July 2022 - Move Update

Aloha from Seattle Summer!

You might well wonder what's up - she's late reporting!  Indeed, I am.  On one hand, I am busy, intimidated by all there is to do, and cannot think of what to say because while I know there is progress, all I can see is everything left to do.  On the brighter hand, we are making progress with weekly loads of outbound stuff, and the days seem too short to get everything done!

We are still in Seattle! I am getting lots of requests asking if we have moved yet.  No - thank goodness, as I am not yet ready!!!

Retirement:  The biggest event of the past 42 days is that Miguel officially retired at midnight on July 31 - note the countdown clock in photo #3.  

He was sent off with an ice cream social at the Cherry Hill hospital, and many thanks and good wishes.  By my count, he had been at Swedish Hospital inpatient pharmacies for 27 years and was good and ready to be done.  At least 4 times a day, he reminds me, "I am retired now!", though he also frequently stops to check the schedule in case he has to work today - retirement hasn't quite set in, but the move should do it; meanwhile, he is having lots of Saturdays.

Gems and Jewels: Another major undertaking of the past six weeks has been to move beyond organizing my beads, gems, and jewelry stuff, and start getting new homes for it all (see photo #2 for a small part of my "file pile").  

Some friends have been visiting to help me sort and to liberate a few items, and then a jeweler friend set me up with a table to share her booth at the Magnolia Community Fair last weekend (major sunburn!) where I sold bracelets of semi-precious stones for $10 to good homes, $20 to questionable homes.  August 2th7 and 28th, a jeweler association leader friend of hers is having a big sale of findings in South Seattle, and I will offer my faceted gems and beads to jewelers in her different associations of artists.  Since I have been organizing and preparing my jewels over the past 10 months, it is time to see them make their way in the world.  I am excited to have the venue, and I know it will be a great experience to meet the people who want to make them into beautiful jewelry, but, it is also sad to say goodbye!

New Homes for Old Stuff:  We are still working our way through closets and drawers, finding small treasures in the tiniest of cubby holes.  My sisters, Kathy and Kelly, came to help me tackle our 10x10x10 storage unit, and we worked through the stuff of 27 years in place, 50 years of having my own places and saving important stuff, and family treasures - we did it in a day, but only because I stood aside and said "yay, or nay", and they did all of the work!  Another week of Miguel and I hauling stuff to Goodwill, Ballard Re-Use, Re-Creative, Half-Price Books, and then three more trips to Goodwill, and storage looks walkable again.  I/we are still working through photos, and one treasure I found is the photo of Miguel at the Eiffel Tower in 2001, during Mom's retirement trip.  It was a great trip, and Miguel takes a fine photo!

I still have boxes and albums and miles to go before I turn the chosen treasures over for digitization!

Send-Off:  Our building provided a send-off barbeque in our parking lot last night, and it was a perfect summer event - in addition to providing a sense that this move is really going to happen!  We have wonderful neighbors here, and when I think about what we are leaving behind, the things I will miss are not things at all, but people.  We have a true treasure of people in our lives!  I am very appreciative that technology exists today that will make such a difference in our ability to stay close - one thing about getting older is remembering the days when international long-distance calling, at high rates, was the peak of technology that augmented the postal service as the ways of "reaching out to touch someone (in a few weeks or so).  What a difference 30, 40, and 50 years make!  

What happens next?

1. Prepare to depart:  We continue to pack up, move stuff out, and get ready to go (remembering that we can each take only 80 pounds of luggage).  We have official paperwork in progress - an international notarization process called apostille - that we will have to take with us to Panama in the application for our residency visas.  Our intent is to rent the condo for two years as that is the timeframe most people who aren't going to make it overseas return, and I like having a Plan B, especially since we couldn't afford our lovely view as a new home purchase.  We will not rent our storage space with the apartment so that those items that we think we cannot live without in the mountains of Panama can be stored for review and, potentially, shipping in a couple of years.
2. Flight to Panama (both political and airline-speak) is scheduled for September 15.  The times keep changing with the airlines, but our departure date is still September 15, some time.  One aspect I look forward to about NOT speaking Spanish in Panama is that the political news that I over-think and stresses me out will feel more distant, and I won't get the nuances that provide fodder for my over-think propensities - I hope for great relief in not knowing too much, even though here I avoid news and still know way too much from sheer proximity (I call it "proxmosis" - absorbing through merely being near).  News be GONE!
3. Panama City:  We are booked from September 15th to the 23rd at the Panama Zen (Best Western) in Panama City - the same hotel we stayed in during January.  We love the neighborhood, and the easy proximity to Casco Viejo, the downtown, the canal, and the only in-city Rain Forest Park in the world.  We already have favorite restaurants and stores, a favorite laundress, and it provides a grounding for our further adventures in the city.  As a note, the average temperature in Panama City is 89 degrees, so we get a lot of afternoon reading done in our air-conditioned room.
4. David (Dah-veed) to Boquete:  We will fly from Panama City to David on September 23, a half-hour flight to David, a quick stop at the immigration attorney recommended by the Panama Relocation Tours people to drop off our papers and initiate the residency visas, and then a half-hour drive to Boquete.
5. Boquete:  We have an Air BnB above the Flower and Coffee Fairgrounds in Boquete, and on the Caldera River.  Called the El Oasis, we have the Honeymoon Suite for a month, and because we took it for a month, we are paying $32 a night (the backyard is in the photo below).  With a kitchen, so we save the approximate $40-$50 per day in eating out expenses we had during our visit, it is a screaming deal for a beautiful space.  During the month, we will have our favorite local guide take us to see apartments and homes that are available for rent near downtown so that we don't have to buy or rent a car immediately upon arrival.  We plan to live in three neighborhoods around Boquete over two years, neighborhoods that we identified during our trip in January and February.  Since we intend to travel around the country, we may find other communities to try out before we make a long-term decision, too.  Long-term, we want to have a house with a wooded area and gardens, feed local birds, and have a guest house - we will keep you posted on our progress!
6. Next check-in:  I will update you over the Labor Day weekend; it should be quietly frantic around our Seattle apartment, and I think I can keep this promise to sit still and update you all before we set off on our Panama Adventure.

With lots of love and thanks for your friendship,
Mary Bea y Miguel