Changes

(This is Friday's post. Blogspot is having issues with the scheduling feature.....)

There's a lot of moving going on in my family this month



The Little Cuter and SIR have commingled their possessions in an apartment which, according to her brother, "is perfect in any and every way that an apartment can be measured". Their move was easy for me; I made them new return address labels and sent them a gift card for Target and I was done. SIR's parents and friends provided the manual labor, and the kids paid for the whole thing themselves. It was a first for me, not helping her move in, and I will tell you that cheering from the sidelines is much kinder on the manicure than moving the boxes myself. I will admit to a bit of jealousy while I thought about SIR's mother helping to set it all up, but I got over it pretty fast.



The Big Cuter is transporting himself from the right coast to the left as I type this. His currrent status is "retired" and he's reveling in his last 7 weeks of freedom before starting law school. I didn't have to move him out of his high-rise in Virginia; he packed his belongings in 6 hours the afternoon before the movers were due to arrive, and he supervised their 90 minute removal of his goods to their truck while playing computer games in the bedroom. Not exactly the game plan I'd have devised had I been there, but I wasn't and it got done and, once again, my manicure was safe. I'll be joining him on the last leg of his road trip to get him settled into his new digs ready to take on the role of a One-L without any domestic worries. Or, as he put it, "You can buy me all those things you think I need that I don't even know exist." But that's three weeks from now, and will, no doubt, be fodder for future post. He's on vacation, why should I worry about it?



Younger brother and his wife sold their house in Maryland last week and now have a new domicile which meets both their requirements - a shorter commute for her and enough lawn to justify a riding mower for him. I cannot imagine how they packed and moved everything they've collected in the past 20-or-so years. He took half of G'ma and Daddoooo's basement and attic and garage detritus home with him when we sold their Long Island manse, unloading it into his garage in the middle of the night in an effort to avoid detection. They have a pottery wheel and a shop-class's worth of power tools and every cooking and crafting and creative accoutrement you can imagine. Were they ruthless? Did they purge? And more important - is he changing his land line's number from the one which mirrored their old street address? I always thought that was so cool.



And then there's G'ma. Papers have been signed and discussions have been had but I've done nothing concrete. I have to change all the addresses I just finished changing after her last move. I have to cancel and restart cable and the newspaper and the utilities and I have to find the information on the Jitterbug phone and I have to decide what she's taking and who's going to cart it there and all I can do is wonder - Am I Doing The Right Thing? Yes, capitalized. Yes, with angst attached. No, there's no way out of it that I can see. I have to get comfortable with so many pieces that I ought to write a list. And I would, if that wouldn't make it seem all the more real to me.

And so it goes. New addresses, new states, new caregivers, new roommates, new bus routes, new grocery stores, new cable companies.... so much change......... Stop the World.... I want to Get Off!