No sooner had Linda and I settled into our new life of reversed caregiver roles (the lame leading the lamer) when our rock-solid, hardworking and, as it happened, fully-loaded dishwasher broke.

Added to the wrenched back and my new duties waiting on an immobile, bed-ridden mate, unloading and hand washing four days worth of dishes made it seem like we weren’t exactly on the top of the ‘luck’ list. Linda mentioned the other day, after her surgery was scheduled, that we’d had more personal disasters since moving north than previously when we lived in southern California.

I thought about that, and then realized we’d been in our 20s and 30s in SoCal, and in our 40s and now late 50s here in the promised land of northern California. So it’s not geography, it’s age: more bad stuff – parents’ deaths, illness et al. – happen later, rather than earlier, in life.

Things did improve when morning community member Judy dropped off a puzzle and summer novels for the patient (prettily gift-wrapped), and neighbor, fellow Trinity member Maggie Pringle arrived with flowers and a basket of baby heirloom tomatoes that ultimately wound up on our dinner plate. Life is an arc, it would seem…

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