Dog-sitting with Elvis

So I'm on location this week.  Back home, sort of.  I'm dog-sitting in Escalon, in the house where my sister and her family usually live.  The same house where I grew up, since I was in the 7th grade.  My parents have owned this house long enough to pay it off, I think.  Since 1981, I believe.  And there have been several different living arrangements in that amount of time.  Several different house projects, too.  Right now, the Megenney's live here, with Elvis, the biggest chocolate lab I know.  So it's me and Elvis for this week, although Suzy will be joining me come Wednesday for the Thanksgiving celebration with my parents.

For a while, my parents rented out the house to a family that included a pastor.  They lived here, evidently quite happily, for a few years.  Then my sister got a teaching job here in Escalon and the pastor's and his family's tenure ended.  Since then, my parents have added on two bedrooms and a bathroom above the garage.  And they moved back in for awhile, living with the Megenney's (before they had Elvis).  Then the Megenney's moved out and into their own house, and lived there in Riverbank for awhile. 

My parents then had the opportunity to purchase another house-- a short-sale foreclosure-- just around the corner from here.  The Megenney's moved back in to the place here, renting back from my parents.  Mom and Dad have a very nice 2-story place on a court/cul-de-sac.  They're very happy with their house, and they feel they got a really good deal on it.

The Megenney's are very happy with this place, I assume-- it's bigger than their place in Riverbank, and much closer to the schools where they work and attend.  Each boy has his own bedroom, and they have a large back yard. 

I got to spend the night in my old room for the first time in many years.  It hasn't been my room since I went away to college in the fall of '87.  Since then I've lived in different places in Iowa, Sacramento, and Santa Clara.


During that time, we've owned two houses in Santa Clara.  Well, owned the mortgages, anyway.  But we just live and own the one mortgage now, where my wife is right now, in Santa Clara.  And that's just okay with me.  I mean, I liked our other Santa Clara house much better-- it had more room, more back yard, nicer/more updated kitchen, quieter street... but I don't mind being where I am now.  I am willing to give up for what I need to be.  And I gave up that lifestyle fit, that way of living, so that I could live without the job that was killing me a little bit (or a lot) every day.  I wonder sometimes if it was my job or my mindset.  But I did what I had to do.  I made the changes.  And I'm better off today, with my health.  I'm much better off with my health today.  I can say that with confidence.  Last year at this time I had just been hospitalized a month earlier, and I would be hospitalized again in a few weeks.  I really feel good, and confident, and strong, and stable, such that I really feel that that won't be happening this year.  I feel like I am behind the wheel, and I've got a new car that is performing at its peak, and there's plenty gas, and I can just steer and drive and be aware and I'm going along safely.  And I have somewhere to go.  I'm doing what I have to do.  And the rest is gonna work out.  Somehow, it will all work out.  I can't explain how, but it will.  I have hope and faith and confidence, and I'm not in denial.  I know what I need to be working on, and I am working on it.  I am doing what I need to do.  I am put together. 

I am dog-sitting with Elvis.  Put that on the resume.