Errands Early August 2019

08/10/19

Today is a day of stuff that must be done.

As is often the case on Saturday mornings I made my way to work.  While my caseload has been light, the flotsam and jetsam has built up on my desktop.  Some times you just need to be a clerk.  Today, I needed to scan things in and match to the electronic files I work with.  Also, I had one relatively old case that needed to be completed.  Couple of other cases needed me to tweak the addresses in the Order  or a paragraph here or there. And then there was all that e-mail to sort through.  Worked from about 8:30 am to just before noon.  

I walked both to and from work.  The time round trip was just under an hour.  The distance I have walked today is per one of the various health applications on my phone is four miles.  My Apple Watch says I have walked at the pace sufficient enough to rack up my required component of exercise for the day.

As I type this I am facing the belly of the beast of governmental inertia.  Right now my son and I are waiting to be called back to get his stolen passport replaced.  My wife and I came in last weekend.  My other son and I came in yesterday.  All in all, I will have been sitting in this waiting room for a good four hours before getting our papers in order is all over.  What next?

The time line is this.  In late August both the older and younger son will return to school.  One will go to the community college.  The other will go to Michigan State.  If all goes well the MSU student will graduate in December.  At times this has been tough sledding.  However, if he makes it there will be a cape and gown and the whole shebang and an engineering degree.

So how does this visit to the “Passport Hub” fit in?  My wife and I plan to retire in January. The real date may be in February when I burn up the last of my leave.  The plan is to be in Portugal on February 1, 2020 and to remain there for four months.  We have a place lined up to rent.  We have a number for the monthly rent negotiated.  

In order to spend four months in Portugal, we must secure an extended stay visa.  The visa process takes several months and cannot be undertaken without the physical passports being delivered to the Portuguese government or its agents.  Assuming the passports came as they usually do this will mean we will be sending them off in mid-September.

 

So, school for the college students-late August.  Passport to Portugal-middle of September.  What follows next is the partial resection of my kidney.  If you have been following along you know I have developed cancer for a second time, a discrete and separate cancer from the first I survived 12 years ago.  As a result on October 1, 2019 I will be lying on a gurney in Ann Arbor, Michigan until they whisk me away and do their robotic handed cutting on me.  Two days in the hospital and six weeks recovery.  

Pain, agony and Tylenol.  This will occupy me from the start of October until Veteran’s Day.  On November 12th I will most likely return to work.  What follows will be the rush of the holiday seasons.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and then the last few days I will work at my job of 19 years. I am aiming for a party on January 10, 2020 to say good-bye to friends and foes alike.  I will be at that time be lining up care for my home while I am in Portugal.  

So many moving pieces.  Also, my wife wants me to get our back porch fixed.  I have to text the contractor probably tomorrow afternoon.  And there is the painting that needs to be done.  And then…well you get the drift.  And then there is the airline tickets.  And the travel insurance.

There will be very few days in the next six months that will be easy, very few indeed.