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Coming to America

On Wednesday August 15 we left our Stockholm Airbnb taking an Uber to the nearby Södra train station and headed to Arlanda for our 14:10 flight to London.  We have pared down to three suitcases for this trip which made us more mobile.  Check in went smoothly and we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and did crosswords to pass the time until our flight departed.

Aerial view of Sweden.

We love what we are doing but always look forward to coming home and uniting with family and friends.  This is a short turn around in Boston which is crammed with appointments and family time so we apologize to those friends we did not have the opportunity to see as we also had an unexpected emergency to deal with in our Boston Condo.  Our tenant had noticed some minor dripping in our walk-in closet/dressing room and on investigation we discovered moderate water damage and mold that may have started 1-2 years ago from a leaking roof deck above us.

Jim cutting out wet moldy carpet and advertising for UnderArmour.  It was so hot and humid.

Mold on the ceiling and walls.

This disaster dominated our time requiring us to evacuate the entire contents and relocate it to our daughter’s house in Melrose.  It took several trips of one truck and two cars and many hours on a hot day.  We discovered the problem just two days after getting home.  When our new son-in-law Rob heard about it and saw Sandy’s anguish he immediately volunteered to give up his Sunday to help us.  Our son Jason did the same as well as grandkids Jack and Natalia.  Jen and Rob also volunteered to give us garage and basement space saving us storage expenses.

Our closet stuff in Rob & Jen’s garage.
Our closet furniture and computer in the cellar.

Thanks to their selfless efforts and hard work we were able to move everything so that repairs can start ASAP.  We were however able to squeeze in a few nice times with some friends.  On Friday night Rob and Jen allowed us to host a barbecue at their house for some of our running buddies.

Ed & Andrea Conley and Jen/Rob.

 Saturday morning we met our friend Susanna Lee for Breakfast and then had a lovely lunch with Katiti and Bill at their home in Cambridge.  After lunch we gathered supplies at Home Depot and returned to 87 Beacon to clean up the closet as much as we could.  Sunday was devoted to closet evacuation as noted above but that evening our son Jason and Catarina had us over for a delicious dinner.  All this after Jason and Natalia had spent hours moving us.  On Monday Sandy called her nephew who is the general manager for a large contracting company.  He immediately came over to assess damage so that the leak could be located and fixed and the closet repaired.  Wow, it is so wonderful how families help one another in time of need.  Because of all this support we only had to delay our departure to Denver by one day and as a bonus we were able to attend our daughter Jennifer’s Sangria dinner event which she put together for Turner’s Seafood Grill & Raw Bar in Melrose where she works.

Tom Quirk and Jim listening to Jennifer’s presentation on different types of Sangrias.
Donna Quirk, Sandy, Jimmy Turner and his wife Kathy, Rob, Tom Quirk who knew Jimmy T. from Harvard and Jim.

We left for Denver early Tuesday morning in time to have a 40th birthday dinner with son Matthew and family.  Upon seeing our grandchildren Mae and her new baby brother Camden all our worries about a water and mold damaged closet quickly became a distant memory.

Jim meeting Camden for the first time.
Proud grammy.
Big sister Mae wearing the bib that we brought for her brother.

 

 

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