Return of the Son of the Sequel

Well, I'm back.  It's been just over a year of nothing pleasant to report.  That's a bit of an exaggeration.  But I thought that I would start by reviewing the good stuff as an exercise in remembering in the hard times that it wasn't always like this and that therefore it won't always be like this in the future.  So I have bonded with some old friends and new friends, including the fabulous guy who is pulling the old oil tank out of my driveway in my house while we're selling it.  I probably would never have predicted that he and I, out of the universe of humanity, would have so much to talk about, but there you are.  So he's doing that, and we have a buyer and a few backup offers just in case, and we are 90% out of the house and in the process of settling in with my in-laws at their gorgeous little gentleman's farm in the Virginia countryside near Washington, DC.  Clark Kent is staying where she is, of course, since she is all grown and has a life (and a secret identity) of her own.  I'm sure I will miss her considerably more than she, me.  Peter Parker is going to enroll in school here where schools have fields and separate rooms for different teachers and parking lots and finish out her final two years of indentured servitude to the public school system.  She sees it as an adventure and I'm truly grateful for that.  Bruce Wayne is about to go off to college (yikes) and we are all thrilled, as long as we can pay for it, which is definitely the first semester and probably the first year and then, who knows?  Sandman is staying with the house until the closing date.  I have no idea what he is doing there, besides petting the cat, but whatever it is, I'm sure it's delightfully stress-free and good for him.  The doggies are with me and for that I am truly grateful as they are happy and sleepy and dopey just like always and that makes me feel like things may one day be normal, whatever that means.  The farm is beautiful.  The house is beautiful.  My life and things are not so much and I'm having a little trouble finding a balance between my things that make me feel at home and the farm's beauty which I have no interest in disturbing.  Luckily the outdoors is something I cannot tackle whatsoever.  I have the opposite of a green thumb.  So on that score, I just enjoy.  My bedroom, which Sandman and I will eventually share, when he gets here, is in process--I've claimed my side of the bed, closet, and dresser.  I'm trying to, for the most part, hide my things in the room.  I did move a mirror that feng shui says is in the wrong place (on the wall past the foot of the bed so when I sit up, I look at myself) and replaced it with a photograph of the lighthouse by which my mother's ashes are scattered.  She took the photograph herself from the spot where she wanted us to leave her, I think to make sure we stuck with her plan, but it's beautiful too.  Beauty, beauty, beauty.  I'm also creating an office/living room/study/game room for Peter and I to use as our own work space.  I even put a bunch of musical instruments around and hope that within a few days, I'll make some music.  I'm thinking that I need to move my desk.  I thought that facing the lovely view of the Japanese garden and the pool would be ideal but my computer screen perfectly and completely blocks the view from my line of sight which seems silly.  So perhaps I will make some adjustments and see the beauty instead of just knowing it's there.  I do though, in the process, want to make note of a particular strange disorienting thing that has been happening this week.  I have been blurting out things we have to do in New York where we no longer live.  I don't mean to suggest that I will never visit or move back there; I have no idea what the future holds in that regard.  But I definitely have caught myself referencing things to do, places to go now, in a way that reminds me just a little of how I see something that makes me think of my first husband or my mother.  As in, "I should get those cookies for Mom as they are her favorite," forgetting briefly that she isn't with me anymore; or "That's a concert I should go to with Zippy as he is the only one I know who would appreciate that band" even though I'm no longer responsible for buying him birthday presents.  So I thought I would share some of those things here that I'm already missing about NYC: Little Miss Matched at 565 Fifth Avenue where all the socks come in threes; fruit vendors every few blocks with cherries, 2 pounds for $5; Katz's stuffed derma and pastrami on rye with mustard, even though I did eat exactly that just last Thursday; seeing people and pets I know while walking down the street both in Weehawken and in Manhattan; my synagogue community.  More soon.