Family affairs

May 26, 2021

Today’s ride

As a sop to those who think there should be some biking in a cycling blog, Roddy and I broke out for the nearly mile-long trek over to the neighborhood Lucky Laborador this afternoon. We would have gone out for a longer outing, but the day was minced by intermittent rain showers until early afternoon and then by a return to my dentist for a final assessment of how I’m recovering from my implant extraction six weeks ago. The check-up was positive, and I was cleared for biking to the nearest pub.

It’s about time. As near as I can tell, it’s been 6 months since we were here last - during the brief period after we returned from Croatia and Italy last fall and before we split with the late, great Jetta for California.

The ride report:

Distance: 1.8 miles.
Elevation gain: 52 feet.
Conditions: a bit cloudy on the front half, but fair on the return. Windy, perhaps peaking near 20 mph.
Traffic: light, except for a bit of rush hour traffic crossing three minor arterials (each way).
No flats or other mechanicals.

Back at the Lucky Lab, still showing the effects of the pandemic: yellow X’s on the floor, and the removal of the bike rack. Hopefully the rack will return, but in the meantime it’s nice to get an uncluttered look of the Rodriguez at the Lab gallery.

Six months is too long between a slice and a Super Dog. Maybe I should have another and store up.

A trip to Seattle

Yesterday was a day we’ve anticipated for a long time: a drive up to Seattle to visit my parents. Our last visit, a large family gathering to celebrate dad’s birthday, was a year ago February. Besides the Pandemic of course, there have been some big changes in the family, especially with the youngest generation. Russell and Victoria are engaged and plan to wed around Xmas, down in San Antonio. Lauren and Peter have moved up from the Bay Area to Eugene. Vance and Laurie moved from Portland back to Connecticut. Shawn had open-heat surgery to correct a birth defect. Nephew Stewart had surgery to repair a lacerated liver when he fell biking to work on the ice. Brother Stewart finally retired, as did his wife Lynn; and Stewart is having his second cataract surgery today, as we’re driving north. Elizabeth has been hunkered down at home for the past year, avoiding the virus but logging many miles on power walks around Portland. And Team Anderson put in their normal ten thousand miles.

And, like all of us, mom and dad grew a year older. At 95 and 92, a year to them is more consequential than to the younger generations. Until just last week, they’ve been quite isolated in their residence. The facility has been very disciplined, with excellent results - there have been very few Covid incidences, and mom and dad both came through in good health Covid-wise along with nearly all of the other residents and staff. We’re all grateful that they’re living in such a well managed senior facility; but it’s been a long year for everyone, and we’re anxious to see them again and to see for ourselves how they’re faring.

Elizabeth hasn’t seen them for over a year either, so she joins us for the ride up. It’s a long day driving up to Seattle and back again, so we get an early start and are on the road by 7:30. Other than for a brief stop at a rest area we drive straight through and are only a few miles from our parents’ downtown apartment by 10:30. Elizabeth calls dad to let him know we’ll be there in five minutes, so he walks down to the garage to meet us.

20 minutes later, we finally arrive. In the meantime we’ve been thrown off when Rachael invokes Google for directions but inadvertently indicates we’re arriving by bicycle. Google throws us off the freeway immediately onto 15th Ave. on Beacon Hill, which unfortunately is backed up to an interminable crawl today by a construction project. We improvise and take to the side streets, but it doesn’t go quickly.

And it doesn’t go quickly after we arrive at Horizon House either. Several issues, but the main one is that the facility won’t permit more than two visitors at a time unless we visit outdoors. There are the three of us, so at first we make our way to an outdoor patio with a gas fireplace; but it’s cold and quite windy - not really the place you want to entertain your parents in their 90’s. But since they’re in their 90’s, it takes a long time for them to finally arrive and for us to decide we need a new plan.

The new plan is for Elizabeth and I to visit with them, in their apartment; and Rachael volunteers to take a walk and meet up later. It takes a long time to get back to the apartment too though, because Elizabeth and I have to go back to the main lobby and check in first - register, have our temperatures and photos taken, answer the 20 Covid questions, provide our tracing information - but finally we make it to mom and dad’s apartment, nearly an hour after we were on the freeway just two miles away.

Image not found :( — Mom, in her living room.

The visit in the apartment is just a bit slow, to be honest. I imagine the confusion and exertion of our arrival and our brief meeting on the patio has taken something out of both of them, but I’m sure the passing of another year has too. Mom really is visibly changing - she seems a bit vacant, loses the thread and gets confused easily. She thinks it’s autumn, she doesn’t recall the news about Shawn’s surgery even though it’s the third time we’ve discussed it now. And dad is just tired, and concerned about mom - he’s confides that he’s trying to figure out if she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or not. It’s possible.

After about an hour Rachael calls to check in. She’s out at the lobby, the weather has improved considerably, and it’s starting to get late in the day; so we all adjourn to the outdoor benches in front of the lobby. Before we go though, dad pulls me aside to quickly look around his workshop - the spare bedroom that is absolutely packed with dad-stuff - work mementos, tools, musical instruments, computers and peripherals. He’s always been drawn to hand tools, and today he shows me this wonderful old French instrument he found in a garage sale.

Does anyone know what this beautiful caliper-like instrument is? It apparently is a measuring devise for gauging gap widths. I wonder how old it is.

We meet Rachael outside, and sit around for another half hour enjoying a long goodbye in the now-warm sun. This is by far the best part of the visit. I listen to dad as he relates stories from his long career as a flight test engineer at Boeing. Today he’s especially proud to report that the book about his career he’s been working on for years has been accepted for review by the Smithsonian Institution. One of their displays at the Air and Science Museum is the Dash 80, the prototype for the 707 that dad participated in the development and testing of.

It’s a good run of stories that dad has every reason to be proud of. But dad can talk a bit, and I’m really more interested in what’s happening in front of me where Elizabeth, Rachael and mom are engaged in an animated conversation. Rachael had the brilliancy to start talking with mom about her travels - their trip to Egypt and Iran in 1974, before the Iranian revolution; and their trip to Afghanistan a few years later, before the Russian War. For 15 or 20 minutes mom is engaged, animated, and looks and sounds ten years younger. It’s beautiful.

Finally, we really do leave. We’re in a bit of a hurry, because we want to spare a few minutes to head down to the Pike Street Market for a brief hello to Elizabeth’s youngest son Stewart, a salmon flinger at a top of the line fish market. There’s just time enough to share a few words and hugs, grab a quick lunch from a neighboring booth, and then hit the road before the worst of the rush hour traffic grinds the freeway to a halt for the afternoon.

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Jen RahnGreat to read about the family and to see the photos from the visit with your parents!

Wonderful that your mom enjoyed sharing old travel stories. Did you learn anything you hadn't heard before?
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3 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Jen RahnNo, I can’t say I heard anything from mom I hadn’t heard before, because dad monopolized my time so all I could do was watch. Which is fine.
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3 years ago