I've been renting a bedroom from my son since October, 2011. I pay him a suitable amount for my share of the utilities, upkeep, and miscellaneous expenses. In the beginning, it was good living here way out in the country. It was relatively quiet, if you don't count the yoyos playing with dynamite, target shooting with their AR-15s, the empty coal and crude oil trains taking up slack down at the siding with house shaking BOOMS, and not being able to get out of town because all the tourists and skiers clogging the two-lane highway every Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evening as they head downriver to their homes in the cities.

Though, the biggest problem  is having to drive over an hour a mere 35 miles to my VA primary care provider in North Seattle or 60 miles that usually takes nearly two hours to the medical specialists down at the VA Medical Center in South Seattle. Traffic is getting to be a nightmare and I don't have the patience to deal with the idiots who got their driver's license out of a Cracker Jack box. My son used to take me to my appointments, but that used up his sick leave and personal time. Now that his stomach and liver are on the fritz, he has to have time saved up for frequent downtime.

I needed to find a solution to getting to the doctors and the only solution I could come up with was moving closer to a VA clinic, while at the same time being within a reasonable distance to a VA Medical Center. I definitely didn't want to move to Seattle or anywhere near there simply because it's just too F'n expensive. That meant moving to Boise, ID, Reno, NV, Dallas, TX, Atlanta, GA, Asheville, NC, or unbelievably Wappingers Falls, NY. I figured I needed at least a one bedroom apartment. It took a lot of research and a lot of time, but eventually I think I found the ideal solution. On October 1, I'll be moving into a one bedroom apartment in Plano, Texas. It's four miles from a VA Clinic and across the street from a light rail station that will get me to the VA Medical Center in Dallas. It seems the VA is starting a new Medical Center in Garland, which will be only 9 miles away or I'll be able to get there via light rail and a bus.

The apartment building has a parking garage, pool, fitness facility, and is a secure building. What's really great about my apartment is that it has a walk-in shower. No more climbing into a bathtub with my arthritic knees and ankles. The peripheral neuropathy doesn't help either. I've already lined up furniture for the apartment. I won't need cable TV because I no longer watch TV, but I'll get TV for movies.

Finally, I've written a novel, The Flight of the Dodo. It's about a boy who has childhood onset schizophrenia. It takes place in the Sixties and reads like a memoir, which puts it in the pseudo memoir genre. Edvard is fourth generation Norwegian immigrant who is physically, emotionally, and verbally abused by his mother. He weathers mental hospitals, psych wards, electroconvulsive therapy, panic attacks, a delusion his IQ is 73, attempts at employment, an attempt to get through the physical to enlist in the Air Force, suicide ideation, attempted suicide, and a horrific traffic accident that nearly kills him. Surprisingly, it has a happy ending. I'll be attempting to get it traditionally published, but will settle with Amazon if necessary. Aim high, accept what you get.