I’m Already California Dreamin’ After One Day Back in New England

It’s become a cliche to complain about our brutal winter…but let me just say that I am not that happy to be home. Contrasting my time in Ventura and Marina del Rey California, it was painful. From a hot tub overlooking a busy yacht Marina to slipping on ice walking to the Deerfield post office.

From an ocean front walking and biking trail to the dirty snow rimmed with a dusting of new snow and a pile of trash frozen to my back yard, not movable, just sitting there taunting me in its ugliness.
Ï am afraid I am not at all happy to be back, but I am happy to be back home in the town where my grandchildren, children and my partner Mary all live.

While I was gone a big change took place. Mary got a new job in a public school in Erving. It’s a major league step for someone who was completely convinced she would spend her whole career in the same two elementary schools. Nope, when her hours were cut due to budgets, she took the pro-active route and found a school that welcomed her with open arms. Good on her!

There are not a lot of other things that have changed in my one-week absence, though. The oil burner started leaking oil and I was lucky enough to have a son-in-law, Francisco, who came by and saved the day by fixing the leak. I was able to watch them fix the burner using Facetime, which was pretty cool.

But I am making a vow today, that I have unsuccessfully made in the past–I want to live part of next winter in Southern California. I intend to find a way to stay in Ventura or another coastal town for one to two months, in February or March 2015. I’ll work there and integrate into the community. It’s a goal of mine and in 2015, I shall accomplish it!