p.m. on this last Monday evening April 22nd, the very last day that we could claim our share, our rightful share, of the money. The notice had to be postmarked no later than April 22^nd. Earlier in the day, no problem. We’re not talking about much money, but enough. We’d failed to turn in our claim. Our fault, no one else’s mistake, we and we alone. However, rather than “do what is right,” as my least favorite platitude goes, I thought I’d push the system. On the forms I filled in nothing, but across the front page I wrote with  real chicken-scratch penmanship in an effort to look like I was really old (which I’m not, according to me), I wrote “I DON’T UNDERSTAND.” This is almost as a blatant and brazen lie as I could imagine. I was trying to appeal to someone’s compassion for the elderly, taking advantage of the image of being elderly. Now, I know their staff is legalistic, rigid in the law, exactly opposite what (or who) I want to read my sad message on the blank form. It’s a little funny, certainly not a behavior such as a missionary should exhibit. We should have accepted our fate, shrugged off the financial loss, and gone on with life. We should have.

BUT I, as I am sometimes prone to do, wanted to push the company and see how rigid they are. Often they give me another chance. It’s as if I was recovering from an error. I wondered, will this ploy work? I won’t be hurt if it doesn’t, but I may make someone feel good about their job, giving them a chance to bend the rules to help protect an old person from loss, feeling good about themselves. Shame on me! And good luck! Love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 6 a.m., Thursday

A Silly/Clever Idea for a Walk

Blog 3306, 24 April 2024, Wednesday                                  

Dear friend,

It sounded so good; Jean had an appointment with the Geek Guys at Best Buy to reopen her computer because her password was not working. I’d always wondered what you could do if you couldn’t even open your computer, how do you get help? Jean immediately went for professional help, not like me, trying to fix it yourself until you break it. I brought pieces of her bike to get fixed, she was wise enough to go to The Geeks who knew we had to had to call Apple. The wizards of Apple already had her phone number to double check to see if it was she who was calling, then they gave the Geek guy a magic code, an ever-changing number that opened the door to her kingdom. It’s good to know there’s a secure way to get into your house without breaking a window, even if you lose all the keys.

It sounded so good; Jean would be at Best Buy, I had nothing to do, I thought I’d walk down and meet her there. That way I’d be walking downhill more than uphill, but once I started walking, I had to keep walking if I wanted a ride home, which I truly desired. I guessed it would be two and a half miles. It was 3.6 miles. I walked for two hours, descending 331 feet from our place to the low point near the SE 8^th Street entrance to I-405. From there it was uphill almost to the store, 167 feet (my ‘Hey, Google’ is giving me these numbers, taken from Google Earth). It took me 2½ hours, 1.4 miles an hour with very little level terrain. The only one who passed me whizzed by on a bicycle without any warning, he then ignored my loud advice to say, “On your left,” like “real” bike riders say when coming up on a pedestrian. I saw no one else walking that crazy trail.

At Best Buy, we also bought a “Glocalme DuoTurbo – Twin Chips Stable Mobile WiFi” for traveling in Canada and later in Europe. After years of fighting to find an Internet connection, we may now have our own. Not that I’m a pessimist, but it sounds too good to be true. The good news is that the blogs get more interesting when we’re being ourselves while on the road: culturally insensitive, typical ugly American tourists, and too old to remember passwords. It keeps the adventure going, as does this: Love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 4:30 a.m., Wednesday

How to Live an Adventurous Life

Blog 3305, 23 April 2024, Tuesday                            

Dear friend,

It’s a simple thing to go through life or even a day with many adventures. The key to having adventures is to go off with only half a plan still forming in your head. The less you have of an idea of what you’re going to be do and, especially, how you’re going to do it, every venture becomes an adventure. The less you’re prepared for what’s coming, the more likely it is for a task to become a major event. Take yesterday as an example:

Jean wanted a new bicycle seat for her Diamondback bike so she ordered one. It arrived last Saturday. “Marvin?” she asked; “Uh-huh,” I said, even before she asked the question. Sunday afternoon, with the Mariners game on the TV so I wasn’t actually watching the game, I took off her old seat. That was when I only needed to take it apart, put the new seat on. I was that close to being done. But the Allen wrench bolt between the seat and the vertical seat post was absolutely frozen. I couldn’t break it free. Yesterday, when Jean went swimming, she dropped me off at the new bike shop at Crossroad, Cycle Gear. Fully confident of their ability, I laid the offending part on the counter and asked, “Can you help me?” Surprisingly for a bike shop, he said, “No,” and then he added, “Our place is a motorcycle shop.”

I looked around and said, “That explains the motorcycle outside and the biker’s helmets on the walls, doesn’t it?” “Yup. Try Dick’s Sporting.” He didn’t overtly laugh at me, but his eyes twinkled at my goof. I thanked him for his advice, but I went to the library and to find the nearest “real” bike shop. There used to be several bike shops in the area, but now Greg’s on Bellevue Way was the closest, too far to walk. That’s when I went to Dick’s sporting store to prove the motorcycle guy wrong. Instead, I found a young guy working there who was glad to help. He tried to break the nut frozen on the bolt but couldn’t. With his fancy Allen wrench, I tried and couldn’t break it free, but when he tried again, he screwed one way and I twisted the seat in the other direction and there was a click. His first thought was that we’d broken something. I assured him it was OK. Satisfied my problem had been solved, I walked home happy without suspecting I was happy too soon.

The next problem was that connection to the old seat was driven into the end of the seat post and impossible to remove. Daringly, I cut it off and slipped the new seat rail section into the newly cut seat post, and it didn’t fit. I hadn’t measured that in advance. That was a bit like discovering your new truck won’t fit into your garage. Oops. But I couldn’t put the old seat back on because some dim-wit had hacksawed the business-end off. That was the moment I finally got clever. I put the bike and seat parts into the car, drove to REI, and with their bike mechanic learned I could get the bike back in about a week, my problem was solved. Jean wouldn’t have to worry about biking for a week. And my whole day was an adventure because I didn’t know the difference between a bike and a motorcycle. And the fixer at REI said I was the third guy who’d done what I had done this year, he was getting used to dealing with well-intentioned but really inept husbands. That was me. To get out of this adventure it will only take someone else’s brains and my money. Hire a professional, almost always. That’s the truth, so is this: Love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 4 a.m., Tuesday

Time with the Finns

Blog 3304, 22 April 2024, Monday                            

Dear friend,

Once a month, the third Sunday, some Seattle Finns gather at our home church, St. Andrew’s, and have a Finnish Lutheran service. I’d been there once, I promised I’d come back, and never did. Well, yesterday I was back. We were nineteen, 18 Finnish speakers and one English only. It was I, but to prove my integrity I arrived 20 minutes late when I thought I was coming 40 minutes early. Sometimes I am utterly inept, usually it’s only partly inept. Sunday, it wasn’t a smooth entry.

The sermon was in Finnish, but the pastor handed me a sheet of paper with the sermon theme in English. Shortened greatly, here was the story upon which the pastor based her sermon: A shepherd had a large flock of sheep which he had to take across a fast-moving mountain stream. The shepherd dragged the bigger ones, carried the little ones, and all crossed but one, who stood on the far shore. The shepherd then moved the entire flock back across the stream, gathered the reluctant sheep, and crossed a third time, this time with all the sheep. With all the sheep accounted for, he called the sheepdog who refused to enter the fast-moving waters until the shepherd waded back across and dragged the dog by its collar. The pastor then asked the congregation to think of a time when they crossed such waters, and who helped them cross. I got about 1% of the sermon, I can’t tell you how she handled the story.

I can’t explain why I’m glad to be a Finn, it certainly isn’t pride. Maybe being Finnish makes me freer to laugh at myself, life, and sermons than other nationalities do. We’re kind of a sweet people who have fewer tastebuds, or maybe we just have a stranger sense of humor. “My wife asked me to get a quart of milk, and if they have eggs, get six. I brought six quarts of milk home because they had eggs.” One of the keys to Finnish humor is to keep a straight face whether you get the joke or not. There are many examples of Finnish humor on the Internet.

I was obviously one of them, most remembered me from my one visit, several knew my name, I remembered one, Greg, the pastor’s husband. But my time with them was fun, a little goofy (a national characteristic) and after the service they all spoke English with twinkling accents that made my heart swoon, a sound of my childhood. There was one 17-year-old boy who has already received his military induction invitation, they expect him to show up just after his graduation, 13 months from now. Usually, they have a six-month training program for all males, then they’re in the national reserve where they’ll remain until they are 50, or 60 if an officer. Thanks to Mr. Putin, there’s a new sense of urgency in the country. I learned a lot Sunday, gratefully I did not hear how the sermon story was used. I was happy to be with them. I’ll be back, but not next month. I’ll be in Canada. Love,

Jeannmarv                              Written and Posted: 7 a.m., Monday