I’ve crossed a line—another event horizon, binding the world as I knew it to one I’d never even imagined.

I’ve crossed over into crazy a number of times.  And if you aren’t convinced that I’ve lapsed into less-than-sound-mind yet again, get a load of these most recent developments—this nutty narrative now unfolding on the far side of sanity—or, as I now think of it, South of Zero Latitude.

The bottom line is this–we’re crazy about our new home in Cuenca, Ecuador.  But that’s not the wackiest half of it.

As some of you know, Sara and I, together for 7 years, were married in New York on April 25^th and moved, with two dogs, to Cuenca within days of that ceremony.

Big Apple bloggers Jackie Cangro and Lame Adventures witnessed the event and may have found new callings as WordPress wedding correspondents.  At the very least they’re now dear friends, legally attached to the document that newly announces us spouse and spouse.  Some of you may recall that I was wedding correspondent for Tori’s (The Ramblings) “Very Bloggy Wedding.”

But we were the true crazies, who, in love as ever, flew to our new home in Ecuador less than a week afterward.  Within one month we had sold our house in Kentucky, traveled to Pennsylvania (for my memoir research), married in New York, and landed south of zero latitude with two white dogs, 10 suitcases, and not nearly enough Spanish—in a country neither of us had ever even visited before.

You need not remind us.  Even the ones who love us most remain convinced of the utter and complete craziness of our newly nuptialed move.  But we’re okay with crazy.  We’re willing to accept whatever labels might be launched our way.

And as you might have guessed, I have so many new stories to tell!

But in the week we’ve been here, I’ve had even less time than sense.  So please accept today only a few photos Sara and I have taken over the past several weeks—images of our home sale in Lexington, our adventures in Pennsylvania, our marriage in New York, our departure from Kentucky, our first week in Ecuador.

We sold almost everything to make this move to Ecuador a reality.

We visited the house I grew up in (Pittsburgh,35 years later).

In New York City, we celebrated when we received our marriage license–the day before the ceremony itself.

Thanks to Lame Adventures for this almost-wedding-kiss shot!

Kathy posed with wedding witnesses “Lame Adventures” (R) and Jackie Cangro (L).

Sara snapped photos of me taking photos in Central Park.

We made a semi-scene upon arriving at the Lexington airport on the day we departed for Ecuador. (Kathy and Ralph)

We’ve fallen in love with cathedrals in downtown Cuenca, Ecuador.

We’ve rented a temporary, colonial home in the center of downtown Cuenca–el Centro.

The house has a small, but lovely, walled garden for the dogs.

We actually took a bus tour of Cuenca. Sara snapped this of me on board.

We got a great view of Cuenca, stretched out below.

With the camera I gave Sara as a wedding present, she got an amazing shot of Cuenca’s “new” cathedral.

So far, Ecuador doesn’t disappoint.  In fact, we’re in love with our new home high in the Andes—land of perpetual spring, not to mention, two newly-wedded wackies.

Yes, when it comes to crazy, we’re still nutty about one another, as well!

What’s the craziest move you’ve ever made?  Were you disappointed with the results?  Do you ever go with your gut and let the fallout be what it is?

If you haven’t read what Jackie Cangro wrote about our marriage ceremony, please do.  I lacked the time and jet-lagged good sense needed to share her link the day it posted.  But please click here to read it now.  And if you missed the link I mentioned last week to Lame Adventure’s piece about our wedding, please check it out as well.  Both blogs are well-worth following!

I promise to respond to your comments on this post!  And I apologize for my poor blogging etiquette this past month.  My behavior will improve as we get oriented to our new home.  I miss you all–and, of course, thank you for reading and commenting!  I will visit your sites as soon as “settled” allows.  You all are dear to me!

Yes, Sara and I are married!

Thanks to Lame Adventures for this almost-wedding-kiss shot!

Unfortunately, our departure for Ecuador in less than 24 hours prevents me from writing more at the moment.  However, you can read about our great day on the blog of one witness–Manhattan resident and one of the best comic bloggers I know, Lame Adventures herself.

Below is the beginning of her post.  Please read and click over to her blog for the rest of the story and wedding photos, as well.

Later this week or next, our other blogger witness and dear friend  from the Big Apple, Jackie Cangro, will also be writing about the event.  I will share the link with you when it’s posted.

In the meantime, we are off to Ecuador, with two dogs and 10 suitcases, in less than 24 hours.  I’ll share more next week.

When I launched Lame Adventures in January 2010, I saw my site as an outlet for sharing tales set in New York City from the perspective of a hapless minion of modest means. At first, it was fine with me if only my close circle of friends and my sister, Dovima, read my blog. I am by nature an anti-social networker. Eventually, bloggers began to discover me, and I realized that was okay, too. I now enjoy reading several fellow bloggers and I have gotten to know members of my cyberspace posse quite well. On more than one occasion I have even been fortunate enough to meet fellow bloggers when they’ve visited New York City.

Better that than you think I’ve met with some untimely and unfortunate, moving-related demise.  I’ve not gone this long without blogging in a number of years.  But, unfortunately, selling a home, relocating overseas, and getting married are more time-consuming and brain-draining than I’d imagined.

Yes, that’s right.  I said—“getting married.”  Sara and I leave for New York City next week to tie the knot—a tangle of lesbians-on-the-move, covering-legal-loopholes.

We had hoped to marry in DC or New York  over the holidays, but formally exchanging the rings we’ve now been wearing for seven years may benefit us economically in Ecuador—and more immediately than waiting till December.

The company (and our new, already-living-in-Cuenca buddy Malcolm)—the ones helping us expedite residency visas—advised us to make our way, “post-haste,” to a state that would allow us to “legitimize” our partnership.

Both Argentina and Uruguay (more recently) have legalized gay marriage.  Columbia is considering it, and gay civil unions already grant lesbians the same legal rights as married couples in Ecuador.  Marriage equality is on the move in South America, and Sara and I plan to ride that wave of welcome all the way to Cuenca and beyond.

But—since Sara and I are living out of suitcases and time is limited, I’ll do a bulleted update with photos to illustrate our adventures over the last few weeks—a month of moving and grooving and doing serious damage to life as we knew it.

• Daddy had an Alias!

Just as we got deep into sorting and selling, packing and stacking—a leaning tower of almost-Ecuador—my dad’s FBI file arrived in the mail—a small, flat package containing only a single CD and not nearly the number of pages I’d been promised.

(In the event that you’re new to my blog, you might want to know that, in addition to moving with my partner to Ecuador, I’m in the process of writing a memoir about growing up in an organized crime family.  Because I wanted to understand my father’s mafia connections more clearly, I applied for a copy of my dad’s FBI file last May.  To read the first chapter of my memoir, whose working title is Kids Make the Best Bookies, click here.)

I’d been told nearly 1, 700 pages were available, but just over 200 remained after redactions and the subtraction of still-classified material.  Good-god—Daddy’s been dead for more than thirty years—“classified” my ass!

At any rate, I did learn that my father had an alias, and simple and unsurprising as that may sound, it disturbed me on some unexpected level–I suppose, his having an identity I didn’t know about.

• Our house has sold, and the check’s in the bank.

Much to my (but not Sara’s) surprise, we closed on time—March 29^th –two days before Easter and a “Good Friday,” indeed.  But getting out of the house—our boxes packed and possessions moved—proved more challenging than I could have ever guessed.

It was one thing to move to Vietnam or Haiti, while leaving our US home intact, but moving overseas and liquidating our stateside life was another animal altogether—another moving mammal, if you will.

• Sara and I have been to Pittsburgh and back!

Hard to imagine, isn’t it?  I can barely believe it myself.  We stayed at a Comfort Inn less than a mile from the home where I was raised.

And the old neighborhood seems less changed than I’d imagined.  Or maybe a whole lot changed, depending on one’s perspective.

The house I grew up in, 35 years later–

To be honest, I think I’m simply stunned having been back on what was once home turf.  It feels a bit like time travel—a journey that’s transported me back decades more than miles.

Chatham Elementary School in 2013, where I attended Kindergarten through 6th grade–

It leaves me feeling a bit whiplashed, perhaps, but not in a bad way at all.  In a very good way, in fact.

• Our own “Very Bloggy Wedding” will be WordPress-posted.

This will be done by my Big Apple, buddy, one some of you may know as Lame Adventures—and maybe even Jackie of “Jacqueline Cangro.”

Some of you may recall that last spring I served as WordPress wedding correspondent for friend Tori of “The Ramblings.”

Tori and Kathy meet at the “Very Bloggy Wedding”–

Well, since our nuptials weren’t announced, let alone planned, until the last-minute, Tori won’t be able to cover the equally mind-blowing marriage ceremony of Coppler-McCullough.

In her stead, Lame Adventures will pinch hit and blow the ball far beyond all real or imagined walls of our proverbial park, in this case a making-lesbians-legal grand slam of World Series proportions, I’m sure.

• We leave for Ecuador May 1^st.

Sara, the dogs, and I will fly out of Lexington in less than two weeks.

So stay tuned for my first post from south of the equator, more about our wedding, and lots more memoir madness via my dad’s FBI file and our recent trip back to Pennsylvania.

Hasta luego!

Please tell me in the comments below what you most want to know about Ecuador, Daddy (his mafia connection-FBI file), and/or our wedding in the Big Apple.

Also, please forgive me if it take a few days to respond to comments.  I’m in the midst of a lot.  I apologize, as well,  for not reading my friends’ blogs in recent weeks–same excuse, I’m afraid.  I love and miss you all and hope to return to normal reading-writing habits in a few weeks.

In fact, according to my partner Sara, it’s a sickness I suffer from—one whose prognosis is potentially terminal.

As you might imagine, moving overseas challenges my packrat-itis, if you will, requiring me to sift, sort, simplify, and, in most cases, dispossess myself of stuff—stuff I’ve saved, stuff I value, and stuff, Sara says, I hoard.

Mind you, I’m not as bad as my maternal grandmother, who, when once asked what she was doing with a pantry packed floor to ceiling with toilet paper, insisted, matter of factly, that she was “keeping it so all the hoarders wouldn’t get it.”

Toilet paper, specifically, is not my thing.  But paper, in general, is.

Whether or not I inherited a genetic tendency toward possessing too much paper, that’s not what matters most, in this instance.  I suppose, what matters now is making the writer-artist in me get rid of paper products that Sara says litter my life—and my extension—hers.

It’s not the books or journals that bother Sara.

She’s agreed we’ll move all of them.

Rather it’s the receipts that drive Sara crazy–the scraps of maps, the images cut carefully from National Geographic magazines, destined, I’ve imagined for collages-yet-to-come.   It’s the papers that push her to the brink, the ones my friend Ellen and I used to call “potential art.”

The concept of potential art, mind you, is one Sara seems to understand only in the abstract, but it’s one that rules my life in a very literal, and Sara says, trashy way.

Call this what you will.  We all have our crosses to bear, and having a few extras of everything lying around is Sara’s, I suppose.

My problem is that I see creative opportunity in almost everything.

At one point it was cat food cans I saved.

At another it was empty Equal and Sweet ‘n Low packages I transformed into this:

But I’ve stopped collecting cans.  I no longer save the packaging of artificial sweeteners or receipts that evidence my misadventures in retail therapy.

I’m still mad about maps, however—still crazy for cartography.

I don’t know how to handle this addiction.  And, in fact, having to handle it at all is, according to Sara, my problem in the first place—the piles and piles of paper—all to be sorted and saved, boxed up and moved.

So—onward we march toward Ecuador.

Our house has sold, as most of you already know.  Sara is posting our lives item by item on Ebay, selling and passing it along to other potential hoarders.

She insists, however, that my paper scraps won’t sell—that there’s no online market for my bird’s nests, bones, and stones.

(My trash-savvy Sara says I suffer from rubbish blindness.)

Whatever we want to term my sickness, it looks like I’m gonna have to toss my trove of treasures, my stash of trash, as Sara calls it.

But I have one request of you, my readers.

Would you mind saving some replacement papers and pebbles for me, some new buttons, bricks, and bones?  You could mail them to me in Ecuador.

Right?

I promise I won’t tell Sara you’ve contributed to my hoarding habit—or her clutter curse.

I swear on a saved sale’s receipt or empty cat food can, I won’t!

Do you or anyone you live with have a hoarding habit?  Does a creative impulse cause paper to clutter your life?  Have you ever had to get rid of almost everything in order to manage a move—international or otherwise?

And this week, believe it or not, my partner Sara and I have sold that same home, a sale that will allow us to move to Ecuador later this spring, sooner than we’d expected.

But there’s more to this story than you might expect.  There’s WAY more, actually!

You see, I became a home-owner in September of 2006, having lived in government-subsidized housing on and off for nearly a decade—

—and having lived there as recently as a year earlier than that purchase.

So mine is a success story and a romance, as well–a potentially-cliched but nonetheless true tale in which I triumph over adversity, find true love, and move on with my partner to bigger challenges–to a better, brighter, more Latin American way of life.

Many of you know about my challenges with bipolar disorder, a sickness that for a decade cost me everything and landed me eventually in what many Americans consider the slums of public housing.

Yet you might also recall that my experience of that place was different from many others and that it largely obliterated the image most folks have of government-subsidized housing. For there, I encountered no crack heads with belted jeans around their knees or welfare moms, runny-nosed toddlers on either hip.  I found it a place, more comforting than chaotic, a place with more crafters than addicts.

Still, in 2005 I got out.  I rented a regular studio apartment in downtown Lexington, began to work part-time, and eventually bought a house on 4th Street the following year.

But I didn’t just buy a house in 2006, I met my partner Sara, as well, all because of a dog and a disaster.

Literally.

(Many of you might remember this part of our story, as well.)

In 2006, Sara was still directing Habitat for Humanity’s response to the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in Southeast Asia, while I was working in Lexington as an artist-in-residence, facilitating creative learning opportunities for disabled adults. These employment realities brought us together, my needing to supplement my measly artist’s income by pet sitting and Sara’s needing to travel while at the same time caring for her dog.

Sara, Kathy, and Ralph in 2006

However, I didn’t fall for Sara right away, as least not until I dreamed I was in love with her a couple of months after we met and woke up the next morning with a passion for her that has yet to wane.

Sometimes things are meant to be and lives are linked in strangely synchronistic ways.  For example, neither of us was aware of when we  met, that our mothers had been friends for years before either of us knew anything about the other.  We never met in the context of that friendship.

But sometimes love is meant to be.  Sometimes there’s a cosmic rightness about a relationship—even about the house one lives in.

Sara and I have been proud to make our home in a downtown neighborhood, rich in cultural diversity.  We’ve lived on a street where everybody knows our names, but in a house most folks of sound mind might have forsaken long ago.

Too large a task?

Yet neither Sara nor I is entirely sane, neither willing to throw up our hands and abandon any shelter as entirely hopeless.  Sara is an architect by training, schooled in developing blueprints for better tomorrows sometimes even building on a foundation of decay and seeming disaster.  Together we epitomize the trash to treasure mentality, especially when it comes to housing.

Undaunted, we have made our home, even as we have built our relationship, an unlikely love in the wake of natural disaster.  Admittedly, our house might be more rightly characterized as an unnatural disaster, but what we have made from that disaster, even with very limited funds, has been nothing short of miraculous.

So, to the degree that home is where the heart is, today, in honor of Valentine’s Day and sale of our house this week, we wanted again to share images of our home with you.

We hope you’ll enjoy the following photographic tour through the home so close to our hearts this Valentines Day.

Kitchen

Colanders and garlic (12 February 2012)

Cookbooks (5 February 2012)

Downstairs Hall

Chimney sweep light fixture

Downstairs Bathroom

1 February 2012

Library

Hickory and Thai vase (4 February 2012)

Buddha (30 January 2012)

Master Bedroom

Kathy’s drawings (6 February 2012)

Driftwood and shells inside bedroom fireplace

Chiang Mai Bedroom

Bedspread purchased in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Paint ladder as night stand

Guest Room

Kathy’s Studio

Dining Room

Tibetan prayer bowl (7 February 2012)

Living Room

Hungarian eggs (11 February 2012)

But this week, in time for Valentines Day, we sold the house.  We are under contract, set to close on March 29th, Good Friday and three days after my birthday.

I read once that home is where ones story begins, and with the sale of ours, another tale is only getting started.  Ecuador–here we come!

More soon about what we’ll be doing between now and our closing date and what we hope to be up to during the month of April–before we leave for Ecuador in early May.

Stay tuned!

Does Valentine’s Day make you think of home or something else equally special?  Have you ever sold a home more quickly than you’d expected, without even listing it?

To see more responses to this week’s photo challenge click here.

Sharing how easy it’s been to lapse into a kind of complacency since being home from Haiti (where we lived for a year) and Vietnam (where we were the year before that), I described our struggle with the developed world and explained why we no longer want to take our own privilege as US citizens for granted, but desire, instead, the simplicity of a less consumer-driven economy, a country where we won’t be so insulated by the abundance and resulting materialism of American living.

I tried, in my previous post, however, to emphasize that, for us, this is a lifestyle choice, one our relative wealth and opportunity as Americans allows us to make.  It’s a choice most in the developing world rarely have the chance to make.

Still, the question remains, one a number of you asked several weeks ago, when I first shared our news, why we’ve selected Ecuador as our destination, and the city of Cuenca, specifically.

Below are just a few of the reasons that might interest you.

map of Ecuador via Wikipedia

1.     Life-long love of Latin America

I studied Spanish in high school and majored in Latin American Studies, when I transferred to the University of Kentucky in 1981.  But even more importantly, I had a set of second parents who were Spanish-speaking.  I grew used to the sounds spoken in their home, and even if I didn’t always understand each and every word, I loved the music of their language, slept more soundly hearing its rhythms in the distance.  They loved me and comforted me, especially after my dad died.  Their language spoke to the lonely and unloved in me.  I craved the culture of caring in their home.  Perhaps even, I inadvertently came to associate their values with those of an entire ethnicity, so that moving to Ecuador may, on some level, mean moving home, returning somehow to Estrellita and Raul’s warmth and affection.

Kathy with Estrellita (L) and Raul (R) during the 1980s

2.     Location and Geography

We selected the country of Ecuador, in particular, for a number of reasons, one being its relative proximity to the US.  Quito, the capital, is a mere 3.5 hour flight from Miami, and because a low-cost carrier connects Lexington to south Florida, we can make that trip for $73 each way.

Also, Ecuador, for most of the year, except for the months during daylight savings, is in the same time zone as the East coast of the US.  Having lived in Vietnam, we know the struggle to communicate with friends and family back home when there’s a 12 hour difference, and we don’t relish having to fly some 30 hours to reach the US either—the time it took to travel from Lexington, KY to Hanoi, for example.

But Ecuador, beyond its proximity to the US, has an enormous amount to offer geographically.  Its topography varies from the Andes that run down the middle of the country to the Amazon in the east and a coast with stunning, largely uncommercialized beaches to the west.  Not to mention, the Galapagos Islands just off-shore, with their giant species of turtles, the place where Darwin developed his theory of evolution and wrote the Origin of the Species.

3.     Climate

We selected Cuenca, more specifically, since my partner Sara hates the cold and I despise heat.  Cuenca, with its perpetual spring-like weather, is a great climatic compromise for us.  It’s just south of the equator, so the there’s little temperature variation throughout the year, but an altitude of 8,200 feet means it rarely drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit or rises above 75.

Aerial view of Cuenca via Americapictures.net

4.     Affordability

In much more practical terms, however, the cost of living in Ecuador is a fraction of that in the US—many suggest only 25% of North America–some even say a tenth.

For example, one can rent a three bedroom house in Cuenca for a mere $300 a month.  Actually, I know of one family that is paying $250 and another that is paying $280.

Also, because Ecuador is an oil-producing country, gasoline is a mere $1.48 a gallon, and because the rest of economy is agriculturally based, food costs are low and eating out at restaurants rarely costs more than $3 per person—for a several course meal.

(The national currency is the US dollar, by the way.)

5.     Health Care

Ecuador is also known for its excellent and affordable medical care.  And Cuenca is becoming a popular destination for medical tourism, much like Bangkok has been for a number of years.  North Americans are traveling to one of the city’s several medical centers for procedures that cost too much in the US or are not covered by insurance here—especially cosmetic ones.

In Ecuador, doctors, most of whom are schooled in the US, still make house calls for no extra charge, and office visits are less than 25 dollars US, even without insurance.  Also, the most expensive drug I take to treat my bipolar disorder costs a $38 co-pay in the US but a mere $40 in Cuenca pharmacy—the cost even without insurance.  In other words, all of the medications I take are available there, most for a fraction of what I pay here—even with my insurance paying the bulk of the cost. Perhaps, that tells us something about how inflated the prices of pharmaceuticals are in the US compared to the rest of the world.                                                      

6.     People

A number of online sources suggest that Ecuadorians are warm and caring, receptive to strangers, responsive to even lame attempts to learn their language, and many indicate that the Cuencanos remain the warmest among the already warm, kind, and caring.  Even more importantly, perhaps, I have one blogging buddy, Lisa at Zeebra Designs and Destinations, already living in Ecuador, and Sara has a friend and colleague in Quito.

7.     Art and Culture

Last, but certainly not least, Cuenca is considered the arts capital of Ecuador.  Anyone who knows me or reads my blog, recognizes quickly my creative inclinations.  In Cuenca concerts are often free, music is everywhere, and exhibits are frequent gathering places for a large expat community whose numbers are over 1000, mostly from North America.

And besides all of this, Cuenca has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its well-preserved, Spanish colonial architecture and city planning.

So there you have it, folks—just a few of the many reasons we are making this move.

While Sara continues her efforts to save the planet from our new home in South America, I’ll try to anchor our adventure in words—sharing it via blog and periodic pieces in The Huffington Post.

I may be a bit of a bore these days, but I DO have a dramatic past.  Hopefully my future is looking every bit as exciting as my childhood forty years ago.  There may be no mafia involved now, but there will be challenge.  There will be growth and gain, sacrifice and maybe even pain.

We hope you will make this journey with us.  I know you won’t be bored.  You’ll inevitably see yourself in us.  You’ll laugh.  You’ll cry.  And though you may not be an expat, per se, I’ll bet “foreigner” might sometimes describe how you feel, as well, misunderstood even in your own home, among the ones you love the most.

In reading our misadventures, you’ll be comforted to know you aren’t the only one—not the only misfit attempting to survive a crazy, wacky world.

Have you ever felt you didn’t fit in?  Have you ever felt like a foreigner, maybe in your own family, city, school, or country?   How did that isolation affect you?  Will you ever visit us in Ecuador?

Again, please forgive my being an absentee reader of your posts.  I am spending every spare minute preparing our house for the market.  Things should return to normal once we are moved and settled.  I will be blogging from Ecuador.  I’m committed to that!  Love and miss all of you!

Note:  Please visit idiomART, our Etsy site.  In honor of our upcoming move, my holiday cat can ornaments are now on sale for 50% off—marked down from $14 a piece to $7.

Several months ago my partner and I began our 7^th year together.

Historically speaking, Sara has been the risk-taking half of our relationship.  Working for decades in international disaster response, she directed Habitat for Humanity’s rebuilding effort after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and later their response to the 2010 earthquake that nearly leveled Port-au-Prince.

I taught writing at the University of Kentucky until Sara received an assignment that moved us to Vietnam in 2009.  Since then I’ve created art, launched this personal blog, began a memoir, and started writing for The Huffington Post.  I’ve been our stay-at-home half, the one wanting consistency and craving predictability.

I’ve been the boring off-brand to Sara’s high-end adventure.

In the more recent past, however, Sara has begun to rub off on me, and some of these patterns have shifted.

I suppose it began with our move to Vietnam, subsequent relocation to Haiti, and most recent return to the US.  Having lived abroad, I’ve found it challenging to be at home again for any significant length of time.  I hate how easy it is to forget.  I hate that I have only distant and fading memory of post-earthquake Haiti—the newly homeless tented and tarped across the hillsides of Port-au-Prince.

Camps near Port-au-Prince, March 2010

It’s too easy to become comfortable and lapse into a complacency that takes privilege for granted.  In America, we whine when it’s too cold outside.  We complain when a grocery store doesn’t stock the brand of bacon or napkins we prefer.  All too often, we’re pampered by convenience, sometimes even spoiled by ready-made and pre-packaged.  Assuming the biggest and best are owed to us, we’re, not only content to take it easy, but we also develop a sense of entitlement that most of the developing world hasn’t.

I, too, am guilty of this.  It’s nearly impossible to live cloistered in the middle of America and not be.

In the US, we’re insulated by oceans on either side, reap the benefits of Canadian wealth to the north, and complain when the poor from Mexico cross our southern border in search of a living wage.  We are the sometimes spoiled younger sibling of a, now, global family.  Why should we adopt the Kyoto protocol if it requires sacrifice on our part?  Do we care enough that climate change impacts the poorest of poor more that it does us?  Those people and places are far removed from our experience, one that’s defined more by cable TV and video games than hunger, poverty, disease, or need.

There’s nothing wrong with episodes of “Modern Family,” for example, but when we watch games like “Survivor” on “reality” television, because we don’t know the real experience of struggle—it seems to me we’ve gone too far.  It seems, at least to me, that something fundamental is amiss.  You only have to read or see The Hunger Games to understand that utopia too quickly collapses in dystopian nightmare.  How far is “Survivor” from the game Katniss is forced to play?

Our American inclination to reduce survival to televised game-paying seems obscene to me–especially in light of the actual agony lived by so many mothers who struggle to feed their family even one meager meal a day.

I watched a mother prepare dinner for a family of seven (near Léogâne, Haiti, February 2011).

Sometimes I still think about Haiti during the rainy season,  the  night-time torrents of wet, the damp dark that soaks the soul of a person—

I think about a mother, holding her baby, in a make shift tent—barely a tarp over a mud slick floor—

I think  of that mother.

that baby.

that floor.

I realize I’ve got to change the lie I live–the double standard that says I care but then does nothing or not enough.

Sara and I simply don’t want to live this way any longer.

We want to know the world the way it really is–for most people.  (Unfortunately, poverty is a global norm.)

This choice, this challenge, this elbow-deep digging in soil and sweat, isn’t the life for everyone, but it’s the right life for us–and one the US has given us the privilege to choose.  Unlike so much of the world, we, at least, have the education and income to make a choice.   So wish us well–

–and pray for us–if you’re a praying kind of person– as we attempt to alter our interactions with the world, to change, not just our attitudes but our actions, as well–

–living what we value and behaving as we believe.

Are you as guilty as I am—spoiled by the benefits of living in a wealthy country?  Do you always live your values—behave as you believe?

Stay tuned next time for the reasons we’ve chosen Cuenca, Ecuador as our specific destination.

Note:  Please visit idiomART, our Etsy site.  In honor of our upcoming move, my holiday cat can ornaments are now on sale for 50% off—marked down from $14 a piece to $7.

Again, please forgive my being an absentee reader of your posts.  I am spending every spare minute preparing our house for the market.  Things should return to normal once we are moved and settled.  I will be blogging from Ecuador.  I’m committed to that!  Love and miss all of you!

Though we knew we’d miss Port-au-Prince terribly, when we returned to the US from Haiti some 20 months ago, at first we were happy to be home.  We enjoyed the luxuries of electricity around the clock and uninterrupted hours with family for the first time in two years—one spent in Vietnam, another on the western third of Hispaniola.

But our joy at reuniting with old friends and familiar places, only lasted for 6 months or so, and finally, after a year of sabbatical and periodic assignments researching and writing about poverty housing, ones Sara completed from home, we were aching to get back overseas.

Now—8 months after that—we’ve nearly taken to running laps around our Lexington living room—longing for new responsibilities, ones not so near the confines of computer desk and comfort called Kentucky.  Kroger and Trader Joes offer an abundance of luxury grocery products, but we prefer to purchase fewer processed and pre-packaged items.  We don’t need so many options when it comes to onions, napkins, Corn Flakes, kale.

Kroger grocery store in Lexington, Kentucky

We long for markets that are open-air, not quite so tame—less regularly-rowed and rigidly right angled.  The grid was great for the short-term.  In the long run, we wanted wild.  We craved the crazy of a wider world—thick with options and deep with possibility.

So my partner Sara and I are selling our home—a downtown, Victorian version of domestic bliss right in the heart of race horse breeding and bourbon brewing country.

Good-bye Kentucky.

Hello Ecuador.

Yes, you read that right.  Sara and I are moving from Lexington, Kentucky to a town of similar size but different altitude—not to mention latitude.

We are moving to Cuenca, Ecuador—high in the foothills of the Andes, far from American abundance and sometimes greed.

We’ve secured the income necessary to live in Latin America whether or not Sara has an assignment, as Ecuador itself is highly affordable by US standards.  Our house here will go on the market.  We’ll study Spanish.  We’ll sell everything but books and art—both of which we’ll ship to Ecuador.  (I’ll pray my father’s FBI file arrives before we leave.)

So, stay tuned for weekly updates on our progress toward departure.  We hope you will couch-surf with us via laptop and wi-fi to the wildness of Incan highlands and attempts to untame my more domesticated American way of life.

We are reinventing yet another event horizon.  This time it’s Ecuador.  This time it’s the American in me, leaving the land of chrome, the high-tech of touch screens.

Have you ever used a move to reinvent yourself?  What questions do you have about our upcoming adventure?

Preparing our home for the market.  Don’t even ask about the spatula!

Note:  I’ve been working nearly around the clock in an effort to prepare our home for listing—some nights staying up till 2:30 am and getting up to begin again only three hours later.  I’m going days at a time without even checking my email or Facebook—unheard of behavior for me.  It’s been an incredible sprint, since we can’t move until our home sells.  Please be patient with me.  I’ve read nearly no posts in several weeks.  But I DO hope to update my blog weekly, so I can keep you abreast of our progress.  I love and miss you all.

Sara says I’m single-minded—that I’m focused and goal-oriented.  Her description is a kind characterization of someone pretty much paralyzed by anxiety in the face of having to do too much—what I consider too much—what some folks call cooking dinner.

The other night, for example, my partner had a headache, so I promised to prepare the pork chops she’d thawed in the refrigerator.  She suggested that I fry some red potatoes stored in a basket by the microwave—that I might steam some broccoli, as well.  Pretty simple, right?

It started off alright, at least.

I located the potatoes, washed them, removed the eyes.  So far, so good—

—That is until I tried to slice the suckers evenly, to keep the pieces uniformly sized.

I tried several knives.  Were the blades not sharp enough, or did I merely possess the most pathetic cutting technique this side of accidental amputation?  I was flustered.  I was flabbergasted.  I lacked the necessary skill.

I may have said an ugly word—or two.  Profanity may have been uttered.

Poor Sara—her head pounding—had to deal with me yelling how I needed help—that I was trashing the broccoli side dish—too much to do at once.  Wielding a meat cleaver in one hand, a paring knife in the other, I insisted I’d be lucky to get the pork chops in the skillet with all this potato making madness.

Sara and I ended up arguing.  I tried to help but morphed into a head-ache maker all my own.  Frantic and frenzied potato slicing pushed this single-minded perfectionist off a culinary cliff.

But why does all of this matter?

Because you may have noticed my absence from the blogosphere, my being AWOL from what you yourself have written in recent weeks.  It all boils down to this.  Not only can’t I walk and talk at the same time, I can’t see and breathe simultaneously either.  How dare the universe expect so much of single-minded me!

So, here’s the deal—Sara and I have something exciting on the horizon—something on which I need to focus—forget the pork chops—pitch the side dish.

What can I say?  I blame it all on remnants of my mental illness—an inability to focus reduced to driven-ness, a sick insistence that I do just one thing and do it super-duper well.  God knows, if you can only complete a single task, you had better do it well.  Damn well—dinner notwithstanding.

While Sara thrives on the hot seat, it does little more than fry my forever-widening ass–too many fried potatoes, I suppose.

But this project has impacted everything, sometimes my writing, too often, my ability to partake of posts I know you’ve written.

I hate this about myself, but if I’ve learned one thing in recent years, it’s that I need to bank on my ability to focus on a single effort and leave all others to the multitasking half of my relationship.  I do my one important part.  I do it well.

To hell with all the rest.  That’s why God made the Sara’s of this world.  Right?

So forgive my recent absence.   Forgive my failing to read the great stuff you’ve undoubtedly written—I’ve had potatoes to fry.  I’ve had dinners to serve.

I promise our kitchen will be full of good smells and plenty of promise in the coming days.  Stay-tuned.  Pull up a stool.  Here’s a heaping helping of the best, damn hash browns you’ve ever had.

A pork-chop-portioned announcement should be coming in February.

In the meantime, please be patient.  The timer on my stove is buzzing.  God-forbid that I let dinner burn.

What’s your strategy for managing stress?  Are you good at multi-tasking?  How do you and your partner divvy up duties during busy times?

White-haired and handsome, Daddy was a bookie with organized crime connections.  Several grand juries indicted him over the years, and the FBI raided our home a number of times, taking Daddy to jail.  According to us kids, however, federal agents were the real evil.  Our lives revolved more around Lego and Lincoln Logs than search warrants and wire taps.

(Left to right) My sister Susan, Daddy, and I (Christmas 1968)

But come December, my dad made up for these legal liabilities, for what my two sisters, brother, and I imagined mere misdemeanors.

Sure, he gave gifts throughout the year—World Series tickets to my sister Lynn when she turned ten, for example—

—but Christmas morning was Daddy’s center stage.  There, with one wardrobe adjustment, he morphed, red-suited, into wise guy among Wise Men.  A Savior who Jesus-ed us with gifts and trips, he would have outfitted himself in elf couture, if that’s what the occasion called for.  I’m convinced of it.  He was Superman in a Santa suit—at least in our minds.

You see, Daddy didn’t stuff our stockings with apples and oranges, underwear and socks, but with destination gifts and vacation elation—one year Mexico—another, a Caribbean cruise.  He made sure our stockings bulged bigger and sagged deeper than any others in the neighborhood, in all of Pittsburgh, for that matter.

My siblings and I (Christmas 1973). I’m holding my baby brother on the left.

One Christmas morning I remember, he’d already showered us with Barbie dolls and Tonka trucks, GI Joes and Easy Bake Ovens.  But pj-ed and pony-tailed in a roomful of presents, we knew the best was yet to come.   It was time for Daddy’s annual encore, his curtain call, if you will.  He’d lined us up, oldest to youngest, on an orange couch in the living room, our stocking feet twisting, little fingers twitching—so hard to sit still—so much anticipation.

“Are you ready?   Daddy rubbed his hands together, drawing out the moment, making it last longer.  We held our breath as he approached the stereo, positioning the needle on a song he’d pre-selected.  The record played clue number one.

NYC

I go years without you.

Then I

Can’t get

Enough.

Enough of cab drivers answering back

In language far from pure.

Enough of frankfurters answering back

Brother, you know you’re in NYC.

“New York,” we squealed.  “We’re going to New York City!”

“Are you sure?” he asked, trying to throw us off, get us to second guess ourselves.

“Yes, yes,” we insisted.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “Listen.”  And again he set the needle down—this time on clue number two.

It’s a hard-knock life for us.

It’s a hard-knock life for us.

Steada treated,

We get tricked.

Steada kisses,

We get kicked.

It’s a hard-knock life!

This was the ironic twist we never understood as kids.  It was a hard life we led in legal terms, but not always, and not forever.  Daddy’s joke to himself and Mommy, I imagine.

But then he finally fessed up.  He confessed the destination.

“Okay.  You’re too smart for me,” he said.  “You guessed!  We’re going to the Big Apple.”

He turned and picked up tickets from the mantle, fanning them in his hand, like playing cards, the theater’s royal flush.

“And we’re going to see Annie on Broadway.”

We hooted.  We hollered, high-fiving one another as only happy kids can, my three-year-old brother still wondering what apples had to do with anything.

“But when?”  Lynn squealed what we all wanted to know.

So, Daddy silenced us—holding his index finger in the air—“One moment, please.”

Again, Daddy approached the stereo.  Again, the music played.  This time, clue number three.

The sun’ll come out

Tomorrow.

Bet your bottom dollar

That tomorrow

They’ll be sun!

Just thinkin’ about

Tomorrow

“Tomorrow!”  We screamed—up off the couch.  “We’re going tomorrow?”  This was too good to be true.

Then as the music continued, he turned to Mommy—ceremonial gesture toward the pj-ed peanut gallery.

“The tickets, please.”  And she placed the confirmation in each of our hands—airline tickets.  And the date—December 26^th.

“You better get packing!”

So, of course, we did.  We packed every year—that is, until Daddy died in 1981, too young, too soon.

After that—no Christmas passports, no ports of call.

More than thirty years have passed now since Daddy died—no curtain call.

And I wonder sometimes what he does these days on December 25^th.  I don’t know if Broadway musicals play a place like heaven in the end—if that’s their final run.  But if they do, I bet Daddy has orchestra seats.  I bet he’s hanging out in bookie paradise, a promised land of legalized gambling, perpetual ESPN, and really good golf.

I still miss Daddy at Christmas time.

What’s your favorite Christmas memory?

Note: Please read my guest post published today on Tori’s blog “The Ramblings.”  It’s called “The Far Side of Sanity and Back Again.”  I hope you will stop by Tori’s hilarious blog and leave a comment!

Also:  If you have not read or left a comment on my most recent Huffington Post piece, pleae do.  Only one reader left a comment on that post, so I’m feeling sad.  It shares tons of extra photos of gift wrapping with trash ideas that I did not post here.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to each of you!  Thank you so much for reading, commenting, and supporting my blog over the past year.  I love you all!  You make my life richer, fuller——more meaningful!