ready or not change is coming....

We have seen nearly all our friends and family now that we have been home for a month. Many things have changed in people's lives since we left for Mexico a year and a half ago. Somethings though remain the same, like the fact that I am still driving my VW Beetle which turns 12 years old this June. I certainly did not expect to be driving Fiona, as I affectionately call her, for a decade plus but I am glad I am.

Harry's accident in Mexico changed our life suddenly and dramatically. Change is part of life, sometimes it is the only thing we can and should count on. But we resist change, especially when it demands that we look at things differently or when we must accept what we cannot change.

Within the last few years we entered the grandparent stage of life and recently so have many of our friends. Grandchildren change your life. We are going to see Brian and Vicki tonight who had two grand babies born while we were away. They now have two highchairs in their dinning room. Friends we are seeing tomorrow night are awaiting word when they will fly to Bogota to support their son and daughter in law who are adopting a Colombian child. Our friends, Dick and Cindy, also had a grandchild born a few months ago and Cindy babysits Jesse two days a week. All these children, and soon to arrive children, have brought many joyous changes in how the new grandparents live their lives. Given a choice many people would probably opt to have grandchildren but it is not a gift bestowed on all who wish for it. And for some, becoming a grandparent can bring challenges that are difficult. We lost our highly anticipated grandchild four years ago. Ben lived less than a week. I continue to think about him. He would have been nearly four now. We have a picture in our living room of our daughter in law, Joanna, holding little Ben in her arms the night he died.

Life can change in an instant and in ways one never could predict or prepare for. Things we hope and dream for can suddenly be lost, or they never materialize at all. Amazing and wonderful things we never dreamed of happen. My daughter called from New York today and she said, "you know mom, I just wanted to call you to say a quick hi and tell you what a beautiful day it is here today in New York. I'm walking around my new neighborhood and I love it so much. I don't know how long I will be living here but I want to make sure that I remember to appreciate each day I do live here." Well said!

Like it or not, we live in a world where change is the only constant. Each day brings some sort of change, sometimes sudden and swift change that leaves you stunned and shaking with fear and sometimes change that leave you breathless with joy. Having a little more appreciation and joy and a sense of wonder for each day is probably all we can really do. We have no real control over most of the changes we inevitably will face in our lives.

Eva, our granddaughter who arrives to visit on Thursday, I know will have changed so much since Grandma Jeanne saw her last January. She is talking up a storm now. Lexi's new neighborhood is a big wonderful change for her and I can hardly wait to visit her in September on her birthday. Exciting changes for sure! It is nice though that somethings never seem to change, like that old yellow bug Fiona. A little rust maybe, but still the same.

A great place to live, but....

Harry has always said that Minneapolis is a great place to live but not a great place to visit. I realized this weekend that he may be right. Minneapolis is a nice city for sure but it is not a city where if you listed your condo on "housetrade.com" would you expect to find your inbox flooded with enquiry emails. Especially not inquiries from people looking to house swap for a week or two from the cities in Europe I would like to visit, namely the cities of Venice, Florence or Lisbon. No, I'm afraid that Minneapolis would not be on the list of must seen cities of the world for those who presently live in one of those beautiful places. Minneapolis does have it's quiet charm however, at least for me.

On Sunday Harry and I drove over to a neighborhood in Minneapolis called Linden Hills where I spent 27 years of my life. We bought fresh roasted African coffee at the Dunn Brothers coffee shop and then went to Lake Harriet, pictured above, to walk and have an ice cream at the band shell. I have probably walked or biked around this lake several hundred times during the quarter century plus I lived in the neighborhood. I used to say that I wanted my ashes poured into the lake Harriet someday. (now that's really loving a lake) I remember watching the pictured band shell being built, the 5th one the lake has seen over the years. The first band shell was built in the 1880's. One burned down and another flew into the lake thanks to a tornado, the others were torn down. I cross country skied around the lake watching the construction of the present band shell during a very cold winter back in January and February of 1984. I remember walking across the snow covered Lake Harriet with my ex-husband when I was several months pregnant in the moonlight hoping the ice was not going to give way. I fondly remember my daughter's 7th birthday party as she got to drive (with help from the captain) the big paddle boat around the lake with her friends watching and then afterwards all the birthday party girls got on the old restored trolley car to ride the tracks to nearby Lake Calhoun.

This neighborhood will forever have a huge place in my heart. On Sunday as we drove through Linden Hills on our way to the lake when Harry suddenly took a turn down our old street, Abbott Avenue, where I had lived for those 27 years in the same house. The house was built in 1904 and Harry and I got married in the house in December '04 during it's 100th anniversary year. I brought Alexis home from the hospital to that house in 198o. She left for college in 1999 having spent her entire childhood in the house.

The family who bought the house four years ago have three little girls. I knew the house was meant for them as I too had watched my three little girls grow up in the house. Katie and Beth lived next door to us on Abbott. The girls spent many happy days and nights at our house. Having always wanted more children these wonderful girls became my adopted daughters. Then and now it was and is the perfect house for three little girls. I finished off the attic long after my little girls had moved away but now three new little girls have their playroom in the attic. My three girls had their Abbott Ave. newspaper office in the unfinished attic during their elementary school summers and they never complained that the attic floor boards were not very safe to walk on and the walls unfinished.

In the trunk of my car I had been carrying around for years the hammock we used to have on the front porch which I had always meant to give to the new family. I told Harry we should stop on Sunday when we drove past as the family was out in the yard and we could give them the hammock. The old house has seen four owners now and the new owners, Laurie and Dave, have made extensive renovations to the house and gardens. They took us on a tour of what they had done and it was a fantastic thrill to see the changes.

Some of the renovations I had always dreamed of doing, but could not afford to do, were now done. There were things they didn't change too during the renovations. The old claw foot bath tub my ex-husband and I found somewhere and put into the house and the new sink Harry installed were still in the house and seeing them made us smile. Harry proudly showed Dave where you could still see where he had painstakingly patched a ceiling in one of the bedrooms. The french doors off the dinning room to the back garden I had always dreamed of putting in were now in place. Even the attic, which my dear brother-in-law, Dario, painstakingly painted in Harry's selection of four different shades of purple was as we left it. As we toured the the house I remembered the day when my sister and my nieces Andrea and Adri, moved in with me having to leave Colombia due to the violence and kidnappings. My heating bill went through the roof that year trying to keep the Colombians warm. Dave told us that he floods the big back yard every year now so his girls, who all play hockey, can skate. The two foot angel statue my friends Pat and Renee brought me for the the grotto in the garden after my mother died in '97 is still there too. I called the angel, Lily, after my mom and I thought that Angel Lily must enjoy watching the neighborhood hockey games every winter.

So yes, Minneapolis may not have much in the line of great beauty, interesting history or good climate that would make it high on any one's must see cities list, but for me, Minneapolis has lots of cherished memories. It has a lovely old house in the lovely old neighborhood of Linden Hills. I still want to see Lisbon, and Venice and Florence before my ashes are dumped in Lake Harriet so if you know anyone living in one of the above mentioned cities let them know how lovely Minneapolis can be, even if you are just visiting. I feel like a tourist myself this spring after being gone for nearly two years and I am finding the city absolutely beautiful. Maybe Minneapolis would be popular on housetrade.com. after all.

good news at 3600 Wooddale #315

Harry got the a good report from the doctor today allowing him to wear the rubber bands that keep his jaw aligned only at night and the ok to go back to the smash and mash diet rather than liquids through a straw only. We learned the nerves in his face had been severed with all the breaks but he will make a full recovery and will be able to eat what ever he wants in six weeks or so. He will need extensive dental reconstruction once the jaw is healed but after what he has been through it will probably be a piece of cake.

I have been trying to say thank you to all our friends and family who has been so kind and shown so much compassion and love for us during this storm. There has always been someone who offered help, someone to listen to our story and all the love and concern has made a huge difference in our lives. (I have a new appreciation for the miracle of soup too!) I will never forget all the wonderful things people have said and done for us.

For my dear Mexican friends who read this blog, the picture is our building in Minnesota. We live on the top floor in the corner. And no, we do not have a balcony overlooking the mountains and the estuary, just Highway 7. We wake every morning to the noise of bulldozers and trucks, not birds, as the overpass is being constructed outside our windows. I keep you all in my heart and miss you very much. Our plan, with a little luck, is to return to Mexico in October to stay for a bit. Someone here in our building asked how long we were home for and Harry's response was, "until the wanderlust hits us again."

I have had a nasty exchange of emails with the American owner of the repair shop where Harry had his accident. It pretty much has boiled down to the owner blaming Harry for the accident because he was not wearing his sunglasses. He explained to me when Harry fell he was leading him down to the car so the guard dogs would not attack him. The fact that the glare of the sun made him miss seeing the open pit was not his problem, after all Harry left his sunglasses in the car. There is no civil liability in Mexican law so I asked him for $10,000 for the monetary losses we incurred because of this accident, the sudden shock and need to abandon the good life we had built in San Jose and the fear, pain and suffering Harry has gone through. I of course knew this was a futile effort, but my real rationale was to let him know that three people falling into such a pit was negligence on his part and he needs to make some changes in that yard. I told him the doctors all said the injuries Harry suffered could very well of killed him and the next person may not be so lucky. He does not see my point, but I felt it important that I made it anyway. The rather interesting part of all this is that he goes to mass everyday. Go figure!!! Of course lately, with all the raging debate going on in the Catholic Church maybe is does figure. Some people and some institutions will always find taking responsiblity difficult, even when doing so would make for less suffering in the world.

A new path

I took a long walk down the bike path just a few steps outside our condo door on Friday. The trees are just beginning to bud so it looks rather stark, but promising. Harry too is looking promising. The swelling is going down quickly and he never complains as I have tried to find new and interesting liquids for him to drink. His staple each day is Carnation instant breakfast which the doctor said will give him enough nutrition until Thursday when he has a post surgery follow-up appointment. At this appointment they may be able to remove some of the complex system of rubber bands which are currently holding his jaw back in position. If that is so he will be able to go back to the smashed and mashed diet he was on post- accident in mid-March. He is looking very slim and trim and I tell him that everyday, repeatedly. I remember during my first divorce, when I lost 20 or so pounds, my mother kept telling me I had never looked better. With this in mind, I feel my "you are looking so trim" remarks make a hard situation a bit more tolerable. Who among us would not like to lose a few pounds? Of course this way of doing it, like a bad divorce, is not exactly a choice one would make willingly, but is sure works.


I took off on the trail wearing my new tennis shoes I bought last week called "shape-ups" by Sketchers. My friend Linda was wearing them in Florida when we visited over Christmas and she said they were fabulous. They are constructed in a way to make your feet and body believe you are walking barefoot on sand which is supposed to be the best way to walk. Who knew? Of course any excuse to buy a pair of new shoes works for me. They are bouncy and fun to walk in. Just in case you didn't know Joe Montana wears "shape-ups" all the time now. I learned this from the life-size picture of him at the shoe store so I figured if he loves them and Linda loves them, how can you go wrong? Well, I did go wrong because the shoes come with the caution one should wear them for short periods each day or you may suffer some aches and pains. And aches and pains I currently have thanks to these cute shoes. Guess I need to shape up and walk a bit less.


I have decided walking each day will be my new sort of job for now so having new shoes is nice. I always bought myself a new outfit when I started a new job, but for now the shoes are doing the trick. I think I will love not working everyday and I think I will dislike not having to work everyday. My other new job is to read the New York Times everyday on my Kindle. This was not possible in Mexico because I did not have the whisper-net option on my Kindle so I could not download newspapers or magazines. I have not read newspapers in nearly two years so having this paper at my fingertips is quite the most wonderful thing in the world. My friend Bill in Florida is now reading the Times on his I-Pad with all the color pictures but for now, though I am jealous of Bill and his new I-Pad, I am very content. (My other two temporary jobs I should mention were watching the first season of Nurse Jackie and the first season of Glee on Blockbuster DVDs) So, I am on a new path: the joy of watching a husband who is healing up beautifully and I have my two new jobs to contend with. Damn lucky I'd say!

The English garden and the English patient.

My dear friend of nearly 60 years, Merrie Jean and her daughter Katherine and granddaughter, Annika came downtown yesterday and accompanied me to the Macy's flower show while Harry napped after surgery for a couple hours. It was like walking through an English garden and the experience was exactly what I needed. We strolled around, watched 4 year old Annika smell the flowers, "remember Jeannie you cannot pick the flowers" Annika told me several times and we had a cup of coffee before I walked back to see the English patient. Once again, I do not know how people get through life without their friends.

Brutal!

Brutal is the only word for the surgery Harry had yesterday. I do not think we had any idea how this would go and maybe that is for the better. The surgery took longer than expected because Harry's jaw had begun to heal and the fact that there was much repair that needed to be done. HCMC was very organized and professional. They had him on morphine after the surgery so there was not a lot of pain. His jaw is not wired shut but they used rubber bands to pretty much close up his jaw for the next two weeks. It was a very long day. We were up at 4 am and last night I slept the clock around. I had a second taste of what people go through when they see a loved one after a traumatic accident. It made me flash back to when my mother had brain surgery and the incision was across her scull from ear to ear. Nothing really prepares you for it. I just step out of the room cry a bit and then go back in and act normally. I am going to take him home from the hospital today and I am sure he will look better already given his capacity for healing. As awful as this is, especially for Harry, I just keep thinking what could have happened and how grateful I am that he survived this fall. I tell him with his new nose, slim figure and new teeth, (he will need the front two and the bottom four replaced) he will be cuter than ever. Earlier this week he went to the library to check out a couple of the plays that Theatre in the Round is putting on in their up coming season. He knows two of the directors and thinks there may be a couple parts he would like to audition for. This has been quite a ride and hopefully things will now settle down for a bit now. I look forward to my actor husband in an upcoming play at the theatre!!!

A bit spoiled....Victoria and I

This is the view I now look at everyday from my window; the Highway 7 and Wooddale Ave intersection is getting a face lift. A face lift that will take months. The pile of concrete is not the mountain range with volcanoettes (Harry's terminology) we used to view each day from our balcony, it is just a pile of concrete. The trees are not palm trees and being it is April in Minnesota, the trees have no leaves. The noise now are the trains, not the music that used to float in our windows, often until 4 a.m. I sometimes feel a bit lost rambling about our condo here, it feels three times as large as our condo was in San Jose. But I am adjusting.

Adjustment, how easily it comes. In some ways it feels like I never left. I am back into my old routines and realizing just how spoiled I really am. It is clear how much easier my life is now and clear how unattractive it is as well. My American hairdresser, Jennifer used to always say, "Life is hard here in Mexico." And she had the advantage of speaking the language fluently having been brought up my Mexican parents in the states. The material things I missed I can now obtain and obtaining has become my passion. I have made a point of eating everything I so missed eating; the healthy things like a McDonald's fish sandwich and hot cross buns from my favorite grocery store. The experience of rampant consumerism enfolds me. Finding what you want or think you have to have is not a problem now. The choices are endless. Not so in Mexico. There choices were finite.

In Mexico everyday one woke up to the sunshine, not during Hurricane season of course, but all the other days. Yesterday it was cool and rainy and cloudy. Now I jump into my little VW and hit the freeway to a shopping mall in no time flat. In Mexico I could be in the desert or on the beach in no time flat. It was a big event when the movie theatre in town had a movie on you really wanted to see. Here of course there are dozens of movies available you can see at all times of the day or night. Yesterday I went to see Young Victoria and had a good cry. I also went shopping yesterday for slacks; endless choices, endless places to shop. In San Jose, only one place for a chubby middle aged American woman to shop. No trouble now finding the latest People or New Yorker magazines either. Expensive but important luxuries I dearly missed every week. Finding these magazines was impossible in our little town. Today I am going to the video store to rent movies. That was not so easy in Mexico either. Never could figure out the Spanish translations of American movies and our DVD player never worked anyway. Now we are back to scores of television stations too. I got used to watching only CNN and Dancing with the Stars as our stations were very limited. There were always Canadian curling tournaments to watch. I did a lot of reading instead of staring at the tube. Everyday now our mailbox is filled with junk mail I have to clean out. In Mexico I had no mailbox.

Guess I really did need a good cry yesterday trying to deal with my adjustment process! Thanks Victoria. Just wish my life was as interesting as your life. I do think however we both were and are a bit spoiled. We have that in common at least.

Dorothy was right!

I'm afraid Dorothy was right, there really is no place like home. We arrived on Sunday about midnight and have been running to and fro ever since. It took a good while, two days, to find the right doctor for Harry's injuries but today we hit the jackpot. The team of facial trauma experts at HCMC in the heart of our city, Minneapolis, turned out to be the just the team Harry needs to fix him up. Tomorrow are the x-rays and next Wednesday the surgery. It should take about two hours if all goes well. The doctors are very impressed by the work of our Mexican ENT surgeon, Dr. Portillo. Women have been commenting on how beautiful Harry's nose looks. The other good news is that he will not need to have his jaw wired shut for six weeks. The doctors who saw him today have seen the worst of the worst so they assured us they could fix him. He will need to continue with his diet of smash and mash for the next many weeks however. We got home very happy today with the news and within minutes Harry had yet another kidney stone attack. He is doing ok now but it was pretty rough. He loves his big bath tub and just being home.

As for me, I have of course been to my favorite grocery store, Byerly's, at least 5 times in the last 5 days so of course I am happy. It feels all so comfortable again. Our friends Brian and Vicki bought over Chinese food last night, Harry had soup, and I was in heaven eating my egg rolls, pork dumplings and sesame chicken. Funny the things you miss. Things have changed a lot here in the past year and a half. I just keep soaking in all the changes, enjoying every minute. I finally feel I can relax a little now after two really hard weeks. I learned yesterday that I accidentally locked our screen door in San Jose so our cleaning lady could not get in to clean the condo we rented. Our neighbors, Val and Wendy found Herlinda sitting on the steps waiting to be let in because her key did not work. She probably thought we were asleep. Val took screwdriver in had and took the door off so she could get in to clean before our landlady came home this week. Just another little miracle typical of our friends in Mexico. Without all their love and support there is no way we could have made it home in a week.