Have I got everything? Am I ready to go?

(ha! you thought I would miss a day of posting, didn't you? fools!)

Is it gonna be wild, is it gonna be the best time
Or am I just a-saying so?Am I ready to go?
What do I hear when I say I hear the call of the road?

Why wouldn’t I quote lyrics when they are apt (especially since they happen to be on the only available decent tape to listen to in the car, as we spin, my daughters and I, for one last time through the neighborhood where they grew up)?

Posting is moving into difficult mode.

No no no, I am NOT having a mental crisis here, I am off tomorrow to the East Coast for the better part of the week. My littlest one is starting her next to last year of college and , like each Fall, I get to be the mover-facillitator. Posting will have to be on the sly, done in quick trips to erratically functional cafés, on the pretence that I have to dash down to check out the latest free trade blends.

Am I too old for this? (Not the posting, the moving in of daughters.)

I did it for the first time six years ago, when my oldest was first going off to college (same town, same college; the only thing that’s changed is the emergence of the BLOG!). I was 46 then. I remember going up to the Dean of the college and saying to her something like: “hey, look, miss. I am glad you got a good operation going here. But I am getting too old to be carrying boxes and building furniture for my kid.”

What do I say now, at 52? (Probably: so how come you ran out of the good snacks at this year's reception? You know, we take all the free food we can, giving that your college has sucked out every last penny from us in the past years.)

The residential college dean has never warmed up to me since, even though I have been going back regularly.

Six years later: I am still about to move boxes and furniture, painting walls as needed, pounding nails into walls that are too sensitive for that sort of thing.

But right now, I am in the midst of our last evening as a family in the home that is in every way our family home. You know, the one I pushed to put on the market. You know, the one I signed away today. I’m sure I am popular. Actually, it’s not about me. This night belongs to the daughters. And their childhoods here.

P.S. I feel like such a failure as a parent. They have no idea what Wonderama is.