Reese Kaplan -- Chapter Three (I Think) in the Overseas Move

As many of you know I've moved overseas to Malaysia to begin an early retirement after many years of managing, teaching and implementing a wide variety of technologies.  

As any baseball skipper will tell you, it's not your job to hit the home runs or strike out the batters.  However, it is your job to select the right people, then motivate them properly to do what they do best.  Sometimes you succeed.  Sometimes you don't.  

The first period of ending regular day-to-day work was a bit odd without a full agenda of things to do, but then the seemingly bizarre fantasy move to the other side of the world brought on enough tasks to keep my heretofore (and sometimes regarded as evil) brain plenty busy.

While the move itself went off pretty much without a hitch, it took awhile for things here to begin to feel more normal.  After a few months we developed a series of places to go shopping, became regulars at some nearby restaurants and learned that just because supermarkets stocked certain things in the USA, that didn't necessarily mean they would be available in Malaysia.  

It works both ways, of course.  In the USA there aren't multiple stacks alongside the raw fish or produce on display with stacks of dried anchovies adorned with plastic bags and plastic mesh baskets to take home for cooking.  

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the final pieces started falling into place when 33 boxes arrived via cargo ship from El Paso to New York and eventually to Port Klang near Kuala Lumpur.  I got informed a truck would be bringing them to where we live about 200+ kms from here.  We were told they would not take them upstairs and I live on the third floor, so I was prepared for a long and tiring day of lugging heavy boxes.  

When they arrived, the security guard informed me and I gave the okay for them to enter.  I went down to greet them and perhaps it was my limited amount of hair that is quite gray suggested I was more frail and less capable than most of their delivery customers.  

Despite trying to help in the unloading, they waved me off and little by little two small guys carried everything upstairs and deposited them on my large front terrace.  My muscle aches were limited to the few feet dragging them inside and figuring out where to stash them far away from the inquiring and mischievous little puppy we brought into our home a few weeks ago.

While it was great to see more clothing, spare medical stuff and the like, it was the arrival of art that truly helped make these blanks walls appear like a canvas in need of some color.  We saved 19 paintings that were already framed and figured out where to make them reside.  Then there were some large silk embroideries that had never been on display along with some papyrus paintings.  

We took them all to a frame shop we've been using and they did a terrific job making them look like the works of art they really are.  I also found a series of ten paper cut works I'd never displayed which I turned over to the same shop for matting and framing where they will line the upper segment of wall above the master bedroom window that looks out on the pond and golf course.

In addition to the mountain of sliced cardboard was a heavy wooden crate built by an El Paso art gallery who not only boxed the paintings but also created a way to ship some very heavy custom sculptures so that they would arrive without damaged.  Putting the two bronze works of a dog and a fox were like greeting old friends, and the ceramic sculpture of a bear gave a great pop of color to the front room being used as a private study.

All of this unboxing and organizing was really just a prelude to what was really missing here.  I found my yearbooks from 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1986, as well as an old Life magazine featuring the Mets.  There were other photos that were framed and unboxed, including one with Tom Seaver, Tug McGraw and Yogi Berra, an autographed picture of Mookie Wilson running to first where also autographed Bill Buckner was forever haunted by Vin Scully announcing "It gets by Buckner!" to proclaim that the Mets had completed the improbable come-from-behind in Game 6 of the World Series.  

The one unframed photo and magazines are at the frame shop this week to bring back and begin to make my home office feel way more real.  

By odd chance we were wandering an upscale mall where there is a chain store called Daiso that is a slight step up from the typical Dollartree or 99 Cent stores that proliferate in the USA.  

Daiso charges slightly more (about $1.25 in US currency) as a flat rate for everything but there is often quite a bit more style and uniqueness to what they have to offer. I'd gone and ordered individual plastic cubes to display my collection of autographed baseballs with the intention of putting them on top of the custom made wooden case I had built to display the intricate handles and engraved Damascus steel blades of my remaining pocket knife collection.  

Unfortunately the cubes would sit on top but could be dislodged by movement of the glass doors when the case was opened.  Enter Daiso where they had a curved flip-up display case which even showed on the label picture a pair of baseballs on display.  

Whether or not they would work instead of the recently purchased cubes was still up in the air until I reached out for my ever present tape measure to get an idea.  I knew the knife case was forty inches long and these cases were just a hair under 7 inches, so 5 of them would fit easily across the width.  Then I saw there was a narrow flat panel on the bottom of each and the plastic shape immediately rolled uphill from there to complete the display case's shape.  The flat portion was just about 2 inches wide, so I knew they would fit easily.  

I bought five of them and when I got home I discovered that the five would fit between the two brackets mounted to the far ends of the case for hanging it on the wall.  The baseballs are very important to me and will complete a very different kind of diamond memories than what brides enjoy.  

None of the sports stuff is in place yet but the decorating should begin next weekend when I retrieve the works in progress from the frame shop.  There is still a lot of drilling into the concrete-over-brick walls to insert plastic holders for the screws that will provide the means of hanging the heavier frames.  

The lighter weight pictures like the paper cuttings with their frames will likely get affixed with self-stick gel pads and hooks.   We got the method from a firm hired to hang the 19 paintings who charged us roughly $4.25 each to drill the holes, hang the pictures, level them and vacuum up the residue.  

While this move has separated me from friends and family for in-person visits, an IP telephone and online video calling services like WhatsApp make it much easier to stay in touch than I'd originally expected.  Of course, we all must grip with the 12 hours difference in time zones between here and the east coast of the USA, but like enjoying my breakfast while watching Mets games on MLB.TV it is something you simply adapt to accepting.