Losses ;(

For Carol’s message on the death of her brother Arthur Rudin go to her most recent blog post. Yes we have experienced an expected but totally unwelcome loss. Just five weeks after venturing to New Jersey to be able to have the support of more family then was available in Florida, Arthur is gone. Natalie, his wife, remains to continue her transition to New Jersey with her son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Their daughter Erica, who lives in Florida had been their main support until the move on December 29.

We are preparing to fly East to NJ. We are doing in a day what usually takes us a month. Book flights, hotel, rental car and pack. Pack! This is the third kind of packing, something we don’t do anymore. To pack for a months long trip we have complete setups for what to take and how to pack it. Besides we start preparing to pack a month in advance. To travel in the motorhome, another form of “packing”, takes much less as it is home and has almost everything we need already stowed where it belonged when we got off for a month’s long trip. For a three or four day trip into snow in the northeast we haven’t got a clue, nor do we have the proper clothes any longer. I dug out my Vermont Barn coat which will keep me sort of warm but is not what anyone but a Vermont farmer would call dressy. I found a pair of shoes (black with laces!) that I will wear, but snow, slush and winter will destroy them and freeze my feet. I did find gloves and earmuffs and a warmish hat.

I am dithering. I am looking forward to seeing the family, I am so grateful we spent Thanksgiving with Art and Natalie in Florida. It was our last time to spend with a brother-in-law who has been family almost as long as anyone I know. I remember the first time I met Arthur in their home in Stanford Conn. I was maybe 19 and dating Carol who met me there. He gave me a pretty severe looking over, after all he was 32 and had two children and I was coming to claim his baby sister, we were not even engaged yet. It turned out well and we came to like each other and eventually to love each other. I already miss the engaging interested electrical engineer with whom I went to look at “personal computers” in Minneapolis, when personal computers were a box of parts you put together yourself. Apple had yet to bring its first Apple II to the market. The engineer who was so fascinated with the work of Salvador Dali that the last outing we had together was to return to the Dali Museum for the umpteenth time. As I write, more and more memories are flooding back, all the way to his being a groomsman for me when Carol and I got married over 52 years ago.

I had a shot of Scotch Whiskey tonight in memory of the many times we shared a drink of fine Scotch Whiskey. I’ll let it go at that before I have another and get maudlin.