Settling In

 So it's taken me a little over a year to report again on this blog. As promised, we moved in to Baywoods of Annapolis on March 3. Baywoods has had a really good record during the pandemic, no one in the independent living quarters dying of Covid. Rules have been strict here. We moved in when there were no dinners being served in the dining room, so we got used to dinners arriving in a bag. Instead of cooking we now reheat dinner in a microwave! We also learned how to order from local grocery stores, and ventured out to our favorite espresso bars and a few restaurants when it seemed safe. In May 2021 we took a fun day trip to Easton, Maryland on the Eastern Shore (also got my car registered, lines were shorter there). We've made very good friends here so far. I joined the staff of the Breeze newsletter, and one of my specialties is interviewing new residents. Earlier this week on Valentine's Day we participated with three other couples in a "newlywed game," came in second. Over the year we've gone on a few excursions with small groups to the outdoor sculpture garden in DC, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, and earlier this month to the African-American Museum. As I write this things are slowly opening up more. Dining room serving again, even happy hours. I take a swim exercise class twice a week. 

Eddie, Bill and I in Jávea,
Spain, in 2009

Last summer we managed to drive all the way to Gilmanton, stopping along the way to visit friends in the Princeton area, in Brooklyn, and Guilford, Connecticut. We stayed at the Jersey City Hyatt and were given a room with a view overlooking the Hudson. We were able to use the PATH and Lyft to get to Brooklyn to see our friends Ruthie and Eddie Lemansky. As I write this we've just learned that Eddie died of a heart attack yesterday, February 15. He was one of Bill's oldest friends so we are glad we were able to get to see him last summer.

Last October we were lucky there was a small decline in covid cases, so we boarded a plane at BWI and
flew to California so we could attend my great-nephew Riley's wedding to Michelle in the wine country. We went to all the wedding festivities, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding in a vineyard, brunch the next mroning, all in one fast weekend. And of course we got to see all of my family in one place, together, true luxury.

Recently my genealogical "career" has picked up. I not only published the second of two installments of my Captain Sandford article, I have become involved in two unrelated but somewhat connected projects in New Jersey. One is an attempt to collect all known information about the Cedar Grove community (of which my Simonsons were one family there) in a project to develop a possible museum featuring the cemetery there. The other one is to try to save the Peter Van Ness house in Fairfield, New Jersey, this campaign has just begun in earnest, and I am on a committee of three planning it. So I work with four different men on these two projects, and some of them know each other, so I am juggling to remember what I've said to who about what...

Our next excursion will be to New York to hear Jordi Savall at Carnegie Hall, and see Jenny, Phil and one or two grandchildren. Perhaps I'll be writing here more frequently. Hard to believe I've been so busy but I guess retirement can be like that.