Here's The Deal

Okay, so for a few months I have been dropping "oh NOT so subtle" hints that there were big changes in store for Chizz & I. I have mentioned our empty nest one or two or sixteen times. A change in lives is afoot. Now that Snake is ensconced in his VEPS (Very Expensive Private School) and Kiki fully engaged at her AAEPS (Almost As Expensive Public School), we can make the announcement.  Chizz and I are moving on up!  (to the West* Side, to a New York apartment in the skyyyy!) (sorry. . . .) 

That's right, we are moving to New York City.    Chizz took a new job in New York with his company a few months ago and has been doing the job from the West Coast but since that wasn't the original deal, we are moving.  We wanted to make sure that Snake got settled into college, that we tied up loose ends here, that we spent lots of cash flying back and forth between NY and California a few times and that we paid rent on a NY apartment for a few months before we actually moved.  Now that those things have all been accomplished, we are ready to move.  Almost.  We still have to call the movers and pack up. Minor details. 

We are excited about the move.  We think it will be fun exploring a new city and learning a different way to live.  Let's face it, living in New York is going to be so much different than living in California.  The weather alone will be a challenge.  New York actually has weather.   Living in a 2 bedroom apartment will be an experience.  Not having a car will be interesting.  (After learning it will cost almost as much to house a car as to house Chizz, I had to give up one.  The coin was on Chizz's side. Two out of three times!) 

Yes, living in New York will almost be like living in a foreign country for this West Coast Girl.  In fact I keep coming up with similarities between this move and our move to London.  People speak with an accent - check! Outrageously expensive rents - check!  Large cosmopolitan city with lots of diversity and different cultures - check!  Soooooo, I have decided I will dust off the blog and try to blog on a more regular basis.  But I think I am going to do it from a different perspective, because my perspective now is a bit different.  We are not moving to NY with kids, so we don't have to consider whether there is a good school in our area, if there are activities for the kids to be involved in, where the most kids from their school live, what the kids would like,  we only have to think about what we would like, what will fit in our empty nest.  Our new lifestyle. . .   hmmmmm, something to think about. 

IF

it were your son, your brother, your cousin, your friend, your nephew, your grandson, your neighbor, would you believe Penn State and Joe Paterno had done enough? 

Yeah, didn't think so. 

The Empty Nest

Well, this weekend Chizz and I took tiny baby steps toward the next stage in our life. We went to orientation at Snake's college. I think it is a relatively new phenomenon, parents attending orientation. I don't remember my parents going to any college orientations but it is a good idea. If nothing else, it gives the parents a point of reference when their child mentions a place or location on campus. You can visualize it in your mind. Or if they don't call, you have a better image of what trouble they may or may not be getting into.

In our case, Snake is going to a mid-size university in a large size city, Washington DC. Since he is one of over two thousand entering freshman, I am pretty sure I won't be giving away his anonymity if I mention the university - THE George Washington University. THE is a very important part of the name. If you are used to the way Ohio State football players say their almamater's name, then you get the idea. GW (or G-Dub, if you are so inclined) is right smack dab in the middle of it in DC. Four blocks from the White House, right next door to the World Bank (in fact, the World Bank Building is on GW property, if you believe GW), a hop, skip and a jump to the Lincoln and Washington Memorials. It is an inspiring location. I am hopeful that Snake will enjoy the historical and political nature of this city. I know I will on my many, many, many visits!!

The parents' program ran parallel to the students' program. Some of our seminars were the same, except from a different perspective. For example, they had a session on housing. For the kids, it dealt with specific questions on their particular housing assignments, what to expect on move in day, how to deal with roommates, the role of the house proctor (RA), and overall life in the dorms. For the parents, we dealt with the practical - what to bring (or more importantly what NOT to bring) on move in day, tours of the residence halls, how packages and mail are treated (for security reasons in DC, packages are dealt with in a different manner). I took advantage of the dorm tours. Ask my kids and the kids I have gone on college tours with, I LIVE for dorm tours - love, love, love them. The dorm Snake is going to live in is pretty old, I think built before 1925 but don't hold me to it. But overall, it is not bad. The rooms are pretty large even for those kids who will be in either a 5 person or 6 person room, like Snake. The rooms are not luxurious by any means, but they shouldn't be. These are kids, they shouldn't live in the same manner as their parents - they haven't earned it. But my-oh-my you should have heard the parents kvetching. "How could their little princess with 45 pairs of shoes be expected to share a closet? The bathroom are simply awful! These floors should be carpeted! These floors shouldn't be carpeted! (Some rooms have carpet, some don't. Whatever you have, apparently you won't be happy with)." After listening to one mom go on and on and on about how small the 4 person room her daughter had (which by the way, contained 4 single beds, 4 dressers, 4 desks and 4 closets), I told her I thought these dorms were fairly large and pointed out that at UCLA where Kiki goes, they would put 10 kids in this room and it still would have more room then most of the dorms there. She was not amused. Whatever.

Then we had the programs more specific to the attendee. For the kids, sessions on class registration, meetings with advisers, the different programs and departments at the schools. For parents, sessions on campus security, financial aid, the meal plan, study abroad, etc. GW has a Parents Services department which acts as a liaison between the parents and the college. This department had several sessions which I thought were helpful. They also sponsored some skits about the different issues parents might face (how often to call, how to deal with homesickness, when to be concerned about a student, how to let go). Although many of the skits portrayed the mom as the "problem", which didn't seem to surprise Chizz as much as it outraged me, overall the skits were very well done. And something strange hit me. In the middle of the skits, it happened. I felt my throat tightening, and tears welling up in my eyes. It is not that I didn't know that sending my youngest child off to college would be tough, but I have 2 more months before he leaves. I know it will be hard. It was hard when we dropped Kiki off. I held it together until we got in the car, then the floodgates opened. But that was when we left her there. We still have 2 more months with Snake. Why is it different?

Perhaps because it is a bigger step to our next stage, the empty nest. Its not that I am not looking forward to the next part, I am. There are some big changes afoot in the WTF household. I can't go into it in detail because we haven't told quite everyone yet and they deserve to hear in person before I put it on the Internet or the world wide web, but I am excited about what the future holds. Maybe I am not quite ready for the "kid part" to end. Oh I know they will always be my kids, but they won't BE kids. They won't need me in the same way, rely on me the same way. No more little league games, swim meets, brownie meetings, skinned knees, missing teeth, Captain Underpants, American Girl dolls. No more family Jeopardy watching, hot tubs on winter nights, inside jokes (Japanese Businessmen pods - or walking without moving arms). Yes, I think that is it. I am nostalgic for those days past. How do I know? Because I am quietly crying on the train to NY right now, making the man next to me very uncomfortable. Yes, I think I have struck a nerve. Just didn't realize it would be mine.

Okay, I Got On "The Facebook". Now What?

Alright, I got a Facebook page. I am not sure why. I guess because everyone else was, all the "cool" kids were doing it, peer pressure (and yes, I would jump off that proverbial bridge). But now I am not quite sure what I do with it.

I have 11 friends as of this morning, mostly relatives. That is not very many. Not compared to one of my "friends", a teenager who at the same time this morning had 626 friends! Yikes! How does that happen? I have asked my kids not to friend me (or more accurately not to feel bad about not friending me.) At this point in their lives they deserve a little privacy and I am not ready for more access. As I mentioned to a friend yesterday, I am happy being blissfully ignorant. Both Kiki & Snake seemed relieved.

But what do I do now? I know I should put my status on it, but I feel pressure, intimidated. Some people use their status to update their friends or family on the mundane activities of their lives, but I think that might be boring. Shouldn't my status be something pithy, profound or otherwise fascinating? I think so. So I have been racking my brain. And I think the more I think I become intimidated even more. Think, Wendy, think. What did I do yesterday? Would any of those things make a good status? Let's see. "Cleared off all knick-knacks, so furniture can be moved for new carpet". No. "Watched back-to-back episodes of Tabitha's Salon Takeover" No. "Went to Safeway" No. "Went to notary to get forms signed" No. "Played 3 games of Trouble with 5-year-old" No. Maybe my life isn't fascinating enough right now for a Facebook page. That is probably why I haven't updated my blog in a while (although there might be things in the works worth mentioning later). So I am stumped. I mentioned my conundrum to my friend, she accused me of overthinking. Just put something in and don't worry about it. My Safeway trip? My TV watching? My housework? Really? If this is what my "friends" want to see, I think I need more friends.