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| This is an aerial view of the development where Bill and I live. You cannot see our lot and house in this photo though, we're just off to the right. I took this picture from the website of one of my neighbor's who is selling their house. I wanted to share it with all of you to show you the totally flat coastal area where we live, only sixty feet above sea level, one of the lowest in the United States. Across the road (Route One, Coastal Highway, the main drag along the East Coast - follow Route One all the way to Florida) is Hudson Fields. That's where they have occasional "events", sometimes a musical "event" which will vibrate our modest abodes. Usually they use those fields for games or expos. Last week it was the site of the annual "Pow Wow" of the local Indians. Yes, that's right folks. We have local Indians just like they have in Palm Springs. |
New background picture here folks!
I took this one last week from our driveway on September 11th last week.
For the past two and a half years this has been my life. As a full-time caregiver for Bill, I don't get out like I used to. Oh how I miss those quarterly trips with Pat. Maybe again sometime in the future I will be able to resume those quarterly trips. But the likelihood of that now seems remote.
I really can't complain though. I love our home here in southern coastal Delaware. We may not have a backyard pool like some of our neighbors (something I wanted my whole life) but I do have a backyard pond full of goldfish. 
Part of my Pennsylvania fish pond, I had it looking really natural unlike the pond I have now here in Delaware but I'm working on it.
This picture is of one of the three ponds I had when we lived in Pennsylvania on 7.875 wooded acres on the side of a hill. I loved those ponds and even had my own wetlands filtration system which kept the pond water as clear as a West Indies beach. But alas we had to move because I could no longer afford to pay the ever increasing panoply of Pennsylvania taxes, the school/real estate tax being the biggest one.
So I had move us to the sub tropical, humid, low tax state of Delaware, the second smallest state in the nation where most people don't even know where it is located. I moved to the Rehoboth Beach area because of it's large gay population. I thought that would be a welcoming population but with few exceptions (they've since died), the local gay community is more about fund raising and cliques than they are about welcoming outsiders. But no problem, we live in a welcoming neighborhood of fifty-seven home of straight people who ARE welcoming. In fact, one of the best neighbors I ever had and still do is a MAGA guy. Who would have ever thought? Of course we don't agree politically but we both don't discuss politics, we respect each other's views, which is as it should be. At least he don't fund raise me. But we do look out for each other. He's a widower and has been our neighbor even since we moved down here to Delaware in 2006. He and his wife moved in their house about a month after we moved into our house. His wife was VERY MAGA and we did get into sometimes political discussions but of course neither one of us persuaded the other to change their views. She's been gone for over two years now and I do miss her because she had a wicked sense of humor. I miss those sessions where I used to visit with her and we would gossip about the neighborhood, trying to stay clear of political discussions, which wasn't always successful. She thought Trump was the Second Coming and Obama was the devil. Oh the discussions we could have now doubt The Criminal Trump but I digress.
It is ironic I talk about taking trips to other locales whereas I live in a vacation destination. I sometimes have to remind myself I live in a section of the country which is a permanent vacation resort. The only thing is I dare not visit the nearby beaches and towns in season because of the heavy traffic, which gets more congested every year. Last year Pat visited in the summertime for a week and we took the shuttle bus down to the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk which was cool because we didn't have to contend with the summer traffic congestion. But Pat didn't make it down this year because he was busy selling his condo in Canada and moving in and getting settled in his now more modest accommodations in downtown Hamilton. He's also working a lot as a valet driver. In fact he's been working five days at week at his "part-time" job, often leaving at 5:30 AM in the morning and not returning to his home at about seven or eight o'clock at night.
Pat still want to eventually move to Palm Springs but I just don't see that for myself. I love my home here in southern Delaware and just could not replicate a home like I have now in Palm Springs unless I won the lottery. I worked too hard all my life to get where I am now and I'm not about to throw that away for some eight foot high ceiling (we're ten feet high ceilings here) adobe 1400 square foot (we're 5200 square feet here) hut squeezed into who knows what neighbors. Sure, Palm Springs also has a large gay population and we even have a very good friend who lives there now but I suspect I would run into the same gay clique type situation that I didn't fit into here in the Rehoboth Beach area. Hey, do you think it's me? Probably. But when I talk to our friend in Palm Springs he's always telling about the latest fund raiser he's either having or attending. What is it with all these fund raisers? Probably jut an excuse for a party. Which is basically what fund raiser are anyway if one faces the truth. At this time of my life I need all the modest money that I receive from my small fixed bank pensions and Social Security. I used to work part-time at the hotel but I haven't for the past two and a half years since I've been caregiving for Bill. I don't know if they will even take me back, I'm pretty old (older than Biden) now. And besides, can I even physically do that job now? I don't know.
So here I stay, at our very comfortable home here in southern sub-tropical (which means the weather is very humid in the summertime and mild in the winter). Could be a lot worse. I'm thankful it's not.
But again, maybe someday I will see a palm tree in person.
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| Pat and me in Palm Springs, 2018 |