Settled in Bremerton

Dear friends,

Sorry I sort of stopped the blogging. There wasn’t a lot of feedback, so I figured only a couple people were looking at it. Maybe I needed a few more people to scratch me behind the ears and say “good dog”.

Anyway, since I blogged, we landed safely in Bremerton. We did a little painting and unpacked our stuff. Considering we sold almost all of our furniture, and gave away a lot of our clothes, there was still a lot of stuff. But…when you get around to hanging pictures, you know you have made a home.

What is really cool is getting to spend time with Lauren (daughter in law) and Elena (3 and don’t you “no” it) and Madeleine (8 months and genuine all-terrain baby).  It is such a blessing to have this time. Adam and Lauren will probably leave in July or August, so we arrived just in time to have some quality grand-kid time. We wake up to the pitter-patter of little feet overhead, and just smile.  We have dinner together almost every night, and spend a little time playing with the kids. What a joy!

Being around in-laws has other advantages as well. We are able to spend time with Lauren’s folks. We all get along, which is really nice. Lauren’s dad is a very enthusiastic sailboat racer, and they sailed over on Friday in their Cal 40 sailboat to spend the night at our marina tied up next to Dulcinea. I begged a ride, and got not only to go from Bremerton to Seattle on the ferry, but to steer the sailboat back to Bremerton, which took about 4 hours. It was rainy, windy, cold, and glorious.

We got to see Max and George, too. Max is making his living as a crab fisherman, crewing on a 2-man boat. He came over for dinner with Stephanie (his intended), and at the end he had to arm wrestle me. I used to be able to hold my own, but Mr. crab-pot heaver beat me in about 1 second. Oh well. Went to visit George and went to the shooting range. I proposed a contest for beers, 5 shots each out of 3 guns, and he beat me 134-118. I’m pretty sure the days when I could count on besting my sons is long gone. They take great delight in beating me, too. I get the trash-talk for days afterwards. George sure can cook up a nice feast, though.  He and his roommate and Nicole (his intended) fed us dinner. A real adult dinner party at George’s apartment.  The food was good and the company better.

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) is stunningly beautiful when it is not raining. I was out tonight with Adam’s dog Charlemagne (C-mangle, or just Mangle) throwing tennis balls into Dye’s Inlet, looking at the glories of the Olympic Mountains. Florida has great sunsets, but PNW has extraordinary topography.

An examination of my mental and emotional states shows that I am no less happy to be living in a basement apartment than I was in a big house. Stuff is just stuff, after all. Once you have the basics, more doesn’t add much to happiness.

Marsha and I have had some quality togetherness. We haven’t really spent a day apart since she lost her job and I returned from Virginia where I was taking a class. What we have learned has only reinforced what we knew before: we really enjoy spending time with each other. I don’t think there has been more than a few minutes of friction in 4 months despite some very real stresses.  Our string will be broken tomorrow, since she flew to Melbourne, FL (of all places!) today for a consulting meeting.

The house is gone. That chapter is over, despite the fact that I got a notice in the mail yesterday that we were eligible for a loan modification.  In the end, we didn’t come out too bad. We lost our down payment, but we got about half of that back by selling the furniture, so no complaints. Marsha does not think it is likely that we will ever own a house again. I don’t much care one way or the other.  Pretty sure I’d be happy in a trailer or on a boat.

We visited with our Pastor, Fr. Lappe, and explained what we wanted to do from a marriage seminar standpoint. He was very supportive. We are nearly finished writing our outline and hope to begin maybe for Valentine’s Day. Our new parish is very vibrant and active, with a lot of ministries ongoing. We just happened to have something that fills a gap.

We have been walking to morning prayer, which is done communally in our parish. We finally were able to go all 10 blocks without dressing for arctic winter and clutching our mugs of hot tea, so some of the Florida is seeping away, and the blood is thickening up, so to speak. Just as well. We were walking past the high school, seeing kids with t-shirts and shorts walking to school, with us bundled up like Eskimos because it got down to 30.

There is a YMCA about 1.5 miles from the house, which also makes a nice walk. We can go to yoga classes almost every day, and we do. They even cut us a deal because we had no income. That was a new thing. The “sliding scale” works out in our favor these days.

Bremerton is a small town, without pretentions. There is a navy shipyard, which is the big employer. For us, almost everything is within walking distance. We only really need a car if we want to carry something home.  That makes our decision to reduce to one car a very reasonable one.

There is a little hole in the wall joint down by the boat that passes for a marina bar. They specialize in craft brews and Belgian-cut fries (whatever that means, which does not seem to be much). The only rub is that even at happy hour, the beers were $3 and the fries $4.25, which worked out to about $11 for what used to be a $6 visit to Crabby Bill’s. So we went to Costco and got a 24-pack for $18 (Costco craft beers, I kid you not – and pretty good, too). Now we’re back to $6 if we take the fries on the boat where we have the beer stashed, and the view is way better than Crabby Bill’s.

There is really not much else to tell. We miss our Florida friends, but we are joyfully renewing acquaintances here, and making new friends as well. Even in our little apartment, we still have a guest room, so we have two if you count the boat. As always, visitors welcome!