El Morro pool

Visitors

Last night old friends came for dinner.  I met them 20 years ago when I was working for the Peace Corps in Almaty, Kazakhstan.  She was a young Russian doctor who came to interview for a job with the Peace Corps medical office.  I chose her and we became colleagues and friends.  They bought my apartment and rented it back to the Peace Corps, and became our landlords.  Later she came to the US to study for her US medical license, and her husband and two children came with her.  And now 20 years later we all sat down for dinner in a different place, in a different time.  It was so great to see them.  Their son has just started a new job with Amazon here in town, so I hope I will see more of them.

Last week Nonnie's three nieces came to visit. They stayed a few days and then drove to Port Angeles. When they came back Nonnie’s sister flew into town with her two grandchildren, so then we had six people staying with us. It was fun but rather crowded and hectic. Over the years I haven't seen too much of Nonnie’s family, so it's nice to have them come visit us.  Sarah, Colin, and Oran came for dinner; it was great to have the whole family together.  Oran had a good time with his new cousins.

In the meantime we were still dealing with finding a new house for Colin and Sarah.  It turns out the house we found needs a new roof, so we're negotiating over that.  Buying a house is such a hassle.

Enroute to Orcas Island

Fishing and Baseball

Last weekend Colin and I went fishing near Mt Rainier National Park.  We fished just outside the park in a beautiful stream. It was the first time I had been to Mt Rainier in 50 years, but there were so many clouds I never did see the mountain. We drove three hours, fished for one hour, and caught nothing, so we went to a bar and had a beer and a sandwich.  The bar looked like a set from a David Lynch movie - Twin Peaks revisited.  After the beer we felt better and found another stream to fish in.  Each of us got one  trout, which we released, but at least we didn't get skunked.  All in all it was a great trip and I really enjoyed myself.

Sunday was Father's Day and Colin got tickets to the Mariners baseball game for us.  It was a cloudy showery day and the roof was closed, but we had a great time.  Safeco Field is wonderful, and the crowd was is in a good mood.  Everybody was eating hot dogs and garlic fries, drinking beer and Coke, and enjoying their afternoon.  The Mariners beat the Texas Rangers which added greatly to our experience.  After the game we wandered over to an alehouse and had a beer while we waited for our wives to come pick us up.  Then we went back to Colin's house and had a barbecue.  All in all it was a good Father's Day.

House hunting

We are once again in the process of looking for a house to buy. This time, however, the house is for our son and daughter-in-law and grandson to live in. We’ve already gone through the tedious process of applying for a mortgage with a local bank. In prior years all they wanted to know was your heart rate and body temperature, but now they want to know every detail about your financial life.

Houses in Seattle are very expensive. A relatively nice house costs half a million. The closer you get to downtown the higher the cost goes. So we are  looking further and further to the north of Seattle. Many buyers here are offering all-cash -  they don't even need a mortgage. That's hard to to compete against. The average house seems to sell in a few days. All in all it's a rather unpleasant experience, at least for me, and Nonna is doing all the work.

Some old friends are coming to visit. Next week our friends from Kazakhstan are coming to help their son move to Seattle. I remember him as a little boy in Almaty.  Now he is grown up and is starting a job at Amazon. It will be great to see them again. It's been twenty years since we lived in Almaty, twenty years since all those wonderful dinners at their house.

Resolutions revisited

Now seems like a good time to go back and revisit my New Year's resolutions, to see how I am doing. I did visit two old friend whom I had not seen from more than one year. I have completed both the speech and physical therapy programs. I'm trying to eat more chocolate and drink more wine. But I have utterly failed to write in my blog once a week. But all starts anew from today.

In April I spent three weeks working at Shiprock IHS Hospital. On the weekends I visited friends in Gallup, went to our cabin in Chama, and stayed with friends in Pagosa. I had a great time and after that trip I missed the Southwest more than ever.

Recently I read three good books; Americanah by Chimamanda Adiche, Tenth of December by George Saunders, and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It's been a long time since I read so much great writing in such a short time.

I've gone camping. Colin and I went to Grand Coulee for an overnight trip with Oran and his dog, Ono. We had our hands full, and I can't say it was a relaxing trip. However the scenery was beautiful, much like the Southwest, quite different from Western Washington.

We have been busy looking for a new house for Colin and Sarah. They will have to move out of their house in Discovery Park, since those houses have been sold to a developer who is kicking all of the tenants out. Too bad, as it was very nice for them to live in the middle of the park; too good to be true or to last. Houses in Seattle are expensive, and many people are buying with cash. I don't know where they get that much cash but they have it.  I guess they work for Microsoft.

It is been more than one year now since he moved into our house. It seems the times gone by so quickly. We will stay here another year and probably longer after that. The house is nice and the location is excellent. The owner is putting on a new roof this summer, and is replacing the furnace. That should help us through the next winter.

We have made several short ships to Oregon.  The last one was on Memorial Day weekend. The traffic was horrible, so the trip was less enjoyable and it should have been. Still, I always enjoy visiting my family and friends.  We did put flowers on the graves of our family members on Saturday, starting with Derek’s.  That was painful

Yesterday I spoke on Skype with Dhondhup, a Tibetan doctor whom I worked with at the Delek hospital in Dharamsalah, India.  He is now working in southern India in a large Tibetan resettlement area. He is the only doctor at his hospital and invited me to come and help him for a while. It is very tempting; the hospital looks modern; I’m sure the people are nice, and it would be a meaningful experience. Maybe sometime – I hope so.

The editor of the  ACP Internist called and interviewed me for her magazine. She sent me a draft of her article which seen well-written. I sent her some pictures but she said they probably can't use them because I don't have a release from the people in the pictures. It's nice to be recognized, and I'm looking forward to seeing the article. Maybe it will create more support for TBBHI.  I don't feel that I'm very good at beating our donation drum

Well it's getting late, and if I'm going to drink more wine I had better get started.