I have yet to unpack, but it usually takes me a good day or two to settle into the putting-away-of-the-clothing.
My flight arrived a bit early, so I had time to go down and get my luggage, meet Gerry, and rush over to our friend’s house (where the kids were to get off the bus in case my flight was delayed) to greet the kids. Happy, happy mommy! Hannah had tennis this afternoon, and Maxie wanted to go visit the local creek with his friend, so I took the time to have a nice visit with Max’s friend’s mom (one of my dear friends here in NJ) and talk about – what else? – Minnesota.
My breathing was getting so much better every day in MN. I could taste the difference in the air – clean and crisp and light. As soon as I walked out of the terminal at Newark the thickness of our local air hit me like a wall. And, because I can be as thick as the air, the fact that every time I go away my breathing gets better (and worsens when I return) finally came home to roost.
Gerry’s cautiously, guardedly excited about the prospect of MN. He told me tonight that the garage where he parks his car during the day (he has to be at work at 4:30 in the morning, so he can’t take mass transit) is raising their rate from $190 a month ago to $275. A year of that is more than we’d pay in taxes if we moved to MN. Did I mention that along with our exhorbitant taxes (which are actually low for our town, we’re about to be reassessed) we do NOT get garbage collection? We have to pay separately for that (and water)?
Well, now you know what idiots we are here – and additionally how much we love living here that we’d put up with the extreme ch-ching we call property taxes. Something, somewhere has to give with this property tax situation in NJ – and in our case it just might be us. We’ve justified it to date by saying that if we stayed in Bklyn we’d have to pay for private schools for the kids (we were districted for a pretty bad school) and the education they’re getting here is world class. So many things to consider – and when I line them up the decision isn’t as clear cut as it might seem.
The thing about the NY area – especially before 911 – was that there was always TV work of some kind around. Gerry could squeeze together a free-lance life (no insurance, but jobs). The job he has now is sucking the life out of him. If Gerry’s not happy, we can’t truly be happy as a family. Oy – so much tsuris!
At any rate, now that I’m home I’m able to knit fast again (nothing like the familiarity of one’s own sofa) and barrelled through a few swatches tonight so I can get some patterns written over the weekend. I’ve completed the finishing touches on the crocheted skirt I’ve been working on and I’ll send that in tomorrow, and will actually have some projects to send out to knitters in the next few weeks (hooray!) It’s so good to be home – I do love South Orange – but I could be persuaded to strike out someplace new with the family…