Looking ahead

I may have mentioned that we live in a small town in eastern North Carolina. It really is one of the prettiest places I've ever lived -- lots of old houses, bungalows and Colonials and painted-brick confections that look like the kind of cottage you find deep in a forest, with woodsprites standing by; majestic old trees; thousands of azaleas of every hue for the spring, and tens of thousands of crepe myrtles of just as many colors for the rest of the summer. And you can actually drive out of town and get to green fields and green farms and green woods and undeveloped land in just a few minutes. I grew up on Long Island, lived in New York City for many years, and then in New Mexico for seven years; Long Island and NYC lost their open spaces long ago, and while New Mexico has the space, it hasn't got the green.

Alas, eastern NC also has summers of the long and humid variety, like from late April through early October. I know there are hotter and humider places, places where sweaters are unknown and there are such things as "winter shorts", and that there are quite a few folks who think that's just paradise. I'm not one of them. I need to live someplace where leaves turn in early October, where snow falls regularly in the winter, where I actually feel like I've earned spring and summer when they finally turn up.

Eastern North Carolina is not that place. So we're moving.

Wiggy has been offered, and has accepted, a job with a large corporation outside Detroit. No, it's not the one you're thinking of. Not that one, either. Nor that one. He's up there now, living in a rented room (the "hooch") and working away at his new job. I'm here in North Carolina, getting the house ready to be sold, packing up boxes, throwing crap away, and generally making myself a familiar figure at the Goodwill and Salvation Army dropoff doors. I'd like to say it's because I have a generous nature, but it has more to do with tax deductions.

It looks like the move will happen in the spring. I understand from real estate brokers that the best time to market a house is in March, April and May. Nobody wants to pull their kids out of one school and into a new one during the school year, and our house is probably going to appeal to a family with kids (four bedrooms, huge closets, two full baths, big kitchen, fenced back yard). So we have a few months to paint, repair and generally get the house in order. This should confuse the dogs, irritate the cats, and stir up a fair amount of dust.

It can also present some interesting distractions. In cleaning out a closet today, I came across my cartons of comic books -- X-Men, Bone, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and a few Astro City. Needless to say, I sat on a packed box in the closet and read them for two solid hours. I can promise you that these boxes will NOT be seeing the Goodwill or Salvation Army doors!