No Place Like Home

Oh, lord, where to start?  Well, to paraphrase dear Miss Bette Midler, it looks like I may be a harbinger of news here.  There have been, for a while, you see, rumblings of various sorts.  Early in the new year, they turned into whispers.  A couple of weeks ago, they turned into omens.  Now, it seems, they are in the process of turning into an offer.  To be frank, they have in fact done so.  And I've tentatively said yes.

In short, it would seem there is a possibility - a fairly good one, nearly a sure one - that the Powers What Am back in the home office of Golden Handcuffs Consulting Amalgamated International miss me.  They long for my dulcet tones and perhaps they want a closer look at this ponytail everyone's talking about.  They're funny that way.  Whatever the reason, the upshot of it all is that it may once again be time for me - for us - to take this show on the road, this time all the way back to the good old U.S. of A.

I'm terrified.  And kind of interested.  But mostly terrified.  I've been overseas since the second Clinton administration and have fully been expecting to remain so at least until the waning days of the second Clinton's second administration. Now we're looking, more or less, at being back sometime between Bear Week in Provincetown and Labor Day down the shore.  It's appalling.  Were this all to fall into place, the sheer amount of stuff that would have to be done to get us all settled would daunt anyone; for someone as fond of stillness and inertia as I, the prospect is horrifying.

The good people at GHCAI believe they have found, clever things, a perfectly legit way for Mr. Muscato (darn that DOMA, speaking of Clintons) to join me for the likely duration of the prospective engagement, which is promising, but he remains dubious about many aspects of the emerging plan, not least of the winter, which Egyptians don't much like at all, and rain, which they simply find mystifying (and during which, mostly, they generally stay home - not a practical solution on much of the East Coast for anyone not prone to agoraphobia).  He, of course, would be even more overseas than he is now, and while he's enjoyed his trips to the States, there's a big difference between swanning in and out for summer breaks and having to become a regular at Sam's Club.  And then there's the question of dragging the dogs halfway 'round the globe.

And packing the stuff.  And ridding out the wardrobes. And sorting the papers. And selling lots of things that overlap with the ridiculous amount of paraphernalia that's been sitting in storage waiting for me all these years.  And then, on that end, seeing all those things again and having to sort through them and wondering what to do with it all and asking myself why on earth I kept Aunt Edna's silver-lustre tea set that everyone who's ever clapped eyes on it since the Coolidge administration despises.  And - and I do realize this garners one little sympathy in many, many circles and quite rightly so - what on earth will we do without Mrs. Galapatti da Silva?  Una vita sans les domestiches - impossibile! Oh. Oh. Oy.

If this all seems rather disjointed, darlings, apologies, but I'm genuinely more than a tad flummoxed.  And intrigued.  And (have I mentioned this?) very, very terrified.  But parts of it may be good fun, I suppose.  In some ways, having been out for so long, going back will just be, in a sense, going to a new foreign place.  One, on the plus side, that speaks English, mostly, and mostly has potable water, even though it at the same time is full (if what I read is true) of gun-toting teabaggers, wild-eyed fundamentalists, and Honey Boo Boo-watchers.

Wish us luck.  If nothing else, I will likely not be short of things about which to kvetch write in the coming months...