Shoe String Harbor or Bust

First things first. We were unable to get a truly slimy offer accepted on the Cold Spring Harbor house. So we made a reasonable offer, which the builder jumped at in a play-it-cool sort of way. Still, the Grove Street house, which we've dubbed Shoe String Harbor, is a steal. Unless, of course, you need to cluster-bomb it with cash to make it something you're comfortable in.

And as we were negotiating the purchase of that house, we were also negotiating the sale of our house. We asked the buyers to lease the house back for two months, so Jesse's schooling would not be disrupted. They agreed. But it wasn't going to be cheap to lease back our place. And that didn't seem to matter, particularly not to my husband, when he thought I'd be undergoing chemo. No price was too high for a place in which I'd be comfortable. He ignored all my suggestions that we live down the street in a neighbor's flat, where the price was very reasonable.

And then, within 24 hours of signing the lease-back contract, we realized I wouldn't be needing chemo after all. Mike must have already been mulling over the implications of that when I submitted a spreadsheet, forecasting all the costs we would incur trying to create storage space in this house without cupboards, cabinets, shelves, and drawers. I do believe he whitened somewhat when he saw the numbers. Clearly, a woman who didn't need chemo and a house that did need some pricey enhancements would indicate the need for a change in strategy. We contacted the buyers and asked if the lease-back could be dropped entirely. We contacted our neighbor and confirmed that her flat was still available for a short let. Everything was acceptable everybody. We had two weeks to clear the hell out.

So we've been scurrying around like crazed rats. Tomorrow is the big day, aka the Day of Tears. I try to think of leaving as just the bottom of the trough. Things will get better. If I can get through the day without crying in front of someone I don't know well, then all will be well. Goodbye my dear old house. We lost a beloved border collie and a delightful cat here. We raised our baby here. I will miss you terribly.

There are some who are still not reconciled to our departure. My mom, who says our absence will be just like "a death in the family," never misses a chance to tell us that we are making The Mistake of Our Lives. We'd only just started tucking into the spicy Thai take-away I'd brought to her when she began to give the advice she dispenses freely and often. Urgently, she told me to go down to the seaside every day once we're in Cold Spring Harbor. Apparently I need to watch and even measure the tides as they come in.

I grunted in the kind of ambiguous affirmation that I always hope will forestall further conversation on an over-discussed topic, but she tends to take such noises as signs of encouragement.

"Mind what I tell you, when the water starts gittin' higher, you just sell that dadgum house."

For a giddy moment, I wonder if whatever Pessismism Porn Channel she is currently watching has managed to turn her attention from global warming and the economic crisis to tsunamis. At least that would be a different topic. But, no, she's still on about dead penguins, melting icecaps, and rises in ocean levels so abrupt that even we, 300 feet up and a mile away from the Long Island Sound, will be devastated. Mike will later observe that it would be a damned fine thing for us if the levels did rise, for then we'd have sea-side real estate and wouldn't that be worth a pretty penny. "I'm going to go out and burn some carbon right now!" he adds.

I know it sounds churlish, hell, it's even tacky, but I do find myself pleading for more good luck from whatever friendly star has thus far blessed me mightily. My star has given me a tumor so indolent I don't need chemo, and has given me a house sale so quick it made our heads spin. I don't want to be greedy, I tell my star, but would it hurt you to send a devilishly handsome, 68-year-old man with deeply cushioned pockets and a lust for the road to my Mom? In an ideal world, they would be smitten with each other and she would charge off into the sunset in her new $100K motor-home, happily forgetting her kids' phone numbers for awhile.

But I guess that's too much to ask.

Dealing with my mom was just one tiny interruption in the long, headachey blur that is moving house. First came the Vast Culling. In which we made a brave but ultimately futile attempt to get rid of the great drifts of crud that have collected in our garage and in our kid's bedroom. How can it be that she hasn't cared for Bratz dolls for five years, yet there are ten of the dolls' feet, all mismatching, in one corner of a drawer?

By the time the culling was done-ish, we had nearly 30 black plastic trash bags, stuffed with junk you wouldn't inflict on a homeless person. That doesn't include all the stuff I took to Good Will, to Half Price books, to the city's hazardous waste unit. There was the Playmobil, which we got neighbors to take. There was the giant plastic Santa that dear friends had blessed us with when they left our street to move to Massachusetts. They were wise to first show Santa to our then 6-year-old, making it impossible for us to unleash the screams struggling inside us to be heard.

Habitat for Humanity was particularly glad to see me coming. I mean, we had 20 doorknobs, cheap and cheerful, that we'd replaced over the years with better stuff, but then saved out of sheer laziness. And there was the screen material, the plywood, the pieces of trim.

The trash bags, enough to damn a lake, were filled with the stuff that no one would take: three cans of Brasso, all half-used; 5 RCA cables which no longer matched a single item of equipment we still possessed. Those bags were the sorry record of people who get to the store, feel they need something -- an ethernet cable, a reel of weed-whacker twine -- but can't remember if they already have it. Terrified of having to make a second trip, we always buy the thing that we can't remember already owning three of.

I put the lighter stuff in the plastic bags, slapped $120 worth of pay-as-you-throw stickers on them, and put the heavy stuff in the City-provided bin. This included an old candelabra with a dragon motif, to which a key part had popped off and been lost. Lord, that sucker was heavy. It included old Christmas lights, most of which worked for one season, or half a season, and then quit. When the garbage truck came around to pick up our bin with its giant mechanical claw, it actually dropped the bin. There was an awful noise. I happened to have stepped out on to the porch at just the moment the bin crashed to the street, its terrifying weight having overwhelmed the truck's machinery. I quickly and quietly stepped back inside, certain that the binmen would be coming for me, nooses in their hands, fashioned from the RCA cables. It was what I deserved.

And so my lucky star came through. I may not get a Sugar Daddy for my mom, but at least the trash collectors didn't see me, skulking on the porch.

Safe as Houses, Part 2

With the house in Austin sold and spring break providing a gap in the academic schedule, it was high time to return to Long Island and see if some progress could be made on the house-hunting front. New York towns take two months to close deals on houses because, apparently, attorneys have to get involved. Sounds crazy to me, too, but it also means that if we want our furniture to have some place to go other than Uncle Vinny's Used Furs Storage we need to pick something out.

Things have not gone auspiciously. I mean, the flight to JFK was on time and the walk from the Jet Blue terminal to the Air Train was as good for my figure as ever (it's a new terminal, so why is it so far from the freakin' train?). I had rented a 2009 Mustang on the theory that if you can't beat Yankee drivers, you may as well join them. And it's a sweet car, too. The only trouble is that in an excess of confidence, I had declined to rent a GPS. I figured I could find Long Island's North Shore without a resident AI in the car. And the journey went just fine. Initially. I crossed the island's central artery, the Long Island Expressway, headed north for Some Yankee Town, then things started to go a bit pear-shaped. I had lost the 135. Frantic, I called Mike for directions.

"Here," he said querying Google Maps while he talked, "I'll take you the pretty way."

Unfortunately, "the pretty way", involved crossing some train tracks. How hard can it be, right? The barriers were down. The lights were flashing. I'm the first at the barrier and I believe know the procedure. The barriers went up. I proceeded slowly, looking both ways. Just in case. As I'm slowly rolling forward, I notice the car on the other side of the train tracks. That barrier has also gone up but, curiously, the other driver is not, not, rolling forward. Does that driver know something I don't? I slow down even more. Suddenly, the gong starts sounding and the mother-flummoxing, son of a bleep-bleep-bleep barrier starts coming down. I'm no genius, but I think this means a train is coming and I can either floor it or back up. DON'T PANIC!

In retrospect, I should have floored it, but I chose to back up, just in time to get the car fully back before the barrier came down on our heads. Except the radio antenna nearly snapped in half, caught by the barricade. But we made it. And sure enough, a train came roaring through. Then another train.

Maybe it's the after-affects of radiation, but my pulse didn't go up at all. Or maybe it was the half of an anti-anxiety pill that I took on the flight, because the captain promised lotsa turbulence.

So the next day, we're up early and poring over notes on various houses. Then we go meet our realtor, keen to look over a few more houses. Surely, surely, the one we'll love, the one that will sweep all the others off the table will reveal itself.

Or, you know, not. We visit a lovely old Victorian in what had once, a hundred years ago, been a beach community for the wealthy of Manhattan. I love old wood, old floors. The warmth can't be faked. But the house is too small. As a friend of my mother's used to say, his trailer sleeps two, feeds four, drinks six. That was about the scale of this house.

Then onto a ranch house in the same general neighborhood, but in a more recently developed section (50s?). This house is bigger, but still too small, with a master bath that brings back the Gentleman's Shaving Cupboard that we replaced in our present house. And, as with our present house, doing anything to expand the master suite would require the expansion of the house itself. There's no way to just borrow space from another room. And that's a shame because this is the house I love. A half mile from the sea with a large, wildish yard to the side, you can't beat it for both neighborhood feel and relative isolation. And the house is damned pretty, with proper fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling windows, brick fireplaces, and hardwood floors everywhere. The kitchen was new and bright. The house called to me.

Then we went to see a "Farm Ranch" (don't ask), which I also fell utterly in love with, but the taxes in some areas of Long Island are positively grueling. And in this particular house, Jesse's bedroom would be downstairs. And princesses, as everyone knows, must sleep upstairs, preferably in a tower.

So we come full circle back to a house in Cold Spring Harbor, which we've seen before. Jesse drools, all over again.

I've mentioned Cold Spring Harbor before, as a very upmarket area of Long Island. Before the bust, we could not have even considered a house in CSH. But the Great Reckoning has caught a particular builder unawares and he's seeking to unload his outwardly nice, er, "Whaler's Cottage". But despite the pleasant exterior, there's no hiding that this builder, like most others of my acquaintance, is out to make a fast one. If he thought he could get away with nailing granite counter-tops to Lego boxes, he'd do it.

And the lot is tiny. I mean, I want to reduce the yard-work in my life, but this lot is so small that the dining room looks out on the wall of the neighbor's house. The realtor suggests that we re-jig the windows with beautiful stained glass. Hey, it's only money.

Meanwhile, the Politics of Child-rearing get complicated. Jesse loves the CSH house's high ceilings and boxy logistics. She is not dissuaded even when we tell her she'll have to scoop the dogs' poop in such a tiny yard. She will have to do it.

In a roundabout way, she tells us that it's not the house that makes her want to live in Cold Spring. The house is nothing. She just wants this unexpected opportunity to go to the best high school in the country (CSH High School has even been featured in Newsweek, as the director of education was only too happy to tell us).

A mere three weeks ago, Jesse had hated the very idea of going to such a school. She much preferred a larger school, she told us, one with a varied population and lots of different electives. But now that she's fallen in love with a house and its upstairs Princess Quarters, it's as if that particular teenager, the one who craved anonymity in a new school, never existed.

Exasperated, we try to sweeten the pot: "Baby, if we stick you in a house you don't like, we'll build a Really Nice Treehouse."

This has been a burning desire of hers for the last five years. Without even batting an eye, Jesse responds, "When did I ever say I wanted a tree-house?"

Me: "Okay, then. I think I saw an English Horn on Ebay the other day for just three thousand dollars."

Her face remains placid. "Oh, I've decided to just stick with the oboe."

Her dad: "Prices have really come down on baby grand pianos." She's wanted one of those since she was four.

"Thanks so much Daddy! You're the best dad! But I realized months ago that I'd miss my old piano too much. And you know how upsetting it's going to be to leave Texas and all my friends. I have to keep my old piano."

I wonder: does Mr. Obama know she's ready for the diplomatic corps? After an hour with her, Putin would give away the Kremlin.

And I have no more spine than Putin would have before this little schemer. We made a very low-ball offer on the Cold Spring Harbor house and had it flatly rejected. The nature of the rejection tells us what kind of offer will be considered by the builder. I'm again weighing up the wisdom of pouring so much money into my kid's education, for I remember (as well as I remember anything I studied long ago), that the offspring of doctors, lawyers and engineers become doctors, lawyers and engineers, whatever the school.

Some kids, the spooky bright ones for whom their intelligence is almost a disability, need some form of special education. But our kid, who is merely high IQ, whose Nobel probably will be of the Peace rather than the Physics variety, is the kind who it's almost hard to damage with a school choice. As long as there aren't head-slams in the halls and I can figure out which teachers to avoid, I expect her life chances will be the same whatever school we choose. But those in service to the Evil One, that is, people whose salaries depend on preying on parents' anxieties, are legion. They convince parents that Acme Elite Academy is all that stands between their child and permanent loserdom.

I suppose I'll give in to the attractions of such an education, because as long as others are swayed by such marketing, I'll have no difficulties in reselling the CSH house, when it comes time. And in the meantime, the neighborhood has access to a great semi-veloway, where I can cycle among blooming rhododendrons in Spring. And that will be enough for me.

When the Black Dog Barks

After boxing 6,000 books, scrubbing floors in clouds of bleach, bringing in tiler guys, plumber guys, electrician guys and many others, the dear old lady is sold. She was on the market about a week. May she embrace the next family as warmly as she embraced us.

On Monday, my health insurance changed. So I convey this fact to the nice receptionist at my radiation oncologist’s office, the place where a gargantuan, white phone-like object beams rays at me every day. The receptionist asks: “And what is the phone number for Acme Health Insurance?” She is completely unfazed when I confess that I don’t have the number and didn’t even think to get it. She smiles. I may be a dithering fool, but she isn’t. She turns to her computer and starts browsing that Interwebs Thingy.

A few days later, I’m at the office of my medical oncologist. She works for a different agency than my radiation oncologist, though she’s located a mere four floors above him in the same building. Of course, mere proximity does not mean common access to my insurance info (thank you, Mr. Obama, for seeing the idiocy in this). I tell this receptionist that my insurance has changed. Being what as I’ve been just a little distracted lately, I still don’t know Acme’s phone numbers, just my own group and subscriber I.D. The receptionist stares at me, speechless at first. She, too, has a hulking big monitor on her desk but it sits unused. “I can’t do anything without that phone number,” she says. I don’t even tell her what I’m thinking: “I’ll just google this on my Iphone while you sit on your ass.” I recite the number for her. I’m too nice to even remotely suggest that I think she’s an idiot.

So, you see, even in a black depression, when I’m minutes away from getting what I presume is going to be some of the worst news I’ll ever get, I’m still a nice person. I know that I’m going to get bad news from my oncologist -- it only makes sense because I’ve had my allotment of good news for the year. With the contract on our house just a few hours old, it's now time for the universe to remind me that I am its plaything. This'll be a good time for chemo. With the house sold, I'll be able to leave beds unmade when I’m too sick to get out of my own.

My oncologist breezes into her office. “So, your Oncotype score came back. What would you guess it is?” I’m not sure why interrogating me in this manner is interesting to her, but I’m willing to play along. “Gray area,” I say. “The intermediate range.” And the gray area, I knew, meant chemo for sure. Then my oncologist lays it on me: “That’s what I would have predicted, too. But you are solidly in the low-risk range for recurrence.”

I feel the air rushing back into my throat. My first thoughts are of family and friends and how soon I can call or email them. My second thoughts are about The Bike, and how soon I can get back on it. My third thoughts are about plastic surgery and the tee-shirt I’ll wear after I’m finished with reconstruction: “Hell Yes They’re Fake! The Real Ones Were Trying to Kill Me!” My fourth thought: I’m going to see the kind of hair-stylist rich ladies pay for, the kind who looks at your face and says, “Oh, Madame, your nose is so short! With the right style, you will be the second coming of Grace Kelly.” After months of not cutting my hair because I figured it was all going to fall out anyway, I’m going to get it cut, colorized, and moussed to perfection. Or, you know, not. The bike is going to take a lot of my time for the next two months. And, the Sweet Gods of the Vine know, there’s nothing easier than a braid.

So what have we learned? I don’t know about you, but when I run into an old acquaintance who says they are suffering from some illness or tragedy, I say the usual platitude, because it’s true: “I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.” And if did try to imagine it, I’d get it wrong. Before I was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening illness, I would have predicted that I’d stand up to it without any signs of depression. Oh, I expected to be a little downcast, but not depressed. I’m not the kind of person, I would have told you, who sees the black hole lurking in every fluffy cloud. Now I wonder what I’m really made of.

Winston Churchill called his occasional depressions his “Black Dog”. Brits are definitely the ones to teach us all a little something about putting that particular pooch back in his crate. Britain in the 1980s, when I lived there, was a poor place. At my first job, I made what was considered a good salary, but it was barely enough to keep a parakeet alive. The meager salary afforded me very little in the way of living quarters. I hated the tiny rooms in the tiny flat, the on-demand water heater that filled the bath while galaxies whirled. I hated our flat’s ‘nice’ wall paper -- Irish landlords and Indian restaurants have a lot more in common than you think. And then I bought a place, my first home to call my own! And things only got worse. There was no central heat. In the mornings, I dashed across the frigid hall from the warmed bedroom to the tiny bath where the on-demand water heater was the sole source of warmth. At least we didn’t have to put coins in the gas meter. That little feature of British life was spared us. The gas company trusted us to pay our bills.

But, on the whole, it didn’t seem so bad. I’d like to think that if I was a little more stalwart then than I am now, it was because of the British themselves, infecting me with their air of gratitude. For almost anything. Put two sugars in their tea and they start glowing with delight. At my office, the tea ladies would come around every morning and afternoon with a trolley loaded with Digestive and Rich Tea biscuits. My co-workers would become unreasonably excited, especially given that they’d rarely take more than a single “biscuit”, if that. Brits back then didn’t over-stuff, though I hear young Brits are getting that habit. Anyway, though I found my new mates just as repressed and reserved as they were famous for being (hey, not as bad the Finns!), they had a real talent for feeling grateful whenever there was even the slightest glimmer on the horizon.

So I think I know something about counting one’s blessings. But if that doesn’t work next time the Black Dog barks, I may turn to pharmaceuticals.