Back in Richmond

Traveling on different planes, different airlines, with different routes, we nevertheless both managed to make it back home, safe and sound.

Interesting things happen when you come back after an extended absence.  Especially if you have made the mistake of arriving on a week-end.  We ought to have learned that lesson from our Experience of being stranded in England, but obviously we forgot.  The reason you should never arrive on a weekend is, things like banks and the Department of Motor Vehicles are all closed.

So the first thing you want when you come home after an extended absence is food in the house, isn't it?

Well, around here, to get food, you need a car.

To drive your car (legally) you must re-activate its license tags (registration).  And, in our case, replace Demetrios' driver's license, stolen with his wallet in Athens.

To do these things you must (besides waiting until Monday), reinstate your auto insurance.

To reinstate your auto insurance, you must give the insurance company a ring.

To call up your insurance company, you must have a telephone.

To get your telephone, you must re-start your telephone, television, and Internet service.

To re-start these, you need, well, a telephone.

Forget that!  What you need is some very good neighbors, like our neighbors, Frances and Dickie!  They picked me up from the airport, took me to the grocery store, and would have lent me their phone, but Verizon miraculously followed instructions and had turned our service back on as of the day before we returned.

The next interesting thing happens if you had just re-organized the house shortly before you left.  What is this?  (Oh, yes, bought it the day before I left.)  How did this get here?  Where did that go?

A third issue we ran into was that the doors to two closets had swollen shut from humidity and had been that way for heaven only knows how long.  I couldn't get to my nightgowns, my bathrobe or slippers, to my church clothes (not that we can drive to church anyway), or any clothes appropriate to the season.  I'm wearing summer clothes.  Fortunately, it is warm today.

At long last, with Demetrios using a putty knife in the crack above the door and wielding it as if it had been a crowbar, and with me simultaneously tugging as hard as I could on the door handle, we managed to open the doors.

Almost wish we hadn't.  Not a pretty sight or smell.  Everything in that closet will have to be laundered, dry cleaned, or thrown away.  At least that solves the issue for me of the things I wasn't sure I had the heart to toss out.  I have.  And on Monday, I will go buy some laundry detergent...

It's beautiful here.  The autumn leaves, although past their peak, are still in high color and the days are warm at least during the middle of the day.

Last night, waiting for Demetrios to come home, I sat with my other neighbors on their new back-yard patio, complete with fire pit, in which they had lit a bonfire.  Then I went to Frances and Dickie again, just because I have missed them.

Monday we will go to the Department of Motor Vehicles, bank, supermarket, etc., etc., etc.

And our Russian friends are here in town and await us, which is the best thing of all.  Will write more on that later, but read their wonderful story here in the meanwhile.