Canary Islands Tour (November 1999)

It was August 15, 1997, and I was desperately worried about November 17, 1999. I often worry about the future, but not usually with so much accuracy.

The Perseid meteor shower had just passed and the Leonids were coming.  Normally, the Leonids are a minor shower, hardly worth staying up for, but every 33 years they put on an incredible fireworks show.  The last outburst was 1966.

The best place to view the meteors would be the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco. A friend, who’d just watched a total solar eclipse in the Caribbean, recommended we go by boat, so Dawn and I took a three-day cruise to see if we even liked cruising. Except for the smoking and a little motion sickness, we had a great time.

Several tours were going to the islands, but none on boats. In fact, I only found only one cruise ship that would be in the area, and their website didn’t even mention the meteor storm. Thankfully that also meant their prices were still reasonable.

One day I telling my neighbor, John, about the trip and jokingly asked, “Wanna come?” To my shock and horror he said, “Sure!” I considered faking my own death to get out of it (Dawn didn’t think I should fake it), but I'm the end we booked an extra ticket.

In seven days we saw five cities in three countries. The first indication we were out of the country was on the flight to Gran Canaria, where they served a breakfast of cheese and cold cuts.  The second was the “exit” signs in the airport, which read “Way Out.”

The catalog pictured a small, sleek ship with a black hull and a pointed prow, revealing its original purpose as a mail ship.  We were ushered onto a bulky, white, stub-nosed ship, announcing its new purpose as tourist transport.  Our cabin was “swinging-70s” (orange, green, and yellow, in that order).  There was a small, inoperable window that overlooked a lifeboat; air came from a single duct that could be opened or closed, but which only carried cold air. It might as well have been labeled “Stuffy” and “Freezing.”

The buffet operated sixteen hours of the day but the food was always bland and boring – clearly they were catering to the British, who made up about 70% of the register. The entertainment was painful with the exception of the lounge act, a quartet of young Brits playing American standards.  I fell in love the first night when they took my request for “It's Only A Paper Moon,” and I listened to them every night. Dawn developed motion sickness and was usually in bed pretty early, so it was nice having John's company. Fortunately, he never asked me to dance.

There were only 700 passengers on a ship that could hold 1,400, so while it was hardly a ghost ship, there was plenty of elbow room and we could generally get away from the smokers. It also meant we kept running into the same people, which was a problem because I didn’t like most of them. The worst was “the Troll,” who complained about to everyone. She sat next to us on the airport shuttle and, presumably because we didn't tell her to shut up, she considered us friends and always sat near us.

Dinner was pre-arranged so we always ate with the same people—three American women from Philadelphia, plus a really nice couple from New Jersey.  Since Dawn was also from Pennsylvania, we tried to engage the women in conversation but they embodied the worst of American tourists—no interest in the local culture, no desire for understanding, no respect. They'd never heard of the Leonid meteor shower and weren't interested; they were only there for sun and some cheap souvenirs.

All of the Canary Islands are of volcanic origin, and on Lanzarote a magma chamber only 1½ miles beneath the surface kept the ground temperature a toasty 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  While comfortable to walk on, it was too hot to touch.  The amazing thing was, there were no barriers; the place hadn’t been “Disneyfied.”  Strictly for the tourists, they would throw a bush into a hole in the ground and watch it catch fire; then they’d pour water down a shaft which responded with an intense geyser of super-heated steam. The most original idea was the restaurant, which barbecued meat over an open pit in the ground. I, of course, leaned over the pit to get a better look and promptly seared off my eyebrows.

Morocco was amazing. My guidebook listed a number of scams to watch out for, and we saw them all.  The first man we met introduced himself as an “official” guide.  With a little haggling, the price of a taxi into town dropped from $40 to $5.  (Then I found out the city was only five minutes away, so even $5 was outrageous!) We asked the taxi to take us to a bank so we could withdraw cash -- he drove past three banks before dropping us off at “his” bank, where he personally introduced us to the banker. Then we were passed off to a merchant who had an uncle who could get us a great deal on a Moroccan rug.

My guidebook also said to avoid asking about two subjects: religion and the royal family.  My first question was about the king, and my second was about Islam.  This was not intentional—the banker, like everyone else, had a picture of King Hassan II on the wall, and I asked if that was the person on the currency.  I found out that Hassan II had died four months ago, and that soon all the money would be changed to have the picture of the new king, Mohammed VI.  Then I remembered the guidebook said Islam forbids the portrayal of any living thing, so I asked why they used a drawing of the king.  The banker was very patient but clearly agitated, and I never got an answer.

Beyond that, the people were all very pleasant, not at all the militant guerillas set on the destruction of everything American, as seen on TV.  We even saw a McDonald’s, although the menu was in French. (History lesson for the day: Morocco became a French protectorate in the 1920s, much to the dismay of the Moroccan people.  They finally regained their independence in 1961, but French is still the second-most common language, and the language of business in Morocco.)  There were no fantastic sights—each new ruler completely destroyed everything that existed before him—and the city was dirty and overcrowded, but the people were lively and spirited.

This was quite a contrast to the tourists I was with. Everyone was either hungry or cold or tired; nobody was happy, excited, or interested.  Dawn and I had always traveled alone, never in a large pack of gaudily dressed tourists intent on making a spectacle out of another culture, and so I was completely surprised by how violent my reaction was.

When the tour bus pulled up to the Koubadi Mosque.  I was actually embarrassed standing outside snapping pictures. (Non-Muslims were not allowed inside.)  At our next stop, a “traditional” Moroccan meal that no Moroccan would be caught dead at, I felt humiliated. On the way back, we stopped at the Hassan II mosque, which is supposed to be the largest religious building in the world. The inside is supposed to be even more spectacular, with artisans from around the country working on it for over six years.  It was one of the few mosques non-Muslims are allowed to enter, but it was closed for the night.  I was really disappointed, and it took all my strength to keep from beating the crap out of the guy on the bus that said, “You’ve seen one mosque you’ve seen ‘em all.”

Maybe I’m just being romantic, but the locals seemed to smile and laugh much more than the tourists.  Maybe they were just smiling and laughing at the tourists.

I also had another revelation. In Morocco, stop signs and lane markers are only suggestions; every person drives according to his whim. But in Morocco, I did not see any “road rage.”  If a car was in the way, you went around; if you couldn’t go around, you waited until the car moved.  There were no rules, so nobody demanded that you follow them, and there seemed to be this quiet acceptance of everyone else.  About ten years ago I had been to Italy, and I absolutely detested it for exactly the same reason—they didn’t follow the rules.  I think maybe I’m ready to visit Italy again.

Madeira could not have been more of a contrast than the volcanic desert of Lanzarote or the impoverished Morocco.  Portuguese by nature (compelling yet another currency conversion), the capital city of Funchal is built on a steep mountain and covered in evergreens and grape vines.  The steep roads led to an innovative tourist attraction: “basket rides.”  Two people sit on a rattan love seat with sleds and are pulled down the hillside and through the city.   Obviously, no liability insurance here, either.)  We purchased six bottles of Madeira wine in total disregard for customs limitations.  (The only other things we'd bought, besides food, were two t-shirts, a pin, two candy bars, a Pez dispenser with a camel wearing a fez, for a grand total of $72.)

Santa Cruz, back in the Canary Islands, was probably the island I was looking forward to the most—its volcanic crater was the tallest mountain in Spain, and the tram ride to the top was supposed to be spectacular.  We rented a car and our tablemate, Mario (half of the nice couple from New Jersey) joined us. Unfortunately he wanted to see the “Black Madonna” (legend had it the Virgin Mary appeared over the ocean as a black woman; historians think it was the prow of a sunken ship that had washed up on shore) and the “pyramids” (two years ago, a developer discovered pyramids very similar to the Mayan ruins, and nobody knows what they are doing here). I didn't actually want to see these - I wanted to drive to the crater - but I was being nice so we saw those first, then dropped Mario and John back at Tenerife, the capital. There was three hours of daylight left and it would take 90 minutes to get to the crater, so it was perfect, as long as everything else went smoothly

We immediately got lost in the city—the road that looked like it led out of the city only led to the docks, so we turned around and got on the main road, which only took us to the other side of the city.  It turned out the first road was correct, we just hadn’t gone far enough.

That had wasted 45 minutes and we were running low on fuel, but I decided to head over the first mountain range and get gas in the next town. The mountain was quite steep on the city side, but the other side was almost a sheer drop into the sea, with a small village nestled between the slope and the surf. Navigating some extraordinarily tight switchbacks, we finally arrived at the village only to be told the nearest gas station was back in Tenerife!

There was no choice but to abandon the crater and return to the city. All the way up the mountain I kept imagining having to walk over the mountain to get gas, then over it again to get back to the car! Somehow we made it and we ended up touring the city instead. While clean and bustling, it lacked the excitement of Morocco and the culture of Madeira, and could have passed for any cosmopolitan city.  It was certainly an anti-climax to the end of our cruise.

The problem I have with books is I fancy myself a closet-author, a pretense I can only maintain while reading trash. To pick up a Tom Robbins novel is to admit defeat. I took John Steinbeck’s, “Travels With Charley,” which not only forced me to accept failure as a writer, but as a traveler as well.  Steinbeck asked the big questions—why are we here, what are we doing, where are we going—and while he may not have found the answers, he both extended his understanding and exposed his ignorance.  I asked the small questions—why are they here, what are they doing now, why won't they go away—and all I came home with were six bottles of wine and a cheap pin.

Oh, I almost forgot the meteor shower. The ship turned off all the lights in the front of the boat at night, which made it perfect for stargazing.  (They also put up little signs that said the deck was closed but we ignored those.)  The entire trip had been cloudy, especially in the evenings, plus the wind picked up and it became quite chilly.  We spent two full nights huddled in coats and blankets, mostly watching clouds. When I got home, I checked the web sites and found that the shower had peaked at about 25 meteors per minute, a far cry from the 2,500 meteors per minute in 1966.

One web site, which predicted this year would be lackluster, also predicted that next year would be good and 2001 would be the best. If they’re correct next year then I’ll try again in 2001. Dawn should be an easy sell; the best viewing will be from Australia.

Albuquerque (October 1998)

I'd bought an SLR camera for the 1996 New England Tour, and this was before digital cameras when you still had to buy film. I took 6 rolls with me but I ended using 15--in one weekend! One package I bought included a pin badge for the balloon fiesta, which I stuck on my camera bag. That little freebie lead to me to buying dozens of pin badges from everywhere I went and covering my camera bag! 

I told a friend I wanted to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta and she said she'd always dreamed about going to New Mexico on her birthday which, it turned out, was October 2nd, the day before the Balloon Fiesta. It seemed like fate so I booked plane tickets, a hotel, dinner reservations, and a balloon ride (against my better judgement) for three of us.

I changed jobs right about that point and they sent me to two weeks of orientation in Boston, followed by a week of training in San Francisco. The Friday I returned from San Francisco was the Friday we were leaving for Albuquerque. No problem: The class ended at 2, I could get a flight at 4, I would be home at 5, and the Albuquerque flight was at 8. What could go wrong?

On Tuesday, Dawn called me: Our friend couldn't go. We went over the list of people we might want to spend a weekend with, and then decided to try and cancel the extra seat. Fortunately it wasn't a problem for the airline or the balloon flight (who admitted he was overbooked anyway).

On Friday I got to the airport to find my flight to LA was delayed by an hour. I tried to get on stand-by for an earlier flight, but no luck there. Fortunately I was able to catch Dawn and rearrange the schedule: Instead of picking me up on her way home from work, she would go home and pack, then pick me up at terminal 7 and drive to terminal 1. (LAX is a nightmare.)

Dawn got to terminal 7 and found my luggage, but not me. It turned out my flight was delayed another 30 minutes, but my luggage had taken the earlier flight.

I finally landed, we drove around the airport a few times before finding short-term parking, checked in about 10 minutes to spare. We were ying Southwest Air and they don't assign seats; instead, you board according to the order you check in, and since we were the last to arrive, the only seats available were the ones next to sumo wrestlers and screaming babies.

We arrived in Albuquerque and I went to the car rental desk, who said they'd never heard of me. While I went through our luggage trying to find the confirmation number, Dawn checked with all of the other rental agencies, and discovered that I'd made and cancelled reservations with all of them. She found out something about me that day that I would have preferred she never knew. I finally found the reservation number and the clerk pulled up my record.

The clerk was really nice; he even offered to give us directions to our hotel. This forced me to admit that I didn't know where the hotel was. After he finished laughing at me, he got their address from the phone book and gave us directions. I found most people in Albuquerque were very friendly; I think I could get used to being treated like a human being. The clerk also recommended that we get to the balloon park around 5am to beat the traffic.

We got to our hotel around midnight (Albuquerque is very small and very well laid out on a strict grid, so I only got lost twice) and I set the alarm for 4am. Needless to say, we blew that off. (The alarm clock was across the room so I had to get out of bed in the freezing cold, walk across the room to hit the snooze button, and then get back in bed. I did that four times.) We finally got on the road around 6am, both tired and hungry and grouchy. We followed the traffic until we came to an absolute dead standstill. After 15 minutes we'd moved about 30 feet. Normally, I'd be a screaming maniac at that point, but that morning I was captivated by the "Dawn Patrol." About half a dozen balloons had gone up in the dark, presumably to test the weather. You couldn't see them until they "fired off" (or whatever the correct terminology is) and then they would glow like little light bulbs in the sky. Dawn said they looked like fireflies.

I finally got off the freeway, only to find the surface streets were *much* worse. I parked at a nearby Burger King and Dawn and I hiked about 3 miles to the park. We got there just before 7am, which was when the "mass ascension" was supposed to occur. We watched a few balloons set up, which was pretty interesting: They used a large industrial fan to fill the balloon with air, then they fired the propane to heat the air and cause the balloon to rise. The entire process took only 10-15 minutes, which was amazing considering many of the balloons were over 100 feet tall. There were dozens of balloons and they started taking off one after the other. I was actually a little disappointed because I thought they were all going to take off at once.

However, more balloons filled up and lifted off, and then more, and then more after that! Everywhere we looked, balloons were setting up, and wave after wave of balloons lifted off. Before long there were hundreds of balloons in the sky! It was absolutely magical. If you haven't gone, go--it's an awe-inspiring moments that just makes you deliriously happy.

Most of the balloons were the standard, uh, balloon shape, but there were some wild ones--Pepsi and Mountain Dew in can-shaped balloons, J&B and Early Times in bottle-shaped forms, the Canadian flag in both a box and a maple-leaf shape, a daisy, Mrs. Butterworth, bears, pigs, ducks, a huge cow, and--my favorite--a Canadian mountie, complete with horse! Dawn and I went through 9 rolls of film in an hour and a half. (They estimated that 25 million pictures would be taken during the 10 days of the fiesta--Kodak even had vendors selling rolls of film on the field!)

The balloons just rode the currents back and forth over the city--in fact, that's why the balloon fiesta is held in Albuquerque in October. The winds are usually just right to create a "box" over the city and you can steer the balloon just by changing your altitude. We got to watch some of the balloons land, but most landed outside of the park. (An announcer warned people to get out of the way of a balloon landing because they have the inertia of a two-ton truck.)

Everything was just about finished and I glanced at my watch--it was only 10:30am! We drove to Santa Fe, hit three museums, browsed innumerable stores, and ate dinner. It was not a memorable city, and certainly did not live up to my expectations as an artist's mecca. It certainly had its share of "Santa Fe style" buildings, but they were mixed in and around regular buildings, so on the whole it was pretty uninspiring.

While listening to the radio, we heard an announcement that Badfinger (the 60's band) was playing at Camel Rock, which was an Indian casino just north of Santa Fe. This didn't interest me in the slightest until they mentioned the concert was free, and we went right after dinner. Unfortunately, we soon found out that Badfinger wasn't playing until 10pm (or whenever bingo finished). Since we had to get up at 4am for the balloon ride, we decided to pass.

We woke up at 4:50am (the alarm had been going off since 4:00) and got to the launch site by 6. The morning was cold but calm and we were really getting psyched for the flight. At 6:30, the owner came out and commented on how beautiful the morning was...and that he was canceling the flight. Apparently the winds off the Sandia mountains were gusting at 35mph.

I think Dawn burst into tears. I did a little back-of-the-envelope calculation and realized that he was walking away from about $22,000 dollars for about 4 hours worth of work, so I knew he was pretty serious. (He commented that one balloon cost between $65,000 and $210,000 so risking it for one flight was not in his best interest.) If anyone was paying attention to the news, the next day a balloon did crash and one person was killed. (Not from this outfit, I might add.)

I wasn't terribly upset about the balloon ride--we could always do that somewhere else--but I was upset that the mass ascension and the balloon glow were also cancelled. The balloon glow, which is only held two evenings during the festival, is when the balloons are filled with air and the fire is turned on, but the balloons are sitting on the ground. The pictures look absolutely spectacular, but I guess we'll have to wait until next year to get pictures of our own.

We spent the day in Albuquerque (after a proper breakfast) looking at petroglyphs in the volcanic rubble on the west side of the city, then browsing in shops in Old Town, and finally we took the aerial tram to the top of the Sandia mountains. The tram ride is about 3 miles long, the ascent is nearly 4000', and the vistas are just spectacular. We concluded the day by going back to the balloon park (I was hopeful, but the balloon glow was still cancelled). I also hoped to get some nice sunset pictures, but no such luck. Devastated, I was walking back to the car when we happened to notice the full moon was just rising against the Sandia mountains. It was an awesome sight in the crystal clear skies and I finished off another roll of film.

We are definitely going back next year. We're going to plan earlier, as a lot of hotels book up months in advance; we're going to fly out earlier, so we get a decent night's sleep; we're going to stay at least four days, so if the weather doesn't cooperate one day we won't be stuck; and we're going to bring twice as much film!

Halloween

Halloween is a big thing in the US - according to the National Retail Federation, it is now the second-largest commercial holiday, just behind Christmas. In 2019, adults spent an estimated US $8.8 billion on costumes, candy, decorations, etc.

When I moved to the UK, Halloween wasn't a big deal (you couldn't even find carving pumpkins) so I gradually lost interest. However, for ten years I hosted an annual pumpkin carving party, inviting friends to make a mess on the deck. (I didn't do anything in 1993 and 1994, 2001 we were on a cruise and I don't have any photos from 2002. In 2005, Dawn moved to Pennsylvania to start the B&B restoration and I don't think I held a party that year. I moved to Pennsylvania in July 2006 and unexpectedly moved back to LA on Halloween that same year. I may have hosted something in my downtown apartment in 2007, but I can't find any photos. Then I moved to the UK in May 2008.

1992

1995

1996

  

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2003

2004

I moved to New Zealand in September 2014 and tried to do something with the kids, but they weren't really into it and we had to use food pumpkins, so it just felt wasteful. In 2015 we had an international student staying with us and she'd never carved a pumpkin before so we did it one more time.

2014

2015

I keep talking about growing my own pumpkins but I tried that once and they weren't ready by the end of October, so not only did I have to buy pumpkins but then I had a bunch of pumpkins left over! (I actually carved them to create the 2003 invite, so it wasn't a total loss.)

Christmas 2009-2019 newsletters

 After 2008 I started posting the newsletter to the blog, and you can see them here:

• 2009
• 2010
• 2011
• 2012
• 2013
• 2014 missing??
• 2015

However, I never published the "2016 year in review" (it was in draft form) so here it is for the first time:

I wrote the 2015 newsletter a bit prematurely -- December 10, to be precise -- because just before Chistmas our landlords told us they would not be extending our lease! (They had been living in China and had decided to move home.) We had been thinking about buying a house but I was still out of work and with only one month to find another property, we had no time. Fortunately, the house we'd tried to rent the previous year had just come back on the market and so we were able to immediately make an offer and we ended up renting it. The new landlords were also overseas and they didn't ask for a lease, just a month-to-month contract, so I was a bit concerned they were thinking about moving back but they assured me they had no plans to do so. Our plan was still to buy a house so we were happy leasing month-to-month.

About the same time I was approached by an old co-worker who was starting up a company and asked me to join. I was employee #4 and I started on the same day we moved into the new house. (It was also the day our Internet provider screwed up and it took two weeks to get Internet!) Employee #3 quit after a month so it was just the three of us -- one in California, one in Oxford and me in New Zealand -- trying to build a new concept from scratch, and it has been very intense with crazy hours, but quite exciting.

Things were going really well...for about six weeks. That's when an estate agent showed up at our door to let us know the owners had put the house up for sale! They didn't even have the decency to let us know themselves.We were livid but there wasn't much we could do. Property prices in New Zealand had been on fire, going up 15-20% every year, which was pricing us out of the market. The owners were asking top dollar so we were hoping it wouldn't sell, but at the last minute they got an offer, which turned into a month of negotiating, then the bank submitted its own list of requirements. When it was finally settled, the new owner told us he needed to sell his current house before moving in, so we could stay until the end of November.

My partner is one of those people who hates doctors, hospitals, medicine, etc. She's not into crazy alternative therapies (though we've had heated discussions over the merits of manuka honey), nor is she a stranger to western healthcare (she's had three kids and sliced open her foot once in a freak pane glass window issue) but generally speaking she takes care of herself and keeps away from doctor. However, she started having abdominal issues and the doctors couldn't figure out why. They finally sent her for a CT scan of the entire abdomen which discovered...breast cancer.

Of course that wasn't related to the abdominal issues, but it took immediate precedence. It was a miracle they even found it because the CT scan just happened to catch the corner of her breast, where it was located. Thankfully, the NZ health system is actually quite amazing when it comes to cancer and she quickly had a succession of scans to see if the cancer had spread (it hadn't) and in less than a month she had surgery to remove the tumor.

Unfortunately, she then developed a series of infections which resulted in her being in and out of the hospital several times.The nurses and ED* doctors were great. In fact, two of the ED doctors belong to our synagogue so we got VIP treatment. :-) It was almost two months before my partner was feeling human again and able to go back to work and, more importantly, start the radiation therapy. (As the cancer was localized, they decided to do local radiation rather than chemotherapy.)

Of course all this meant we couldn't search for a house and our deadline was fast approaching. Now, I don't believe in divine intervention, but in mid-November I got a call from the new owner saying he'd just been offered a job in Brisbane so they were moving to Australia and asked if we wanted to stay in the house. It was a Hanukkah miracle.

Around the same time, the eldest daughter decided to move back in with us. The kids' father, who worked overseas and had never been around much, decided it would be funny to alienate the kids from their mom, so every time he visited he would tell the kids outlandish lies about their mom. Being kids, they lacked the rational capacity to see through his nonsense, but every time the kids would come home we'd spend hours calming them down because whatever he told them had freaked them out. (He also had a history of mental illness.) The younger two weren't as susceptible but the eldest was, and he really did a number on her. A few months after she turned 14 he told her she could live with his new wife. (I should note she was Nigerian in her mid-20s with a newborn baby who had just moved to New Zealand, so she was very happy to have a live-in babysitter.)

Of course this violated the custody agreement and we went to court but New Zealand has some very strange laws, including that a 16 year old can choose where they want to live, and that 14 is close enough to 16. So she stayed with her step-mom and had no adult supervision. She cut herself off from her peers and her school attendance (and grades) were disastrous, and there wasn't anything we could do except hope that she came to her senses. It took a year and a half, and I think a large part of that was she couldn't figure out a way to admit to herself she'd made a mistake. When her mom got sick, she quietly moved back in. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered she'd been left feral and had forgotten how to be part of a family, and so on top of everything else we were spending a lot of time dealing with her anti-social behaviours. On top of that, the middle child had flourished in her absence and now saw her older sister as an interloper and has suggested--numerous times--that she should go back to her step-mom's.

(I should note that over much of this period their dad was actually in New Zealand and living about 1km away. The kids made almost no effort to see him, and in fact they ran into him accidentally at the supermarket more often than they went to his house.)

But as 2017 dawns, all is right with the world. We've got all the kids at home again, which can sometimes feel like a chore but always feels like a blessing. We feel like we have a "home" again, even if it is a rental (and we're still hopeful we can buy a house in 2017). We went camping for a couple of days over Christmas and now the kids are at summer camp so we have a little time to ourselves. My partner will be finished with the radiation treatment at the end of January and I've told her she's not allowed to be sick again for at least two years. Between house, health and work, we didn't do much entertaining in 2016, but I'm hoping to pick that up again. We have friends here who are moving back to the States so we're looking to buy their car. (It's a 2008 VW to replace our 2004 Toyota.) So all in all, 2016 could have been better, but it could also have been much, much worse, so I'm very grateful. And, as always, I will remain optimistic about 2017...right until it kicks me in the nuts.

* ED=emergency department, which is A&E in the UK and ER in the States.

P.S. I didn't write reviews for 2017, 2018 or 2019, which is disappointing because the whole point of this was to remind me of all the things I'd done! Now all three years are a blur and all I can remember is this: After surgery and radiation, my partner recovered but I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I quit the start-up but it took almost a year to find another job. In the meantime I served on the Board of Directors for our synagogue and got shingles. In 2017, my stepson had his bar mitzvah and while the family was visiting, I proposed to my partner. We were married March 25, 2018 under a chuppah. In July of 2018 I was hired by MetService, New Zealand's weather agency. We did look for houses, and even made an offer on one, but didn't get it and we continue to live in the same rental. In 2019 our eldest daughter went on a gap year program in Israel and in 2020 she started university.

OK, I think you're all caught up now. Please remind me in December to write something.

Christmas 2008 newsletter

Money's tight
Times are hard
Here's your naught-eight
Christmas card...

Apologies for only sending an e-card this year, but postage from the UK to the US is astronomical!

2008 started on a sad note: Alex the iguana passed away in February.  She was 17 years old and graced the cover of every Christmas card from 1994 to 2005.

As you're probably aware, 2006 was a low point for me, and most of 2007 was spent recovering.  If you're not aware: I spent my life's savings restoring an historic property that was in my wife's family, with the intent of moving there and opening a bed and breakfast. When it was finished, however, we got divorced instead, and I ended up with no money, no job, no car, and no home.

That's not entirely true: I still had a home because the house in LA had been on the market for over 6 months without a single offer. Unfortunately, I'd already borrowed almost all of its equity--in fact, I was over a million dollars in debt--so I had to sell the house fast. I decided to get rid of the popcorn ceilings, refresh the kitchen and change the carpet -- things that had been on my to do list for about ten years. For the next four months I was living in my own house with no furnishings save for an inflatable bed, two suitcases, and a mini-fridge. My neighbor loaned me a frying pan, a knife, and a can opener so I could cook. I had no car, no WiFi, the house was a construction zone, and my life was in limbo. That was the worst part, not being able to move on, and I was really depressed. Even though I had to walk everywhere, I put on 35 pounds.

It got even more bizarre: When the work was finished, I hired someone to “stage” the house, which meant she put in furniture, paintings, decorations, etc.  Now I was living in my own house with somebody else's stuff and--contractually--I couldn't even sit on the sofa! (I did, anyway.)

The house finally sold in February 2007 for $50,000 less than I'd hoped, so when I say I was flat broke I'm not exaggerating. At the age of 37, I was starting over completely, with no money, no home and no job. So I decided to move to London.

I know it sounds crazy (it was), but I figured if I had to start over, I should do it differently. I thought about all the places I could move to and the only US city that appealed to me was San Francisco, and the only English-speaking country that appealed to me was the UK.

However, for the UK work permit I needed proof of employment for the past 12 months, which I couldn't provide because of the bed and breakfast, so I moved in with my mom (at 37!) and looked for a job in San Francisco. About two weeks later a friend offered me a job in LA. I'd already said I was never going to move back to LA, but after two weeks with my mom, I took it.

One of the things that appealed to me was it was working in downtown LA. I hadn't worked there in 12 years, the homeless outnumbered the residents, but for some reason I loved downtown LA. I rented a funky loft with a spectacular view and a 10 minute walk to work and relied on public transportation. All of my friends thought I was crazy to live in LA without a car but I saw more and did more in that one year than I'd ever done. (And Dawn and I were known for doing things!) I got to experience a whole different side of Los Angeles, and while it didn't make me want to stay, it did make me feel like I wasn't running away.

After working for 12 months, I reapplied for a UK work permit and got it. I quit my job, packed everything into three suitcases, reserved a hotel in London for two weeks, and left. I didn't even have a job lined up, but the economy was booming so I wasn't too worried. That was May 2008. By June the UK economy had collapsed in the "Great Financial Crash."

The night before I left, some friends invited me to a group dinner and I mentioned my crazy plans, and someone said her daughter lived in London and worked in IT, and gave me her phone number. I tried calling her before I left but she never returned my call. I called again when I arrived (and had a local phone number) but she again didn't return my call, so I gave up. I started talking to agencies and sending out my CV and getting to know London. About three weeks later, Jess called me back. Feeling guilty, and knowing I was vegetarian, she offered to buy me lunch at a cafe near Primrose Hill. We met on a Sunday afternoon in June and I was immediately smitten. She was about 18 months younger, with a soft South African accent. (She'd move to London as a teenager.) I didn't want to blow it by talking about my ex-wife, my finances or anything that had happened in the last two years. Naturally, she opened the conversation with, “Are you married?” followed by, “Why did you move to London?” Of course I told her everything.

I was very surprised, then, when she agreed to a proper date. I had butterflies all week and felt like a teenager. The thing is, I'd never dated, I just fell into relationships. I had no idea how to behave but I knew how I felt, so I went with that and hoped I didn't scare her off. During the date I held her hand and after the date I kissed it, and it was all over for me.

She was quite shy and didn't want any photos of her, which meant that for six months I was sending emails to friends and family saying, "I've fallen in love, but I don't have any pictures of her!" I'm sure they all thought I was lying, so in December I brought her back to California with me. In eight days, she met most of my family and about 50 of my friends and co-workers.


So I got a girlfriend but not a job. I kept getting interviews but when I'd call a week later, I was told they had a hiring freeze, or they'd gone out of business. In addition, the week after I transferred all of my savings to the UK, the pound fell 25%! So what I thought would see me through four months only saw me through three months. By August I was seriously considered moving back to the States, but that's when the US economy tanked.

Thankfully I was able to get some money from my IRA and, after three months, I moved out of the hotel and subletted a flat from a woman who had a six-month project in Africa. As summer transitioned to winter, I thought I was going to hate it, but in fact I loved London even more. The only remaining step is to find work, no mean feat given that unemployment here is at a 20-year high.

Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year.

Funny I didn't mention I'd proposed to Jessica in November, on Primrose Hill. She turned me down, saying "it's too soon." Between that, lack of employment, lack of money, being so far from my family and knowing I had to move again in February, I started into a real downward spiral.... 

Christmas 2007 Newsletter

In December 2005 Dawn and I separated, and I was too depressed to write a newsletter. (Although oddly, I was still blogging about the B&B: https://speedwellbb.blogspot.com/2005/12/first-ad.html) We reconciled (sort of) a few months later and I moved to Pennsylvania in July 2006, but I knew at the time the relationship was dead and I just wanted to get the B&B open so I could move on. I had hoped the house in LA would sell and I'd have some money to start over somewhere else, but the property market had softened and my realtor was an idiot, so in October 2006 I ended up moving back to LA and started divorce proceedings. I didn't write a newsletter that year, either. In 2007, I did write this letter but I don't think I sent it to anyone. 

It's funny that in this increasing online world, a form letter in a pre-printed card is now considered a personal touch.  Just be grateful I didn't forward any chain letters.

I didn't send a holiday letter last year, and for good reason: I didn't have a photo of Alex the iguana.  That's because I didn't have Alex anymore.  I always seem to lose my pets in any separation.

Of course, this wasn't just a separation, it was a divorce.  That's right, the person who was never going to get married is now divorced—how ironic is that?  Everyone told me that marriage ruins a good relationship, but after living together for 12 years I thought it would be okay.  We weren't married three months before she wanted out.

Had I been smart, of course, I would have just let her go.  That's because at the time, she was spending $50,000 per month on the Pennsylvania remodel, and I would have saved myself a ton of money if I had just backed out.  Unfortunately, I had promised her mom that I wouldn't let anything happen to the property, and it was obvious that without me the property would be in foreclosure within a year.

Besides, my time in LA was over.  While I knew I wasn't going to be an innkeeper in Pennsylvania, I'd spent so much time thinking about moving on that I had to do something.  I'd been born and raised in LA, I'd lived in the same house for over 10 years, I'd been at the same job for 7 years.  But more than that, I'd shared it all with Dawn, and I didn't want the constant reminders.  If I had to start over, I was going to start completely over.

The hardest part was keeping all of this to myself for 6 months, because I knew people wouldn't understand, and I didn't want them to talk me out of it.  So I said goodbye to everyone, shipped everything to Pennsylvania, packed the iguana in the car, and drove cross-country.  (Iguanas can't fly.)  And I'll be honest, a part of me hoped that somehow, once I moved out there and we were living together again, things might work out.  I had no idea how out of control she had become.  I remember her at the airport when we first separated, sobbing uncontrollably, holding me, telling me how much she loved me.  Another passenger even commented that he wished he had someone who loved him as much. 18 months later, when I flew to Pennsylvania, I practically had to beg her to come to the airport to pick me up.

The irony is that we originally separated so she could manage the restoration.  Our original $200,000 budget had ballooned into $800,000, and I thought with her there we might be able to save some money.  Instead the final price tag was $1.3 million.  I could have left the contractor to his own devices while she continued working in LA and still saved money!  Of course I also hoped she'd be able to get it done faster, but when I moved out they were already three months late, they were still working on the main house and had barely started on the four outbuildings!  It was amazing how much was accomplished in the two weeks after I arrived leading up to the “open house.”

So I got the restoration finished and established the B&B, not an easy task but within four months it was already at 40% occupancy and pretty much self-sustaining.  In the meantime, however, the house in LA had not yet sold.  Had I put it on the market in February 2006, it probably would have sold right away, but then the market went soft and it just languished for six months.  I needed the remaining equity to move on—every other dime was in the restoration—so I had to return to LA.

That was a very depressing day.  When I said good-bye to LA, I meant it, I wasn't coming back. Now I returned, hat in hand, to face the shame of my friends who knew a year ago that I was just being used for the money.  (I knew it, too, but I preferred them thinking I was being taken advantage of, not that I was a willing participant.)  I returned with nothing but two suitcases of clothes.  I slept on an air bed for the next six months.  I bought a mini-fridge and a 12” TV.  Of course I ate out all the time, and I put on 35 pounds.  Occasionally I rented a car on the weekend to run errands, but otherwise I just stayed at home.  (I left my convertible in Pennsylvania, where it was sold for $1,500 less than blue book.  Somebody got a great deal.)

I also managed my own remodel, replacing the carpet, removing the popcorn ceilings, and replacing the tile in the kitchen and master bath. (This one stayed on time and on budget.)  They finished just before New Year's.  I also dropped the price and by the end of January, I had two offers, and it sold at the end of February.  However, the remodel and lower price had wiped out all remaining equity, so I was broke.  I mean, I had nothing.  So I did the craziest thing imaginable: I applied for a work permit in the UK, with the intention of moving to London.  However, they denied me – because I'd been self-employed they wanted an "original" tax return, and didn't understand there was no such thing in the US – so I ended up moving in with my mother in Northern California while I looked for a job in San Francisco.  Two weeks later I completely despaired—the psychological act of living with my mom at 37 was just too much for me.  Just about then an old friend offered me a job in LA, so for the third time I moved back to the city I couldn't leave.

The job was downtown so I got a loft apartment with a spectacular view, and can walk to work.  Of course I had to completely furnish it, from a sofa to a set of dishes.  (The funniest moment was when I bought a bed frame but not a mattress, so in the meantime I stuffed my air bed into the frame.)  This is also the terminus for the subway and bus routes in LA so I can get anywhere with public transportation, and don't need a car.  I haven't saved a dime, but I have paid down two of my credit cards, nearly erasing the last vestiges of my involvement in Pennsylvania.  I can apply again for a UK work permit with 9 months of paystubs, which will happen January 15, assuming I can stick it out that long.

Oh, there was one final insult from Pennsylvania.  The main impetus for the project—doing it now, turning it into a bed and breakfast, getting it listed on the national register of historic places—was to take advantage of the tax credits for historic rehabilitation, where I could write off $200,000 in federal taxes.  We'd worked with a CPA for two years in planning this, and he retired just weeks before it was time to file.  The new CPA prepared our returns and said that we could use the tax credits, but then we'd be subject to AMT (alternative minimum tax), which weren't eligible for the tax credits, and so we'd end up saving less than $1,000, and he would charge us that much just to prepare the forms!

So let's compare where I was a year ago vs today:

	2006	2007
Money	Owed over a million dollars	Owe $25,000
Possessions	Had to borrow a pan, a knife, a can opener, a plate, and a fork from my neighbor.	Have fully furnished my apartment
Weight	185 pounds	185 pounds (I've been working out 3-4 times a week for four months; I don't know what the problem is)
Job	None. Quit a job I loved that was close to home, paid well, and with good people, to move to Pennsylvania.	Employed, although only making about half what I was making before, and I hate my job.
Social status	Married and alone	Divorced and seeing someone
Plans	Apply for a UK work permit and move to London	Apply for a UK work permit and move to London
Location	Living in the suburbs with no car	Living downtown and taking public transportation
State of mind	Clinically depressed	Quite content