home again, for now.

I’m back, with lots to write about and no idea where to start. We flew into DC, which is a ridiculously long trip – 3+ hours to Tokyo then another 12-13 to Dulles. We stayed there for about three days, hanging out with my uncle and parents, who had come down to see us and him. This worked out very well, as it gave us an excuse to stay in a wonderful B&B only a few blocks away, while they stayed with him. We sort of felt sorry for them, actually; his apartment is a bit of a pit as previously mentioned (nicely furnished and all, just very messy) and Rudder has announced that he is never again eating anything that comes from my uncle’s refrigerator, for health reasons. (Not due to my uncle’s illness, it’s always been a mess.) I probably should have offered to pay for my parents’ room at the B&B, though then again even the two-block walk might have been long for Dad.

On a more positive note, my uncle seems to be doing very well. His hair has begun to fall out, but there are really no other side effects except fatigue, and the unutterable boredom of spending five days in a hospital every three weeks. I hope he’ll continue to do this well, but I doubt it; the methodology seems to be to increase dosage as much as the patient can tolerate it. Apparently the more drugs you can put in to fight he cancer, the better. The real test will come at his next hospital visit, when they’ll do a scan to see if it’s working, so I’ve pinned my hopes to that. I’m not sure what Plan B is.

He is able to walk at least a few blocks and there are plenty of stores and restaurants nearby and the supermarket will deliver. We had a car, so we all went out to a nice brunch one day, then Rudder and I changed our plans (to the Washington Monument and the really excellent Museum of the American Indian, instead of the Air & Space Museum’s new facility at Dulles) so we could drive my parents to the train station.

From there we embarked on a road trip through NC and TN, looking for property to build a house for someday. The absolute ideal would be a lot on an airpark with some waterfront we could row right off of, and also a rowing club nearby (largely for socializing). Oh, yes, and since it’s an ideal this would be an acre lot with enough mature trees for some privacy, under $100K, not too far from shopping and restaurants. As you might guess, those things are not going to all be true about one lot, so it’s a matter of prioritizing and seeing how close we can come to the ideal. The best two we saw were both in NC: an airpark lot where the airpark but not the lot is on the water (might be a bit tricky to launch a boat and there’s no local rowing club) and a water lot in a gated community (I always feel weird about those. Its not on an airport but there are several small ones not too far away. It’s further from shopping than I’d prefer, though there is a supermarket ten minutes away and the city will probably grow out that way.) Nothing said “buy me NOW!” but I don’t think we’d be sorry if we bought either of those.

We also got to see some very nice country, though it wasn’t at its best in February; tour the Biltmore estate; buy some yarn, bead findings and a cup bur (for smoothing wire ends, something I’ve been wanting for some time); have dinner with Melissa and spend a few days with our old friends Egret and T2, both of which deserve separate entries; sleep late and luxuriate in American food, wide open roads and the English language.

Fortunately we returned home Saturday night, so I have a day to do laundry and sleep in one more day before going back to work tomorrow. It’s not for long, though. Saturday I leave for what’s supposed to be a three-week trip to the Netherlands that will probably be more like five. I have no idea how to do that on one 25 kg suitcase.