House Sitting

Jennifer’s husband, Peter, was asked to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina to collaborate with their scientists on corn diseases.  Jennifer was able to get away from her job and met him after his work for sightseeing in Argentina.  She asked us to house sit and watch the boys for ten days.  We were delighted and readily agreed.

We planned ahead and had meal options for every night.  We watered our plants and packed like we were going on a vacation, even though we were only driving 20 miles.  Before I took Jennifer to the airport, we went over ground rules for the boys--mainly not going out during school days.

Ben is almost 18 years old and Jack is 15.  Our main job was to feed them and to know where they were at all times.  Ben drives, so we didn’t even have to provide taxi service.  It all sounded so simple and more like a vacation than a job.  We knew they ate a lot, but we didn’t realize they ate all the time.

So for ten days we cooked, shopped, washed clothes, kept track of where they were and cleaned the house.

The boys were terrific.  They were polite, helpful and appreciative that we were there.  We always had dinner together, and Aloma and I have rarely laughed as much as when they told stories about school, teachers and soccer teammates.  After dinner the boys would go to their rooms and study until 11:00 p.m. with occasional breaks to raid the refrigerator.  It was a special time.

I picked Jennifer and Peter up at the airport on Labor Day.  We visited with them for awhile and then went home--and slept all afternoon.  We didn’t realize how tired we were.

We hope we get more opportunities to house sit and be with the boys.  They are special.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Evacuation

We loved our vacation in the mountains, spending a week in Cashiers, North Carolina in July.  Our vacation was both restful and healing.  Weeks after we returned, we started thinking about our upcoming beach vacation.  We had scheduled a Wyndham Resorts oceanfront unit in North Myrtle Beach for September 8 to 15.  When we scheduled the vacation, we knew it was hurricane season, but what are the odds of a hurricane hitting that location on that week?  Low, we thought!

A couple of weeks before our vacation, a tropical storm developed off of Africa, then developed into a hurricane and then dropped back to a tropical storm.  I told Aloma not to worry about it.  “It will curve out to sea without touching the United States.”  She reminded me that my degree in meteorology had not yet arrived in the mail.

Our Wyndham unit turned out to be nice, small but with a full kitchen, washer and dryer and two televisions.  The main attraction was that it had a deck overlooking the ocean and the beach, eight stories high.  The view was outstanding and we spend hours watching the ocean, the people on the beach and the sky.  Meanwhile, Florence kept coming.

We arrived on a Saturday and on Sunday we enjoyed the sun and pool and I went for a swim in the ocean.  My last two attempts, last year and the year before, at swimming in the ocean were disasters.  I kept getting knocked down in shallow water after my swim and couldn’t get up.  One time I called to two burly men who lifted me up to a standing position, and the second time I managed to get up myself after a lengthy struggle.  On Sunday, the beach sand was hard-packed and, in spite of large waves to play in, the surf near the beach was gentle.  Not a problem.  I swam again on Monday.  No problem.

We knew now that Florence was barreling right toward us.  We got the word that North Myrtle was under a State of Emergency, and we had to evacuate our unit by noon on Tuesday.  We decided to leave early on Tuesday, were on the road by 6:30 a.m. and used the GPS in the car to get us home.  The GPS routed us on back roads and we never touched I-95 or I-40.  Never once were we held up by traffic.

Now we’re home and have removed things from the yard and porch that might blow around.  We’re just waiting to see what Florence has in store for us.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com