Going to Church (and not from our living room sofa)

 

Yesterday we drove to Church of The Savior, formerly known as the South Bend Christian Reformed Church, put on our masks, and found socially distanced seats in the sanctuary.  As we greeted a few people outside, a young man came up on his skateboard and wondered if it was safe to leave it outside.  I was hesitant but went into my church lady mode and asked him if he was a visitor.  He was--his second time at church--and an exchange student from the Netherlands.  I was not sorry I asked and later gave him our phone numbers.  

Worshipping and singing with a mask on was uncomfortable.  But it was good to worship with others and to hear the familiar voice of Chris Mihut leading the liturgy and John Haas preaching and to hear the amazing David Banga on the piano enlivening the hymns.  We look forward to hearing Pastor Chris Rea preach next week. Our first Sunday back at "our church" was the church picnic so we had lots of opportunity to visit at the tables under the shade trees and to enjoy burgers and a variety of potluck salads and desserts.  

The babies are now all two years old.  A few more mothers are visibly pregnant again.  We missed three dear friends who passed away in the last two years.  We missed several others who may have been on vacation or just unwilling to be in large groups of people.  We'll look for them next week when a special back to school blessing service will be held outside.  

It was good to worship in community again especially a community in which we knew almost everyone.  It was good to see and meet a few newcomers as well--in a church which has always been a transitional place for the academic community here in South Bend.  May God bless the Church of the Savior, small but mighty!

Four Days and Four NIghts in our New Home

 We have made progress in settling into our little white house at the end of the long driveway off Juniper Road.  Thank God!  The first photo is of our 5 pm happy hour with our improvised table.

Steve, the head of maintenance, is my new best friend in South Bend.  He was kind enough to say that he talked to his wife and thought about how he would feel if he was in our position.  The ladies in the theology office gave us a gift package of chocolate covered fruit with a note saying how they didn't mean for us to feel like the first years of our marriage--in student life again. And that is the way it feels!  

It will be very hot for three more days and then cool off next week.   The a/c which replaced the one that died is just not enough to cool off the bedrooms down the hall.  But by 11 pm the temperature has gone down below the 84 it is in the bedrooms so we can open windows and be comfortable enough.  I don't like the constant white noise of a room a/c but have to tolerate it during the day.

I have one load of wash started and it is so good to have that option in our house.  The dishwasher managed to bake the food on the dishes so we (Jim) will just do those by hand.  The bathroom does not have an exhaust fan and the wet towels get very smelly quickly.  I have towels in the dryer right now--after our showers.  

How luxurious our apartment will seem when we get home!  We have appreciated it before but will do so even more in October!

I had lunch with one of my friends from church yesterday and we had plenty to talk about for two hours--the time went very quickly.  I popped into TJ Maxx and tried on clothes for the first time in 18 months.  Sadly, the dresses looked cute on the hangers and terrible on me!  But it was fun to shop a bit!  We are going to a favorite restaurant tonight to celebrate our anniversary a few days earlier--and the end of our first week here.  Grand Mere Inn in Stevensville is an unpretentious place right on Lake Michigan--with great seafood and a wonderful pate and bread served before the meal.  Hope they still do that!

A few observations about ways South Bend differs from Princeton.   We had forgotten about triple trailer trucks on the toll road.  They are enormous and a bit scary.  Then there are the multiple roundabouts on the edge of campus.  We go through three of them on Douglas Road  alone to get to our house.  There are beggars on the street corners with signs proclaiming their homelessness and need for money. The trees are all green right to the edges of the branches. There is no sign of the omnipresent "flagging" left by our Princeton cicadas.   We did not see posters requesting mask wearing at the Dollar Tree.  Many people are not wearing masks although I have not been looking with great care for observance of that precaution.  We wear masks at least. I was the only one in Salon Rouge yesterday wearing a mask.  My stylist had been vaccinated.  

So we have made progress this week.  Jim met his class for the first time and seemed pleased with the students.  One of them asked him if he came to ND just for this class and thanked him!   Another one has a wife who is doing graduate work in Princeton.  Still another needs to be excused to travel to Columbia because his grandmother just succumbed to Covid.  He asked if Jim would be OK with a Zoom presence which another classmate will set up.  Jim is fine with that as long as he is not the person in charge. 

So progress is made.   Another installment in our retirement journey!

24 Hours in our New (temporary) Home

 

We had two good days of travel but the long trip from Princeton to South Bend (700 miles)  made me thankful that we are not making that trip regularly to see our children and grandchildren.  From Princeton, we travel 10 minutes, one hour, or 2 1/2 hours to see the three families and that is wonderful!

We arrived on the Notre Dame campus around 1 pm.  Jim popped into the theology departmental office to get our house key and welcome packet.  We quickly found the white house set back from Juniper Road down a long driveway.  All good until we tried to open the front door.  The key went in but the door would not open.  Fortunately we had a garage door opener and were able to get in that way.

First impressions were that the house was clean.  We were happy to have a bathroom available but there was no toilet paper.  Or soap.  There was a standing room air conditioner going full blast in the living room to cool the entire house and it was very, very noisy.  We quickly checked to see if we could get wifi and were told our password was incorrect.  We were not off to a good start!  We called Steffany, our Bradley Rental contact, and she put in a maintenance order and said she would come by later to check the password.

Steve, the maintenance person, came within a few hours and saw that the door needed to be sanded in order to open.  He said he would come back in the morning with tools and to make a list of anything else we needed.  It didn't take long to come up with a list.

Steffany also came by within a few hours and determined that she had given us a wrong password--by one number.  So we were connected with her apologies!  She was unable to decipher our TV remote access so told us to ask Steve about that too.

It was 83 in the bedrooms and the a/c unit was too loud for me to sleep through the noise.  The windows were stuck and impossible to open.  But we made it through our first night and Steve came in the morning and fixed the front door.  He also fixed the ceiling fan in the living room to get us some moving air and with difficulty he opened the bedroom windows so at least when it cools off at night we can open windows.  He and his helper Jack were very jolly about our needs and commiserated with us as to why Notre Dame cannot afford to put central a/c in their rental units.  We expressed our appreciation to him for his quick response to our requests.  Jim figured out the remote last night so we were able to watch the Cubs on their own network-and their win with a walk-off home run.

So this morning I am more optimistic about spending six weeks in this house on the edge of campus.  It is clean and it is quiet--at least with windows shut the traffic sounds are not disturbing.  I could hear some motorcycles in the midnight hour but not later. We lived for the first 30 years of our lives without air conditioning and soon it will be cooler--maybe in another week or so.  

We have been to "our Martin's" grocery store twice already and found it spacious and bright--unlike our rather crowded McCaffrey's in Princeton.  We got Jim's watch battery replaced easily at the nearby and familiar Batteries Plus location--a problem for us in Princeton. 

It's our 54th wedding anniversary today and I have a sense of our being newly weds starting over in a new place.  We have done that many times and even if this house is less than ideal, it is temporary and we will go back to our lovely, luxurious apartment in Princeton in several weeks.  

Making Lists (or Losing Control)

 We are leaving for South Bend on Sunday--in five days.  We will be gone from Princeton for six weeks.  Jim will be teaching an intensive seminar at Notre Dame which will meet double time in half of a semester.  The Theology department is renting us a house on Juniper Street, just next to the campus and the football parking lot--and in Jim's happy mind, next to the Warren Golf Course.

I am stressed.  I am thinking about what has to be done before we leave and what to pack for the next six weeks.  

Last week during our happy hour I created a document that listed our incomes and our regular bills.  Jim is in charge of our finances and it made me feel much better to see it written down.  However, for now I am happy he is in charge of that aspect of our lives.

Then earlier this week I created another document listing my prescriptions with available refills and due dates.  That also made me feel more secure because there is a lot to keep track of.  We will have to request refills from the Princeton CVS for the South Bend CVS.  We were told that should be easy enough with all records online.  I hope that is true! 

Then there is my little notebook in which I am keeping lists of items I want to pack--other than the usual clothes and books.  Thinks like our bathroom scale (lest I gain weight by not keeping track of it daily), our blender (for our lunch smoothies), an electric heating pad (just in case there are aches and pains), a flashlight, our clock, etc.   And we thought it would be good to have our passports and of course, our vaccination records (although we have taken photos of them and I have a Docket app that can access mine on my phone.)  

And what else?  What am I forgetting?  Some medical records.   Our checkbook.  A scissors.  Phone and laptop chargers.  Our calendar.  Jackets.  

I made a reservation for Sunday night at a Hampton Inn in Streetsboro, Ohio where we have stayed many times.  Hope the Ruby Tuesdays there is open for business.  If not, there is a McDonald's nearby! 

It will be good to be settled in--a week from now--when we will know what our temporary home will be like.  It will be good to see friends and family again--and also to enjoy a week in South Haven.  

We can do this!   It's good to have a change of scenery and then I know we will be glad to be back home in Princeton in October in our lovely apartment.  

------------------Saturday, August 21--Suitcases are half-packed.  Refrigerator is close to empty.  Freezer likewise.  Bedding washed.  Are we packing too many items of clothing or not enough?  One sports coat or two?  Will we have a washer and dryer or will we have to use a laundromat?  Do we need warmer clothes before October 8?  Too many decisions.  We considered leaving today in light of the hurricane striking the east coast tomorrow but think we will be safe enough heading west.    

Are Puzzles Good for Aging Puzzlers?

Some say doing crossword puzzles will fight off dementia. Others say that doing crossword puzzles makes you better at crossword puzzles but has no lasting effect on one's aging brain.In any case, Jim and I have done the NYT crossword puzzles together for years and now we are doing the Spelling Bee also. We used to share one puzzle with one of us wielding the pen. But our eyes worsened and we had to go to printing up two puzzles. It was not as cozy or romantic, but at least we could see the clues. 

 Now we do the puzzles on our laptops. We say that the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday puzzles are too easy for us as a team.  Jim does the Sunday ones on his own using the printed one in the magazine.

 We make a good team. Jim knows answers to more sports clues and I know more art and music answers. I take pride however in recognizing the answer "Essenes" when it comes up and it does come up often with all those "e"s and "s"es. I tend to figure out the trick in the Thursday puzzles. Jim is better at the multi-word answers. Sometimes we do google a word or two and we both have problems with popular culture. Rap artists? Not our thing nor are movies or today's TV shows. 

 Jim in particular takes great delight in the little musical riff one gets at the completion of a puzzle and has asked that it be played at his memorial service someday--the end for Jim, I guess. 

 We have started to do the daily Spelling Bee also. Jim is definitely better at this puzzle and even though I think I am not all that competitive of a person, I have been sad when he has found more words than I have. Besides seeing more words, he is definitely more persistent of a solver. So now I tell him how many words I have found and then he stops at that point and we compare our lists. We strive for "genius" but have yet to reach "queen bee" which means that you find all possible words.

 So maybe doing these puzzles will not fend off dementia. But they give us a good activity to do together and our minds are definitely challenged by them.

Farewell to Facebook

I know many friends who have taken time off from Facebook--sometimes as a part of their Lenten discipliine.  I have however been grateful for Facebook as a way of connecting with family and friends far from Princeton.  

This week, however, I had an interchange that upset me enough that I took FB off my iphone apps and deleted my Chromebook bookmark.  I should have resisted but I commented that I was sad that a former student (someone I tutored as a volunteer) shared a post from RawDealMedia that was certainly not true.   

She responded that "us conspiracy theorists" will be proved right! I thought that was an interesting admission to include herself in such a group! A relative of hers defended her using a vulgarity in her post.  I commented that would be the end of my comments but did state boldly what I believed about the election and a good man as President.  

When I opened FB later, I noticed that there were more responses to me. I did not want to see any more.  It seemed like the only way to avoid them was to avoid Facebook.

But that makes me sad.  Yesterday Jim wondered what our friend JR thought of the Cubs trades and I could not FB message him to find out.  I liked using a Spelling Bee group to get hints but that is closed to me now.  And I will miss seeing photos of my friends and relatives far and near.  I never post or share political statements although there are plenty out there that I can affirm.  

But a day off Facebook made me realize how often I checked it--almost as a reflex when I opened my phone.  Check email.  Check Facebook.  I feel a bit lost but that is probably a good thing.  

It's not a permanent farewell.  When I get over the sadness and assume that there will be no more nasty comments directed to me I can consider connecting again.   I can still check Instagram.  I don't do Twitter--I never got hooked on that.   I have learned a lesson however in that it only hurts me to try to set the record straight on misinformation and outright lies.  Unless just maybe my comment made a little difference in the way someone was thinking.  That is probably an unrealistic hope!