LET THERE BE CHAMPAGNE
Four Reasons to Celebrate
ONE - February fourth was a red-letter, high-fiving, champagne-drinking day. On that Friday, Kay and I trudged down the hill to the police station in hopes that our renewed resident permits would be waiting. They were. And they are valid for two years, not one, like the first. We will remain legally registered foreign nationals, living the good life in sunny-if-not-so-warm Spain, for the duration of our stay here.
TWO - By coincidence, February fourth also marked the halfway point of our three-year (actually 32-month) early retirement caper. We arrived in Granada October tenth, 2003, and plan to return to California June first, 2006. This latter date is not inscribed in cement, but is contingent upon world events not getting any worse than they are now.
THREE - Our Spanish venture has proven more successful that we could have hoped. Life at the halfway point is better than at any time since arriving. We live in a community where we are known. We seem to be meeting new people almost every week. Our health is good. I had stomach ailments November 2003 and another January 2006, but not even a cold during the intervening fourteen months. Kay has yet to sniffle.
FOUR - The dollar has improved a bit. When we arrived, the exchange rate was $1.14 to €1. The dollar fell to $1.36 at its lowest. Where we once dreamed of parity, we now long for $1.20. I guess people respond similarly to the price of gas, celebrating when the price falls below $2.00 in California, forgetting how recently it sold for $1.79.
Because life is short and there are no guarantees that tomorrow will arrive, it seems to me that the drinking of champagne should require only one good reason. So we have a quandary. What do we do with the three remaining reasons? One certainly does not want to imbibe four bottles of champagne at one sitting (how long one remained sitting, as opposed to reclining, would be an issue). Nor does one want to drink a bottle of champagne a day for four consecutive days. Our solution – and this required a good deal of discussion – was to save the extra three reasons for rainy days. Say you’re lolling around the house, down at the mouth, nothing good having happened in weeks. You need a lift. Suddenly you remember those extra reasons, stuck back in a drawer somewhere. Hey, you shout to your beloved, remember back in February when the dollar went up? I think we’re due a bottle of champagne.
So champagne it will be, at a date and place to be announced.
