Lest We Forget

I have been doing you a favor by not posting lately. Really. Until yesterday you would have had three weeks worth of: He's going, he's staying, he's going, again, oh, wait, he's staying, no, he's going, maybe... And probably would have been very annoyed by our indecison, much as I have been, but yesterday morning we made it official: Jorge got on a plane headed back to the States. In fact we are expecting a call any minute to say he's arrived.

In case you're wondering, there are no attorneys involved, no custody battles ahead. He's just got some work lined up and should be able to float us for a while longer. Salaries here, while fairly high, still can't carry living expenses here plus multiple mortgages there. I'd say we did prety well getting by for the past eleven months. Maybe he'll solve our unsellable property problems while he's there and we can continue on with The Plan.

A reunion is tentatively planned around Christmas.

In the meantime...

Today was ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) Day and it's huge! Bigger than Easter -- by the way, I discovered Easter Monday is officially the day for picking up small bits of colored foil from all around your house -- and even bigger than Melbourne Cup Day. It was so big the students were required to wear their full dress uniform, meaning they had to put shoes on. We were treated to a memorable small country town parade led by the local constable and a contingent of active military, followed by retired service personnel and the students from the two local primaries. There were speeches, most notably delivered by Grice and her co-captain, which led to some good humored quips about the Yank and the Pom, and a reading of the names of local fallen from WWI and WWII (a dozen in all.) There was one small hitch when the newly added Kiwi flag (without which the day might only be properly called AAC Day) became terribly tangled and would not go back up from its half-staff position, but otherwise it was a perfect day, followed by a barbecue at the school.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

-- Laurence Binyon