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Friday 28 April 2006

It's been eleven months since Mom died.

Felicia and I have flown from San Francisco to Bridgewater, New Jersey, to go through Mom's things, to consider what and how to move things back to the Bay Area, to engage a realtor to help with the process.

It's going very well.

The realtor, David Santini, a high school classmate of ours, handled the sale of Dad's house. We've asked him to coördinate all the tasks that need to be done: house-cleaning and dusting, yard maintenance, get the plumber to replace the sump pump, etc.

The dividing and moving won't happen until we sell the house, because the realtor likes what we have and how it's staged. That's okay. We went through lots of stuff, and have figured out what to do with them.

Liz and Larry stop by on their way to a wedding, spending the day with us (cleaning and tossing). We all dine at da Filippo's Autentica Cucina Italiana (123 E. Main St., Somerville, NJ); a really amazing restaurant. We took Mom here not too long before she became seriously ill. Mrs. Filippo is shocked by the news of Mom's passing.

It's late at night; we're all tucked in. The cleaning was hard, the dust raised made us all choke and sniff, and the couple of hours sleep last night on our red-eye cinces the deal: we're exhausted. Tomorrow's another day.

Saturday 29 April 2005

Woken by alarm at 0700, all four of us head to The Daily Grind for a quick breakfast. Bialys with cream cheese for me. Good coffee. Mmmm.

Dinner at Origin Thai (Division St., Somerville, NJ). Absolutely stunning French-Thai cuisine; big city good.

We work until the wee hours of the morning; I finish cleaning, staging, and packing at 0100. Fel is done a half-hour later. Great, four hours of sleep until we need to leave for the airport!

Sunday 30 April 2006

0600: the alarm rings. 0615: Fel's make-up applied. 0630: we leave the house. 0700: Newark Liberty International Airport. 0715: Fel gets a 25 per cent off the rental car because the cigarette lighter (laptop power source) didn't work. 0730: coffee in hand, we queue up at C135. 0820: we push away from the gate. 0840: we finish taxiing across the tarmac and take off. 1140: watches set three hours earlier to Pacific Time, we land at SFO. Dziadziu is at the arrivals area; suitcases get tossed into his car. Adam is in the international terminal parking lot, coaxing the VW bus into life.

It's a beautifully sunny, warm California day, and we luxuriate in a sushi bar by Golden Gate Park, enjoying the parade of humanity attired in all its finery. Ah, so good to be home, in the land of the living.