• Tag Archives Mark

  • Terminal

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                            Waxing Autumn Moon

    Dropped Mark off at the Delta terminal at 9:10 this morning.  It was a difficult leave taking, conflicted on both our parts.

    He’s worried about the flight to Riyadh from New York–too long–whether anyone will meet him there at the airport–they will–and remembering not to shake hands with women, as a last minute communication from English Gate Academy advised.

    Leaving him there, with so many worries, left me in a place I imagine parents of troubled kids must inhabit when they launch their child, perhaps again and again, into the world.  I felt uncertain of his footing and have my fingers crossed.

    Kate and I feel we did the best we could do over the time he was here to get him ready for today and I feel good about that.  There is, though, that lingering concern, countered by hope.

    Of course, my analyst, John Desteian, used to say, “Don’t get me started on hope.”

    Anyhow, here’s to Mark, bravely venturing into a troubled region.  He got a good paying job when hundreds of thousands of Americans can’t find work.  He’ll be able to save money, work toward a Master’s degree and put together a good recommendation for future employment.


    📂This entry was posted in Family 📎and tagged

  • A Day of License

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                          Waxing Autumn Moon

    Got up at 7:10.  Left the house at 7:30 for Anoka County Driver’s License center to see if we could get Mark a spot for his driving test.  When we reached the site at 7:45, there was already a line of waiters:  teen-agers, Somalis, a couple of older, hard used men whom I imagined were back for a license test after a suspension for one reason or another, a housewife or two.

    Mark got in line and I went down two doors to the small diner that capitalizes on the License Department traffic.  It has a large cookie jar collection.  By large I mean a row the length of one wall and another and rows of them two deep over the counter area.  We’re talking lots of cookie jars.  None of them, I’m sorry to say, especially interesting to my eye, but you have to admire the determination.

    It also had a sign that only fishermen could love:  Have a crappie day.

    While I ate eggs and bacon, a shortstack of pancakes,  a young boy, maybe eleven, blond and the oldest of two others who looked much like him, spun a pancake his hands, flipped it in the air to his brothers’ obvious enjoyment.  Mom didn’t blink an eye.

    I’d only just got started on breakfast when Mark came in to say that he hadn’t gotten a slot.

    Let’s back up  a minute.  In June Mark went in and tried to get a driver’s license with just a knowledge test.  He could have done so if California didn’t purge its rolls every four years.  He had no record of having had a driver’s license so he had to get a learner’s permit.  At the end of the three month period, he could take a driving test.

    September 29th was the end of the three months, so, basically, he had yesterday and today.

    Not able to get a slot at Anoka we next went to Arden Hills, much larger facility off Highway 35 and very the exit for 610 we use to get home from downtown.

    Long story short.  We sat from about 9 am until 1:30 p.m.  Finally got a test.  Mark failed.  The examiner told him to come back in a week and he’d probably pass.  No joy there.

    He got his flight information and he leaves tomorrow morning at 11:30 a.m bound for Riyadh.  Maybe next year.


    📂This entry was posted in Family 📎and tagged

  • Saudi Arabia, Here He Comes

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                        New Autumn Moon

    Go, now.  The visa process is ended.  Yes, it’s true.  Mark’s visa cleared the Saudi Embassy at 3pm today.  Hopefully his passport will get here tomorrow via Fedex.  If that happens, Dr. Ahmed will send Mark an electronic ticket and he could be on his way as soon as tomorrow night.

    Kate and Mark just came in and said we had wild turkeys in the perennial bed.  Sure enough, 7 turkeys are up on the third tier, eating something, maple seeds perhaps.

    Into the museum today for an hour long presentation on Dine blankets by a collector.  He said the Dine always made mistakes in their weaving so as not to upset the gods.  Greeks did the same.  Hubris is a terrible thing.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Family Our Land and Home 📎and tagged

  • On The Move

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                           New Autumn Moon

    While we slept, the busy folks at English Gate Academy in Saudi Arabia were solving Mark’s visa snags.  Dr. Ahmed called a person he knew at the Saudi Embassy in DC.  Mark submitted two new forms, a letter certifying that he lived in the U.S. and a copy of his ESL certification, and tomorrow, if all goes as expected, he will have a visa granted by the Royal Government of Saudi Arabia.

    Of course, there will remain the return of the passport with the visa stamps and the purchase of an airline ticket, packing, flying.  At this point though, almost a month after the visa material went to Travisa and almost two months after we started collecting material for it, something happening this week is a cause for joy.

    At the end things change.  Frustrations melt away and the awaited blossoms into reality.  This will be true for Mark when he steps off the plane in Riyadh to 104 degree day and for Kate and me when we walk up the gangway and board the Veendam.  In true Ellis fashion we will set out for parts unknown within a couple of weeks each other.

    Holding a passport is not a common thing; an estimate that made sense to me reckoned the percentage between 20 and 22% of American citizens over the age of 18.  Neither is the next step beyond holding a passport, international travel.  It’s easy to forget these things if you have, as I do, many friends who travel often to foreign shores, but most Americans and many members of Congress don’t see travel, at least outside the homeland, as a important.

    For some, it’s a matter of economics, but ask any college student how cheaply you can travel abroad.  My own 2004 trip to Southeast Asia proved how inexpensive travel is there.  My room in the heart of Bangkok cost $16 a night and my room in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the town closest to the Angkor area, was $32 and included an all teak room, tiled bathroom with high end fixtures, a refrigerator, breakfast and a sign that told me I had to check my explosives at the front desk.  No kidding on that last.  I forgot mine in Bangkok.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Travel 📎and tagged

  • Sunday

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                             Waning Harvest Moon

    A gorgeous fall day.  A little Ovid in the morning, a nap, a flu shot, drop off audio books at the library, help Mark practice parking.

    The bonus of the ongoing visa madness is that he may be able to take, and hopefully pass, his driving test.  That would give him a driver’s license, a second i.d. and ticket to an international driver’s license.  He could then rent cars in Saudi, get around on his own.

    Kate bought four 10 pound boxes of peaches and has made peach pie, canned peachs, mint peach-raspberry jelly.  She also picked more of our raspberries and made two raspberry pies.  We’re going to freeze these pies.

    When I harvest the leeks, I will make chicken leek pot pies and freeze them, too.  That way, when we get back from the cruise, we’ll have some tasty home grown and home made treats ready for us.  Greeting ourselves when we come home.

    Time has begun to run down hill, gathering steam heading toward the Port of New York.  I’m excited, eager.  Ready.


    📂This entry was posted in Cooking Family 📎and tagged

  • Changes

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                                  Waning Harvest Moon

    May I present Autumn?  It comes to us in russets and golds, grays and rain, with some chill and occasional warmth.  Autumn continues our seasonal review, following the spectacular summer with its heat and its emphasis on differing shades of green, a color wheel of blooms and food.

    Autumn, like our earlier season, Spring, is a time of change, the gradual transition from the heat and bombast of the growing season to the bleak outer landscapes of the fallow months.

    Autumn also marks the beginning of the academic year, a moment of new beginnings, a springtime of the inner world.  This part of the season has its own holiday, Michaelmas, the holy day for the Archangel Michael, and the traditional opening of the English academic year.

    In my life change has blown in with the cold rain.  Mark will leave us sometime in the next few days, before the end of October.  The growing season has wound down with only potatoes, beans, leeks and chard left in the garden.  A long vacation grows closer by the day, less than a month away.

    There is, too, a growing sense that a major life change may be imminent.  Just what it will be is unclear, though it feels like retirement may be in the cards, joining Kate in her journey beyond the world of work.  How would that manifest in my life, long ago cast off from the port marked Employment?

    Leaving behind the era of productive engagement with the world feels premature for me, but a new freedom may emerge.  It may longer be necessary to lash myself to the mast while sailing between the Charybdis of success and the Scylla of ambition.

    Mystery.  The once hidden ocean of mystery lies beyond the current horizon.  And I’ve already set sail.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Great Wheel Retirement 📎and tagged

  • The Woollys of September

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                                       Waning Harvest Moon

    Woolly Mammoths on reading.  We had a meeting focused on current books, readings underway or accomplished during the summer.  Guys brought out books recounting the Battle of Little Big Horn hour by hour, the agony of the war in Vietnam, a Chinese classic with the attendant multiple volumes, the built in adaptive structures in the below consciousness part of our awareness.  Woollys are readers.

    We also learned Charlie has a solid offer on his condo atop a warehouse district building.  Scott has still not come back to Minnesota from his time in Colorado and Utah.  Frank still doesn’t like the nuns in the Catholic school he attended.  Bill’s focused on Regina’s needs rights now.  Stefan attended the Men’s conference this year and brought back Zack, an aspiring actor and writer, who read a powerful example of his work.

    Ode’s knee has gone from good to worse and now will require a third operation.  Frank’s new granddaughter is roly-poly. Warren, in the humor highlight of the evening, realized he had not yet signed up for Social Security.  Why humor?  Well, he does cover aging for the Star-Tribune and has done so for a long time.

    We also discussed, a favorite topic, our retreat.  Some want to be near water, others want tradition at the Dwelling or Valhelga.  We agreed on the last week of April, the first week of May.  That’s a start.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Friends Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • Lemons and Very Little Lemonade

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                                   Waning Harvest Moon

    So.  Yesterday I got up, got ready to go into the museum, got in the car and got no engine love.  Click.  Click.  Click.  Of course, I only had adequate time to get there since I never leave early.  What to do?  I put the charger on it and got back…wait for it.  An error message meaning the battery won’t take a charge.

    Anyhow we have that new Rav4.  I hopped in it and made it on time.  Or close enough.

    Got home after a long stint at the museum in time that Kate could go to work in the Rav4.

    What greets me at the kitchen table?  A nice note from the IRS saying they had checked our 2009 return, 2009?, and now feel we owe the government an additional $45,000.  Say what?  The letter of “explanation” did not communicate in any language I understood.  WTF?  OMG.  Well, a good thing we pay that accountant to handle this kind of stuff.  Could ruin a perfectly bad day.

    While I read this cheery note, Mark says, “Rigel’s bleeding.”  Uh, huh.  A small nick on the ear.  Unimportant.

    Earlier, I discover, the Saudi embassy wants Mark to take an HIV test.  Good thing we have a doctor in the house.  Kate circles the HIV results on the lab work already sent.  Oh.

    Also, some power of attorney for somebody for some purpose seems to be needed, requiring yet another communication back to Saudi, which will produce an e-mail to Mark, which he will then sign and Fedex to Travisa which will then hand it to the Saudi Embassy in Washington.  Geez.

    Other than that Mrs. Lincoln…


    📂This entry was posted in Family GeekWorld Travel 📎and tagged

  • The Visa Quest Nearly Finished

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                       Waning Harvest Moon

    Today we moved from conjecture to certainty.  The top person at English Gate Academy, Ahmed, e-mailed Mark and said he would write a personal note to the Saudi Embassy asking them to speed Mark’s visa application along.

    His papers cleared the Saudi Cultural Mission today and are at the Embassy so it should be a matter of days now before he has his passport back with his Saudi work visa in place.  At that point English Gate will send him an e-ticket.  He’ll pack and I’ll take him out the same airport where I picked him up in April, just as spring began to try breaking through the long and persistent grip of our long winter.

    It’s been a long and not always straightforward journey for Mark, but he’s got his head and heart in better alignment plus he pulled off the difficult in this US economy; he found a good paying job, better pay than he’s ever made.

    We spent the morning harvesting wild grapes, talking through the vine.  With the freeze tonight we had to get the sensitive crops inside.  Kate picked the tomatoes that will ripen over the next few weeks and a small bucket of raspberries while Mark and I picked a rose cone full of the small purple grapes.

    That means Kate the jelly and jam maker will appear, working with her alchemical apparatus to strain the grapes, add the sugar and pectin and can the result.  Wild grape jelly has a special and tangy taste.  Great for those cold winter breakfasts.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden Travel 📎and tagged

  • Life Lesson Learned

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                               Waxing Harvest Moon

    Looks like Mark was more right.  Not sure yet, because all the data isn’t in, but he understands the culture of English language schools and I don’t.  Life lesson learned here.  The lesson?  20 years of experience beats book learnin’ and casual travel.  Sorta makes sense, doesn’t it?

    No matter what happens with the visa, Saudi situation, Mark’s time here will come to a close in the next few weeks.  We leave for our cruise in October and he doesn’t have a job here.  I hope he still ends up in Saudi.  We’ll see.

    Mark and I are here by ourselves for the next 5 days.  Kate got on the 7:40 am Northstar this morning, headed for the Hiawatha Line and MSP.   Having the Northstar close by has dramatically changed getting to and from the airport.  Now, we can board a morning commuter train, catch the light rail to the airport and when we get back, we can reverse field and end up within a short drive of our home.  Just like a big city.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Travel 📎and tagged