We're both in a better place

I'll head to Boston on Wednesday night in a much better place than I was in when I went almost a month ago. My utilities are up and running and the house is in decent shape-- there's still much work to be done but I don't feel like I need to spend every waking moment on it. I was concerned about almost two weeks with my parents--that's what I get for chasing the lowest fares--but I'm going to work out of our Boston office for a few days, so I'll have an oasis. I'm still concerned about leaving Gracie alone for that long, but she'll get over it (yes, someone will come by to feed her).

Before I go on to why I'm going on about my holiday plans, I'm going to express remorse for whining as much as I have over the last couple of months. Yes, the homebuying and moving/repairing/furnishing process has been difficult and stressful-- and just when I thought it was winding down, I opted to prolong it by refinancing (it would be stupid not to)-- but I also have to say that more things went right that went wrong, and the things that went wrong have mostly been resolved, while the things that went right are still great. I knew I'd get to this point eventually-- although even two weeks ago I couldn't see it-- and I'm really happy to be here now.

I say this just before I embark on a morning of house-related shopping-- which I can bitch about non-stop. Someone said to me that I must not be superstitious, having closed on Halloween, to which I responded that Halloween is actually good luck. However, my penance for buying in the fall is having to do house shopping around the holidays, i.e. amid the triple threat of hordes, worse-than-usual traffic and horrendous Christmas music. But I digress.

Holiday plans. I think I've mentioned that I bought my tickets home before I knew I was buying a house, so spending an extra few days in Boston to save a few hundred dollars didn't seem too bad an idea. Also, my mom was in a nice streak at the time, so spending more time with her also didn't seem too bad an idea. The nice streak had weakened a bit the weekend of her birthday in October and went into hiding for Thanksgiving, but I have reason to believe it may reemerge.

I need to provide more background, and give mom more credit. The weekend of Thanksgiving, she showed two signs of drastic attitude adjustment with regard to my career. Remember that she never trusted me for a minute to make my own career decisions and never acknowledged that I knew anything about anything. If I made an informed opinion about a humanitarian organization, she'd ask me accusingly what made me an expert on humanitarian organizations. Also recall that it was my first or second day home for the holidays last year that I was offered my current job, to my unbounded joy and my parents nonplussed shrugs. Oh, and mom's suggestions that I had to leave my then-job because I'd alienated all my coworkers with my overbearing personality. Not to mention, 'doesn't matter, all government is idiots.'

Well, since then, mom has noticed that the work of my employer is oft-cited in the media, and has gone 180 degrees-- to something only slightly less annoying, but something that apparently other colleagues of mine get from time to time: "Your people should really look into this," at every turn.

Mom: These traffic lights aren't synchronized. Your people should really look into this.
A.: "My people" tend to look into national-level, macro...
Mom: Unsynchronized traffic lights are one of the most important issues facing our country.

And so on.

Also that weekend-- the weekend of the Mumbai tragedy-- mom asked me about India and Pakistan. And listened. We had an intelligent, adult conversation-- one that led me to recommend "Three Cups of Tea" and actually now that I think about it I need to remember to grab my copy of "A Fine Balance" for her.

Anyway, we stopped at the library later that weekend and I requested the book for her.

A week and a half ago, she called to say that she couldn't put it down. She was quasi-accusatory, as in "I'm not getting anything done because I can't put this book down!" Which in and of itself was a victory because I got her to spend some time feeding her soul rather than "cleaning the garage," as John Irving would put it.

She left me a message the other night, and when I called back, all she wanted to talk about was that book. She finished it, she loved it, it's really inspired her, she's getting dad to read it.

So remember that earlier post, where I wrote about how I resented Fox News that much more for exploiting fear to bring out the hateful, short-sighted part of people, sadly including my mom? Well, suck it, Fox News-- I've thwarted your hate agenda. This one book has undone the damage.