May 2023 – Caro Babbo

We’re ready.

Port Townsend, WA, 26-May-2023 – We bought tickets to go to Anchorage. We’ll fly up on the 26th of June and return in early September.

Jennifer will fly up the same day as me, which didn’t really click until I spoke to an old high school friend, Roberta Guzzone. Jennifer is flying up with me on those dates, she’ll be with me for two weeks while I get the boat ready to go into the water because she wants to be around me in case something happens. It’s an odd feeling.

I did a teleconference with a nurse practitioner at Harborview Medical Center. The nurse practitioner is from the stroke facility. I am, it seems, completely recovered from the stroke. I know that’s not completely true because I have a slight lisp when I say certain words that have an S in them. It’s not anything anyone else notices but I can.

Allegro, non-troppo

Written before the excitement, which does nothing to change the larger directions we are all chasing.

Port Townsend, 3-MAY-2023 – It’s been a heck of a year since we returned from Caro Babbo last fall.

I’m back from almost 3 weeks of bouncing around Europe seeing old true and good friends. Just before I left I started to feel the pressure of tasks to be accomplished before Caro Babbo can go in the water. I set all of that aside, other than to book my flight, then jetted around Western Europe seeing friends. It wasn’t a return to an old life, we’ve all more or less left that life. Franz, with another 10 years before he wants to call it quits, has decided he’s had enough of the newspaper industry and being a CEO. He starting a new venture with a new love and exploiting an untapped Italian market for which there are government monies looking for a place to go.

Ann is still in Paris having left Dublin 40 years ago. She’s called it quits and lives the Parisian life of leisure and magazines. Elena flew down from Moscow, she’s a travel writer, we traveled for a week around Milan and Lake Garda: travel if you can with a travel writer. I don’t need to say more.

One, Two, Three Strokes, you’re out at the ol’ ball game.

Port Townsend, WA, 8-May-2023 – Today feels like it is the end of the day that happened. But it’s not. That day was six days ago.

I remember sleeping much closer to Jennifer than I normally did, she was comfortable and quite warm. She had her hand on me, across my shoulders, then it felt a little uncomfortable. I also felt I needed to go to the bathroom.

Jennifer’d been gone for days, and I had been gone for weeks prior to that, so we hadn’t seen each other much in the last two months. It was nice to have her near, and very comforting that she should put her arm around me when she was sleeping. I scooted over leftward to the edge of the bed. She must’ve been closer than I thought because I could still feel her hand on me.