NOW March 30, 2019

A few last thoughts about the hurricane and its aftermath:

Help and aid: Almost all our help and aid came from family and friends. We received nothing from FEMA (after months of waiting just to see them). We did qualify for a small business loan from the Small Business Administration but declined it because the terms weren't acceptable. We did get a $25,000 home loan from SBA. We actually qualified for almost $97,000 but couldn't take it, again because we couldn't meet their requirements: anything over $25,000 requires a lien on the property and flood and hurricane insurance, both of which are flat out impossible to get at any price. In fact, insurance agents won't even talk about new policies. But at least we got something. That will almost cover the repairs we still need to do to be ready for Stephanie and Jordan.

April, May, and June were spent finishing things at the house and Ola Lola's for Stephanie and Jordan and getting our new place ready to move into.

We had a friend who lived in a house on the other side of Isabela. She was a single mom with a five-year-old. Shortly after the hurricane she moved back to Denver, where she's lived before. We contacted her to get the name of her landlord, to see if maybe the house was available. Three sisters own the house and 22 adjoining acres. It took a bit of discussion but we finally convinced them we wanted both the house and the land. So, we now have a three bedroom, two bath house on 22 acres.

That sounds wonderful (and it is) but...After Brenda moved back to Colorado, nothing was done to the house or the property since the hurricane. We had to clean, paint, and get the house ready, clear downed trees and debris from the yard, start clearing and cleaning property for the horses, all while finishing the work at Ola Lola's. It was a pretty intense few months.

Eddie, the digger guy who cleared the area next to Ola Lola's so we could build the new fence, came out and cleared stuff for us. It took him a full week to do it.

The next thing we had to contend with was our neighbor's horses. Since no one was caring for the property, he figured he could just let his horses run free. They ran all over "our" property, up and down the street, in neighbors' properties. He didn't care.

Pretty horses but we couldn't have them there when our horses came home. We eventually had to go to court and get a court order against him. But it's all good now.

I've grown to like the house. I do miss our "tree house" but this place is good. The one thing I haven't completely come to grips with yet is not being able to to walk to the beach. I know, "boo-hoo!" But for 12 years walking to the beach with the dogs or horses was a huge part of my life. Now we have to drive (gasp!) to get to the beach.

Having Coda Bear helps. We go walking every day. We've explored a bunch of different beaches and keep expanding our options. He's a great adventure companion.

I have one more post-hurricane post coming in a couple of days. Other than that, we're pretty much caught up and, unless any of you have questions (which you are welcome to ask and I will do my best to answer), we are through the hurricane log.

Again, thank you for being on this journey with me. I hope you'll keep reading as the adventures continue.

NOW March 25, 2019

 Rolf and Carole at Carole's birthday party, February, 2018

 Remembering Rolf

Yesterday more than a hundred people gathered at Carole and Rolf's house to remember this great wonderful man. From every speaker I learned something new about him. Some, like me, only knew him after the dementia had taken hold. Others, like Mike Davis,

 and his colleague and neighbor Jerry Giles worked with him and had known him for years.

I knew he loved music - I spent many evenings with him listening and watching music videos on YouTube - but I didn't know he was a music prodigy, played a number of instruments (guitar, piano, violin, accordion, steel drums) and taught and tutored music students. He was an amazing dancer. He was a mathematician, a physicist, had a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. In high school he listed favorite subjects as trigonometry, English, and history. Talk about whole-brained!

His scientific accomplishments are as many and as varied as is the rest of his life. There are so many! Many of them are unintelligible to a humble life-form like me. He worked on classified ionosphere and radar research. He was part of one of the very first satellite data communications systems. He traveled all over the world building ground stations for satellite-based communication systems. Not only did he work at the Observatory in Arecibo (about an hour or so east of us), he helped design and build two major antenna systems. While at the Observatory, he calculated the actual orbit of the planet Mercury (it is not a circle, it is an ellipse. The sun is not at the center but closer to one end). He also did radar mapping of the moon and research into the orbital and rotational behavior of Mars and Venus.

Rolf was never an ivory-tower, isolated academic. He had an incredible sense of humor, apparent even in his later days. He was warm and kind and loving and giving. He loved swimming and sailing and steam locomotives. Carole adored him, and right to last he adored her.

My Rolf story: I didn't get to know Rolf really until after the hurricane when we started going to their house every night for dinner. By then the dementia was pretty well established. He spoke very little and frequently struggled with speech. I carried a little notebook with me to jot down ideas I wanted to write about in my journal, the writings that were the basis of the hurricane log on this blog. One evening Rolf and I were sitting outside at the table; Carole and Elaine were making dinner. I got out my notebook and started writing. Roff looked at me, watched what I was doing. I said, "Rolf, I'm writing things down so I don't forget them." He looked up at me and said, "Maybe I should do that."

I am truly honored and privileged to call Rolf my friend. I believe he would call me his friend as well.

NOW Friday March 15, 2019

The colors of the day from the last few days:

NOW March 11, 2019

Rolf and his granddaughter Katrina

 
We lost a great friend this week. Rolf passed away Monday in his sleep.

Rolf  was - is - an amazing man. I only got to know him in the last few years, after dementia had taken hold. Another friend, who knew Rolf for years. said he loved to just hang out with Rolf, that he (Rolf) always had such amazing stories to tell. He said every time he was with Rolf he learned something new.

Father, grandfather, husband, the love of Carole's life, engineer, scientist (he worked for years at the observatory in Arecibo here in PR), sailor (he skippered his own boat through the islands many times), swimmer, railroad aficionado (he volunteered his time to help rebuild a steam locomotive and then helped run it). And these are just the few tip-of-the-iceberg things I know about him.

We all loved him. Even as his memory declined, we all waited and hung on those occasional, surprising lucid moments.

Rolf, I hope you are at peace, without pain. I've seen your warm wonderful incredible smile in every rainbow this week. (I once asked Carole if it was Rolf's deep blue eyes or that smile that got her first. She replied, "yes.") Your spirit and presence are and will be missed.

MARIA log March 7, 8 Day 167-168 Wednesday and Thursday

We're coming to the end of the post-hurricane journal As I read through the journal from here on, much of it is mundane, getting-back-to"normal" stuff. There are still a few things I want to share but most of the "exciting" stuff is behind us now. Thank you all for sharing this journey. I do hope you'll keep reading as our new adventures unfold. 

We reached an agreement with La Vakes to buy Ola Lola's, the house, the business, everything. It's some pretty creative negotiating but we get what we need and Stephanie and Jordan get the chance to live their dream, just as we did almost 12 years ago.

We planned a community pot luck for tonight before we knew La Vakes were going to be here. It was a great party. We got to announce the good news and to introduce Stephanie and Jordan to their new community. They were well received (as we knew they would be) and people were happy for us as well.

Thebig waves continue. The four-corners is still flooded. This is the longest big wave event I remember. Usually it's a day or so, maybe three, but this is just going on and on. No rain again today.


Thursday March 8

No rain. big waves continue. Rumors of water rationing continue, but for now we're okay.

NOW March 9, 2019 Colors of the day

I don't normally like shooting photos near midday, but yesterday the high sun at the beach at Punta Borinquen really made the colors in the ocean pop.

MARIA log March 6 Day 166 Tuesday

Tuesday March 6 day 166

Sunny morning. The "big wave event" continues.

The flooded area across the street is bigger Sea water continues to pour through the breached dune. The four corners down at Shacks is still flooded.

People have tried to open the mouth of the river so the water can drain out but the waves keep pushing sand and sea water back in to the river mouth, trapping all the water behind it.

The waves are so big and the dune is so damaged that we can see the tops of the breaking waves from our house.

The big wave are pounding other beaches as well. At Crashboat, pretty much whatever the hurricane left, the big waves are finishing off.

The surfers are enjoying it though.

No rain today for which we are actually a little bit grateful . If it rained hard up in the mountains, there's no place for the water to go. It would have been an ugly flood.

MARIA log March 5 Day 165 Monday

Monday, March 5 day 165

La Vakes - Stephanie, her significant other Jordan, and Stephanie's parents, Gary and Sandie - are here from Wisconsin to start the process of buying Ola Lola's. YAY!

One of our worst fears since the hurricane is coming true: huge waves are here, driven by a confluence of storms in the North Atlantic. The already weakened, fragile dunes have been breached in a number of places, the property across from us and at Middles especially. Sea water is coming ovr the dune through our pathway to the beach.

The field across the street is half covered by sea water. It will be a long time before that grass and hay recovers. 

La Vakes were here at 6:30 AM because they couldn't get back to their rental down at Shacks. The four corners is flooded with sea water pushed up river by the waves. So, they are hanging out with us. That's a good thing!