Frybabe asked if I was doing OK, and Barb asked if I was in Portland again, so here goes:
I moved to Portland for good about 3 years ago. Fairly early in the Covid epidemic there was a brief gap when air travel seemed a lot safer than normal. My daughter pointed out I might not get another chance for a long time, so I flew out, leaving the packing for a service. I'm renting a condo unit from the owner, in downtown Portland, on the 15th floor of a 25 story building. Looking out of my windows, I can see the Willamette river and Mount Hood too, when it's not too cloudy. Sometimes I'm not sure whither it's Mount Hood pretending to be a cloud, or a cloud pretending to be Mount Hood.
My daughters and their husbands and children live close enough to make it easy to see them, and when Covid clears up more, I'll be able to go a lot of places by a good public transporttion system.
Barb, we're kind of tracking each other without realizing it. You'll turn 92 in January. I'll turn 92 in August. You use a walker to ease your arthritis. So do I. You have glaucoma. So do I, though they haven't suggested surgery yet, just treating it with eyedrops. You're a much better gardener than I. I can barely keep a pot of basil alive. In Bethesda, the. previous owner of my home planted native species that didn't need much care,like azaleas, rhododendrons, may apples, jock-in-the-pulpit, snowdrops, native ferns. There's a nice garden here, but it's cared for by a mixture of gardeners and volunteers. There are flowers planted to attract hummingbirds, which are fun to watch, and also a big herb garden, which we can raid when we want to. I still keep a pot of basil, though, and sometimes one will even last several weeks. I have more artificial parts than you do--metal knee and hip, plastic eye lenses from cataract surgery, some teeth. So far they're all working.
