Well, we’ve survived the holidays. It’s been pretty quiet. The kids have moved out, into their own apartment. My cats have been learning to rule the house. We had a nice river cruise on the Portland Spirit.

We weren’t able to do much as we are currently fighting a lawsuit from Dept of Natural Resources. They want us to remove the dock and the houseboats. They refused to renew the lease back in 2002, even though they said that the family had done a lot of good work on the place. They gave us a deadline to do a bunch of stuff, even though we couldn’t get the permits until after their deadline. So, for now, our money goes to lawyers. If we lose this, the public will lose access to the river at that point.

Our life together is good. This new year will see a lot of changes as we are going to sell the house and move to the river. I hope I can make some progress on the Aqua Home, maybe get the engines working. I hope 2010 turns out to be a good year for all.

So Lon is safely back home and continuing to heal. We are going to have to do battle with DNR as they are denying renewal of his lease. So we have lawyers in our future. It’s ridiculous, as they don’t pull this with the other people on this stretch of the river. So life has been very busy as of late. Will try and do more of an update this weekend.

I am finally through with the hospital. Lon is at a rehab facility for awhile, as we get him ready to finally come home. I am glad that this surgery happened after they updated the hospital. There were not as bad memories as I feared. I reminded myself at one point that this was the place where I met Lon and that put a different spin on it. I think my saddest memory there was of Pastor George, when we had lunch together in the cafeteria. It was when Jeffrey was first there. Pastor gave me money out of his own pocket so that I could travel back and forth to be with Jeffrey. I still miss Pastor. He was a sweet, kind man, the sort of Christian where his faith really shines forth.

I also lost Wallace this week, my lab. I don’t think he really recovered from Tessie or Jeffrey’s deaths. He came down with pneumonia during all of this. He was such a good dog, if a bit solemn. Now, it’s just me and Loretta with all the cats. I am going to spread Wallace’s ashes at the same place I spread the ones from Tessie and Jeffrey. I know he’d be happy to be reunited with them.

Lon has gone through hip replacement surgery again. The replacement he did 15 years ago has failed. It’s been pretty stressful. He wound up in the ICU for a day after the operation. The good news is that they have a new ICU so it did not bring back too many memories. I have seen a few of the doctors that worked on Jeffrey and Lon had one nurse that worked on his wife Kate. Mostly, it’s just been hard to deal with being back here at the hospital again. The good news is that he came through the surgery okay. I am hoping to have him home soon.

Saturday, we drove to the Gorge and scattered Jeffrey’s ashes. I’d decided to scatter them over the Wind River Bridge in Carson. Local call this the High Bridge, since it’s a long way down to the river. The view is spectacular.

Lon scattered Tessie’s ashes first. Tessie was my old Rottweiler and maybe one of Jeffrey’s favorite dogs of all time. She had cancer and I had her put down a few weeks ago. Her ashes went straight down. Then I scattered Jeffrey’s. There was a mist of ashes that hung in the air. In the light, you could see them trending upwards. It was very beautiful. Then the air cleared and they were gone.

I knew these were just the shell of Jeffrey and that his soul had departed October 13th of last year. But this ritual felt right and I’m glad I decided to place his ashes at this location. Lon and I went to the local Mexican restaurant afterwards. We had nachos and margaritas. Lon asked me to tell him about when I first met Jeffrey, back in college. It felt good to tell those stories again.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Lon’s wife, Kate. He’d planned to spread her ashes in the ocean, but that has been put on hold for awhile. He’s going in for hip surgery on the 22nd. He had hip replacement surgery 15 years ago, but one of the joints disintegrated. He won’t be able to put weight on that leg for three months. I suspect we’ll do the trip to the coast this coming spring.

The new job is going okay. I start my new shift tonight, 4:30 pm to 1 am. Maybe I’ll sleep better on this one. I don’t seem to be able to handle getting up at 5 in the morning any more.

It’s one of those times of change, where the door to the old life closes and I move forward. I’ve been hired at a new job. I will be working for Netflix. I think it’s going to be fabulous and I am truly looking forward to it. It means that I am almost done with the Gorge. I will miss some of my co-workers at the old job. With three years there, I can see that it is going nowhere. And the hour and a half commute is just too much. I have really had so many changes since October. Most have been good ones. I am really looking forward to this one.

Boat projects continue. The boyfriend bought a boat trailer to haul his new project boat over from Aberdeen. I suspect we will be doing that soon. First, we will have his 87 year old mother down for a week. I’ll be working during the week, so he has a friend coming over to help. I do have that weekend off. Then the new job starts and I have a few things in the works for September, including Oregon Flock and Fiber. I am going to get back into knitting and want to do some lace projects soon. Fall always does that to me.

I have pictures of our Summer Solstice Messabout, which I hope to post this weekend. It’s just been too hectic this week to deal with it. I had something, possibly a bite, become infected with a bad staph strain. I’m on antibiotics and it does seem to be healing. I am just dealing with a two inch deep hole in my thigh. So I didn’t do a lot this last weekend, except sleep and put heat on the bite.

We actually watched a renovation show on the tv, where they did a renovation on an Aqua Home! It seemed to be a newer one. The problem is that they did a pretty lousy job of it and they removed the fly bridge for no particular reason. It did not seem like the way to fix things.

The baby kittens are adjusting to life in the bedroom with the other cats. I will be glad when we have more space for them. I’ve never had Scottish Folds, but they seem to be sweet. Of course, I like kittens, even when their little claws wake you up early in the morning 😉

The short story is that I am happy. It’s difficult to sort out a new relationship. And it’s also difficult to adjust to living with so many people. But change is part of life. There are triumphs to go with the difficulties. Having a baby in my life is fun. But mostly, the new guy in my life makes me very happy. I just wish I could spend a little more time on the water, but that day will come.

Well, yes, it seems that we do! This is a picture of the latest, two Scottish fold kittens. This is a strain of the folds that Lon’s family has been raising for some time. We do have one old male, but no new kittens. No names just yet.

No, they don't need to be washed!

We had a run in with pirates from Monrovia yesterday. They didn’t look like the sort of pirates you might expect, just a younger and older man out on the river. The problem is that they were in our boats, or at least boats belonging to people who have moorage with us. So Lon went down and barked at them, telling them to get the boats back where they belonged. The younger man was apologetic, claiming that he had been told by someone there that he could use the boat. The older man did apologize, but also took longer to bring the canoe back in. We did not call the sherrif, but the threat was made.

Lon has already lost a boat motor to them, which was “borrowed” to move another boat. They are supposed to replace it, but who knows? Things do turn up missing at the river. And I’m sure it made perfect sense to them to grab a boat just sitting there. It’s still piracy.

It’s been wonderfully warm this week. We drove out to Stabler Thursday (my day off this week) and moved my old Mazda and a load of stuff. I am getting close to closing things out there. I suspect there’s a pickup load still at the house. I closed my post office box out and set my mail to forward. It looks like that chapter of my life is about to be closed. I also noticed a funeral notice for a church member. She was a older lady with health problems, so it wasn’t totally unexpected. I always enjoyed talking to her.

I think we are going to try and go out this coming Sunday to finish things up. Lon has asked to go to the church with me. He is a bit concerned about how he’ll be received but I think that will go just fine. I am so grateful to the folks at that church, the support and love they’ve given me. I worry about how they are going to carry on. I just don’t know how I can help.

We are trying to get some of my stuff ready to sell. The pickup and trailer are going. I was going to sell my old Mazda, but am now thinking about selling the little Mazda instead. I bought it as a backup car. It’s not bad, but it’s just not as good as the old Mazda. (It’s funny that I call them that. The little Mazda is an ’87. The old Mazda is a ’95.) Plus, there are so many memories tied up with the old Mazda. It’s just hard for me to let go of it. I guess I’ll see what happens. We are not making a lot of progress on the boat right now. I am still hopeful that we can get some improvements in place and maybe move out to the river over the summer. I’m just happy to finally get moved out of the woods.

I guess, in a way, I spent the day appropriately I went through the trailer, to try and take out everything that I want to keep. We are going to clean it up and sell it. I couldn’t bear to live in it again. Even now, with things in a mess and most of my stuff moved out, it still has too many memories. The new relationship is strong and I am working on building a new life. Some days are more difficult than others.

Since I was down at the river, I took some pictures.

From the dock

Lon on the dock

Top of the dock

It was beautiful today on the river

More decorations at the top of the dock

Looking out towards the river

Yet another picture of the dock

Looking down the dock towards the houseboats

Picture of the 2 story houseboat, river side

The 2 story house boat from the other side

The river, from the deck of the 2 story houseboat

The Aqua Home still needs a bath

The West Wind belongs to Lon's son

Looking up the drive from the dock to the trailer

We went to the Depoe Bay Wooden Boat Festival a few weeks ago. I posted the pictures of the boats to the Yahoo Group for the Coots, but had these personal pictures that didn’t get posted. These were taken at Boiler Bay, which is near Depoe Bay. It’s just a nice view of part of the Oregon coast. So here you go.

This is called Boiler Bay

Another picture of Boiler Bay

Third view of Boiler Bay

Last view of Boiler Bay

Me, at the beach

Lon, at the beach

These were taken the day after we moved the boat, on April 5th. Sorry for the long delay.

The dock at the river place

View from the flying bridge

Along the riverside

The deck just below the flying bridge

View of the top of the two story houseboat

View from the flying bridge toward the front

From the side, looking towards the West Wind

From the front deck

From the front, towards the river

Inside, looking towards the front deck

The galley section

More galley

Aft, where the repairs must be made

Me, taking a picture of me in the head

The aft area

Looking out the back window

Picture of one engine, just because

closet in the aft

The bilge

I got the word yesterday that Pastor George Hollenberry had died of a heart attack. He was the pastor of the Little Church in the Valley, the church I attended. He was a good friend to Jeffrey and I. Jeffrey used to take him out on hikes through the woods and I know Pastor loved the idea of John’s Boys, the men’s group Jeffrey started. When I learned of Pastor’s death, all I could think about was that he and Jeffrey are now hiking together again, free from pain now.

When Jeffrey first got sick, Pastor gave me $100 out of his own pocket, so that I would have gas money to go see Jeffrey. I’m sure that he also got the church to give me funds to pay for funeral expenses. He went to see Jeffrey twice in the hospital and would have gone more often if he could. He was there with me, when I got word that Jeffrey had died. I’ll never forget his kindness to me. And I feel terrible for his wife Mary, as I know the pain she must have now. At least he had his family around him when he died.

Pastor was a true Christian, the kind that live out that life, not just preach about it. He always told us that we should support and encourage each other. He always tried to encourage faith in those that didn’t know Christ. He didn’t hesitate to do unpleasant work when needed. When the church basement would flood, as it did every year, it was Pastor that would wade in with a sump pump to clear things out. The church suffered a loss when Jeffrey died. It suffered a blow when we lost Pastor. I do not know how we can even come up with another pastor. There’s no way that anyone could replace him.

I had a vacation of sorts, with perfect weather. We went down to Depoe Bay for the Wooden Boat show. We intended for it to be a day trip, as I had the dogs at the house. We met up with friends and they were staying at a condo in Newport, bay side. Since they had a two bedroom condo, they invited us over to spend the night. Got someone to take care of the dogs for the night and we were set. We had a great seafood diner and a nice visit. Drove back up highway 101 for awhile and played at being tourists. It really did feel great.

At long last, I am ready to move out of the mountains. I’m not quite ready to move to the boat yet, as we are still working on getting it in shape. So, for now, I’m going to move the cats down to the river. Likely they will be put up in the two story houseboat, next to our boat, for now. We plan to fix that up and use it for overflow space in any case. They will be comfortable there. And I will be staying, for now, at Lon’s place in town. I’m already spending about four nights a week there, so that won’t be anything new. I’m hoping to finish the move by the first part of May, when I have a three day weekend to work on this.

I don’t have any sadness over this, other than I will miss my church friends. The dream I had up there has gone and any good feelings vanished with our “friend’s” decision to screw me out of the down payment I put in on the place. I am considering legal action against him. I’m tired of dealing with the snow and cold alone. I’m ready to move towards a new life. But I am leaving Jeffrey’s ashes behind, down by the beaver pond. I don’t think he would want to accompany me into town. And this will be a place I can come back and visit later on. Today is the six month anniversary of his death. My old life truly died with him. I have to go forward with my new life. The blessing is that I have a new partner that truly understands what it is like to lose your spouse. We are both amazed at our good fortune and happiness. We still talk about Jeffrey and his wife every day. Yet we are both truly happy to have met. I guess life sometimes works out that way.

I posted these on the Messabout list, so thought I should share them here as well.

Dan’s pictures of the move:
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I had really great news last week. The state is going to cover Jeffrey’s medical expenses! This is a huge relief for me. I was looking at around $170,000 in medical bills. I will still have some odds and ends to clear up and that will be hard enough. The second bit of good news is that I’ve moved most of my things over at the place. I took the stuff I wanted out of the sheds. I still need to move the trailer and a few more things. I’m hoping to do that on Saturday. Once that’s complete, I will be done with the place Jeffrey and I were buying. It’s been difficult, because the old “friend” screwed me out of everything I put into it. He won’t sell the place and is letting his son have it. So the $9,300 that I put into it as a down payment is lost. I have been through such hell since Jeffrey died that the loss of the money is almost trivial. I could use it and the “friend” knows it. I hope he gets the reward he deserves.

The boyfriend has been sick, so no progress on the boat. We are talking about paying to have it moved. It’s taking too much time to get the engines in working condition. It will have to be done, but not today. It’s costing us to keep it moored and it needs to be moved. So we are trying to scrape up the money to do that, hopefully this week as well. Once it’s moved, we can work on the interior and get it ready to be lived in. I would like to be out of the church’s house by the end of April, if possible. I feel pretty scattered with things the way that they are. I’ve been spending four days in town at the boyfriend’s and three days at the house with the cats. There’s just no way to move the cats into his house. If we can get the worst of the heavy work done on the boat, I could move the cats into it and then start moving me up to town. So I will see how it goes. I am going to start going through all the stuff that was in the shed and see what I have that I need to get rid of. I will feel better when I purge things. I am thinking about bringing over all that fleece I bought for the yurt project. I wasn’t going to bother, but I think I will, if I have time. I’d like to do some felting and it would be good to have something made from that stuff.

I still don’t know what direction my life without Jeffrey will take. The new relationship seems pretty solid. I’m happier than I have been. I still miss Jeffrey and likely always will. It seem strange, after all those years together, to be with a new man. We have all these stories yet to tell each other. We’ve shared so much. And really, I have to learn how to be my own self, to stand on my own. I don’t have to live alone to do that. I do have to learn what it means to live without that very solid marriage I had. I’ve taken off the wedding rings I used to wear and am wearing a small turquoise ring, to remind myself that I am single. The boyfriend and I have a tendancy to fall into that “old married couple” thing. It’s comfortable and one day, we may be exactly that. For now, I need to remind myself that the relationship is new and fresh.

The dogs have been doing okay. I suspect that I will have to put Tessie down in the next month or so. She has cancer, with a big tumor hanging down from the underarm area. She’s starting to get thin. She doesn’t see, hear, or walk well any more and is incontinent. I am hoping to get her to some warm weather, but I feel like the end may be near. It will be sad, but I would like to bury her on the Denne place. I will likely leave a bit of Jeffrey’s ashes with her. I think he’d like that.

I am SO ready for spring. We had a pretty good melt going. Then it decided to snow a few inches. It’s melting again, but still…I am ready for warmer weather. I’m planning to try and move the last of my things off the place next week and try to sell the trailer. Then I want to figure out what it will take to move into Vancouver. I’d like to be down there by April, which is not that far off. Mainly, I need a place for the cats. They are inside cats and we haven’t quite figured out a way to move them in. If the boat were ready, I could move there, but we are still working on it. I will find out how things are progressing tonight. I want to finish up some of the loose ends from the old life and get started on the new one.

There are bulbs in bloom in the lowlands. I’ve had roses in the bedroom, but those finally died. So I bought a few bulbs for the room today; a primrose, narcissis, and small iris. I have four cheap rose bushes to plant too. I just have that need to work with growing things for awhile.

Oh, and to show that I’m still a geek, I picked up a Palm Tungsten C last week from Free Geeks. Great price! These have a built in wifi and a larger than normal battery with 64MB of RAM. It’s a screamer. I just couldn’t resist it, although I’d sworn off on geek toys. The only thing it lacks is a camera. I guess if I ever upgrade my cell phone, I’ll just get one that has a decent camera. I might still pick up a Palm Centro for my phone. I still like Palms.

Dogs are doing fine, as are the cats. My goats have been kidding in their new home, out East. I’m adjusting to the loss of that dream. I think the reason that people have problems adjusting to the loss of a spouse is that the old dreams have died but there are no new ones to take their place. I am trying to dream those new dreams now. As I start to see them come to life, I will feel more confident about the future.