One month out

March 24, 2018

We leave for Greece in just over a month and I’m stuck in a coffee shop killing time for a few hours anyway, so this seems like a good time for some stock-taking on a few topics.

Rachael’s Birthday

Was yesterday. So how did it go? Definitely a mixed bag. Because Rachael likes to make the most of an event we started celebrating early, ringing out the old year with a Birthday Eve celebration. We had dinner at Justa Pasta, a casual Italian diner that’s been a favorite of ours since they opened just over 20 years ago. We don’t come here as often as we once did but we stopped in a few times a month when we first moved to Portland, when still had our home in Salem and were spending three day weekends in our new pied-a-terre until we fully relocated. Our typical weekend began with an after work drive to Portland and dinner at Justa Pasta when we first hit town.

Rachael was especially excited by the specials they were offering tonight: a Niçoise salad and salmon ravioli. I tried to convince her that I’d talked Roland into planning this in her honor, but she didn’t bite.

After dinner we headed over to The Old Church for a chamber music performance by the breathtaking Janoska Ensemble. A family affair (3 brothers and a brother in law), they’re a middle-European group that fit into a cross-over space that blends many musical styles: primarily classical, tango, jazz, and Balkan. They are enthralling to watch, combining stunning virtuosity with infectious stagecraft. They brought to mind Viennese street or restaurant musicians as well as the unique wit of Peter Schickele.

The Old Church has become one of our favorite music venues in Portland. A small, beautiful performance space, it hosts a very diverse set of performances - classical, jazz, acoustic.

The Old Church, a fine example of Carpenter Gothic

Europeans might snicker a bit, but this counts for old in Portland

Rachael’s actual birthday turned into a bit of a crap sandwich: delicious bread on top and bottom, but an unappetizing filling. The day began, as planned, with a delicious breakfast at the Bijou Cafe - by our tastes, they serve the best omelets in town. We had hoped to bike over, but the weather didn’t cooperate - windy, wet, cold. Instead, we drove over and combined it with a work trip to shuffle some of the belongings in our storage unit. After breakfast I went off to work at the storage unit, and Rachael went off to the gym.

I’m not sure if this shows that we were prescient and bought exactly the right sized storage unit (5’ x 6’ x 7’) or just that the stuff you have always expands to fit the available space.

Unfortunately, Rachael's Big Day was scarred by a call from our realtor, and an emergency meeting at her office with her and her manager (see below).

The day ended on the best of notes though, with the long anticipated John Gorka concert. He’s a fine singer/songwriter, one of our favorites. I think this is the fifth time we’ve seen him. A very special evening.

A window into the future

Well, poop. It looks like we aren’t going to have quite the smooth home sale we’ve been hoping for. As it turns out, there is a significant issue with the windows in our unit. It has a lot of glass, facing southwards into the weather, and there is weather damage to the sills and perhaps more - we don’t know the extent yet because we haven’t seen an inspectors report. It’s serious enough though so that it will have to be addressed before we can sell the place. We have a window renovation/replacement project of unknown scale in our near future, and our utopian fantasies of closing the sale before we leave for Greece just flew out of them.

This doesn’t look too painful. Oh, wait - there’s also the bedroom.

We spent a chunk of the afternoon discussing the situation with our realtors, talking through the various scenarios. We’re hopeful that the prospective buyers will stay in the game as long as we take responsibility for resolving the window issues first, but that remains to be seen. In the meantime, we need to get started on the window project - work through issues with the HOA (the governing body for the condo, which needs to be involved in work like this), line up an inspector and contractor, and so on. We’ve changed our plans for the coming week and will stay in town rather than going down to Eugene so that we can get things rolling. Yuck.

None of which affects our plans for leaving for Crete in a month. We’ll just have to work out how to keep things moving forward in our absence. It’s a small, wired world so we’ll work it out. It does though reinforce our conviction to simplify our lives. I don’t think we will miss being home owners at all, and I suspect once we resettle some year down the road it will be as renters.

I’m reminded that it’s been far too long since I dipped into Walden, one of my touchstones in my twenties. “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.“

A last look (for now; we’ll be back in June) at Tiffany’s. The camellia droppings have really taken over during our stay!

Three year plan

If you can’t be on the road, dream about the road; that’s my motto. Actually, we’re developing a fairly detailed road map for the coming three years (which, only coincidentally, will see us through the next presidential election; there are worse times to be mostly abroad). We’re thinking it out that far in advance because we’re looking at strategies that maximize our time in the Schengen Zone, find us in Portland around my parents’ birthdays and PIFF, generally avoid our damp, cold winters, and fit in as many of our A-list destinations as possible.

The plan below will undoubtedly float a bit, but it looks very promising. If our health/enthusiasm/luck holds, it looks like a dream road map. I’ll publish it here as a combined policy statement and historical marker tha we can look back on.

Note that dates are based on the Andersonian Calendar, which begins on April 1st - the general time of year that we expect to leave Portland after our winter residency here.

2018

April: Portland
May, June: Greece & Albania
July, August: Portland, with an embedded month-long trip to the Canadian Rockies
September to December: Split (Croatia) to Barcelona
December, January: Taiwan
February, March: Portland (we’ve already booked our downtown lodging, close to the film center)

2019

April to June: Italy, Montenegro, Croatia (Palermo to Dubrovnik)
July: Portland
August: Ireland
September, October: western Spain, southern Portugal (Santander to Lisbon, using the new ferry service from Cork to Santander that starts this year)
November thru January: Australia (SA, Victoria, Tasmania)
February, March: Portland

2020

April, May: Japan, South Korea

June: Portland

July thru September: Europe. Many possibilities of course, but something like Edinburgh to Budapest looks attractive, taking us through Brittany, Burgundy, Bavaria, and Slovakia among other places.
October, November: South Africa
December, January: American Southwest
February, March: Portland

That’s far enough out for now, don’t you think? If we can fit all this in, we’ll be a pretty happy team.

Rachael requested a visual aid, so here’s what the European portion of the three year plan looks like.

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Jacquie GaudetWe seem to be interested in many of the same destinations, but I haven't thought much beyond my first retirement cycling trip in 2019. Maybe I'll be able to crimp more from your future journals... On the other hand, we might cross paths in the Canadian Rockies this summer.

Jacquie
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6 years ago

Suzanne GibsonDizzying plans! The socialist countries always had 5-year plans which of course they could not fulfill. Glad you only made a 3-year plan. It looks fantastic!
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6 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonYup! My secret is out - I’ve always had a bit of a red streak. Sadly, Bavaria is no longer on this year’s plan so we won’t be passing near Munich this fall after all. We changed our starting point to Split when it sunk in that we could start earlier and lengthen our stay in Europe by beginning in Croatia.
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6 years ago

Suzanne GibsonTo Scott AndersonSorry we won't meet up. Maybe another time another place.
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6 years ago

Scott AndersonCould be sooner than later, Suzanne. Trento, Bolzano, Brixen are all SO CLOSE to Munich. On those cushy ebikes you’d hardly even notice the mountains in between.
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6 years ago

Tony CullimoreJust catching up with your journal - bit late. I see you plan to hit Tasmania at some stage. When planning remember - you are always welcome to stay with us.
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5 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Tony CullimoreThanks so much, Tony. We’ll surely take you up on this when we make it down there. We’re both anxious to visit your island again and spend longer there this time through.
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5 years ago