Sunday

There was no rest for the tired, even on Sunday. We were up at seven, on less than six hours sleep, breakfasting and chatting and getting ready for three back-to-back New Orleans Mardi Gras parades.

The day was cold with biting winds gusting down the streets. Chelsea and I weren’t used to the bitter cold; we’d just spent months in pleasant eighty-degree days with the temperatures hovering around seventy at night. We weren’t dressed quite warmly enough for a chilly Louisiana February day.

But the cold and wind be damned. We were in New Orleans at long last and we were watching Mardi Gras parades!
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Our driving adventures

Settling ourselves into the comfy car with a big sigh of relief, we felt more stunned than anything. We’d had the week from hell, we were so tired it didn’t bear thinking about, and now we were tucked in a car for at least twelve hours with a perfect stranger.

Getting to know Veronica, I’m happy to report, was very peaceful. Approaching thirty and single, she’s slender, dark-haired, a bit taller than average, and is graceful and willowy. Her manner is low key and soft-spoken. She’s well traveled, and has been to a number of exotic locations with her film industry jobs.

The miles flew by softly as we gradually swapped entertaining stories from our lives. She shared fun, interesting stories about her career in the modeling and film industries, while we shared stories about our bike trips and time in the Czech Republic.

Veronica’s currently in the midst of some major life decisions. Though she’d been headed in a very different direction, she received a call that day about a possible job offer with Warner Brothers in California, a job that could be perfect for her right now. She had a lot to think about.

Chelsea and I talked about our major changes, how we’d gotten to where we are, and where we’re headed.

The conversation was perfect.
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With the economy sputtering near disaster and feeling the recession snapping at our heels, Chelsea and I returned home to Delray Beach in August of 2009 to close out our house and decide what to do with it.

We also decided to downsize our personal goods significantly. Little did we know back then that our twin projects would take two and half years and would become our own personal Hydras.

It didn’t take too long to figure out that we needed to do a short sale on the house, but actually accomplishing the short sale was a whole different animal. What an experience it was! Stories kept changing; bank procedures, staff, and policies kept changing; programs kept changing; paperwork ebbed and flowed with all the changes.

We couldn’t possibly predict when we’d be able to leave, but hanging over our heads was the possibility of being out in thirty days time from any point in time. It was nerve-wracking.
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