Yes, it’s official. Not only have we moved out of our home of nearly nineteen years, but we are now safely ensconced in a new, rented, place of residence. Our new address is: 44 Green Meadow Drive
Tinton Falls, NJ 07724
732 842-7498.

Note that the phone number has not changed.

We sold our house at 88 Bruce Road after only three days to the couple who made the first offer. For a while it seemed as though we might cancel the whole deal because just after receiving the offer on the house, Gerry was offered a job only two miles from Bruce Road. We prevaricated for about a week as Gerry tried to decide whether the offer was good enough and I tried to decide whether I would mind putting off the long-planned world tour. Gerry’s answer was take the job (after two reversals of decision), and mine was "I can wait" (after an equal amount of hesitation). One decision down, we were still left with the decision on the house. We spent three full days kicking all the options around and ultimately decided that the best course was to give up our home of these 19 years (excluding four in Hong Kong) in the interests of nimbleness and flexibility.

Once the decision to sell had been made and the contract had been signed, we decided on the spur of the moment to dash off to California to attend Gerry’s 35th reunion at Caltech and visit with family. We had a very pleasant 10-day trip in spite of very, very wet and cool weather (it rained more than half the time we were in California). I wished I had packed turtlenecks instead of tank tops! The idea when we got back to New Jersey was that we would move out of our 4-bedroom 2.5 bath two-story colonial and rent something like a 3-bedroom townhouse. Gerry started work the day we got back so it was my job to do first order house-hunting, sell some furniture, and of course start the packing! From mid-May to mid-June, I sold our guest bedroom furniture, sold the dining room table and chairs, sold our big oak wall unit from the living room, and held a two-day garage sale (which was very relaxing as we mostly sat outdoors and enjoyed the fine weather of the day). For the first two weeks, I spent at least half of my time looking for places to rent. My lack of experience was a real drawback. I had no idea of the relative value of any of the first dozen or so places I looked at. Had I known I might have taken the first place I saw, which was a 3-bedroom townhouse in Holmdel, or been quicker to make an offer on the 2-bedroom townhouse in Sea Bright that was right on, and with a lovely view of the Shrewsbury River (it had already been rented by the time I made up my mind). We tried hard to rent a little house in terrific grounds that had back-door canoe access to Shadow Lake, but the owner wanted more money than we were willing to pay for such a small house with no air-conditioning.

By the end of the two weeks, we decided that there was so much stuff to pack and so little time left that we had to quit looking and devote ourselves wholly to packing. I packed morning, noon, and night — almost all the time that I wasn’t making trips to the recycling center. Gerry came home from work, grabbed a quick bite, and packed until midnight most nights. It was a rough couple of weeks. I alternated between euphoria and despair. Gerry was quietly confident throughout.

As the pace of our packing became more intense, we were fortunate that the decision to postpone the search for a place to live did not mean that we would be homeless. By a stroke of enormous luck, Moshe, a very good (and generous) friend of ours, had told us that he was about to leave on a two-week business trip followed by a two-week vacation and that if we wanted to we could house-sit for him. Not only that, but Gerry had cleverly included in the sales contract a clause allowing us to use one half of the Bruce Road garage for up to 60 days to store our mementoes, papers, and furniture.

The Saturday and Sunday before the closing, were surreal. We spent the Saturday afternoon hosting a meet-the-neighbors lunch for the Johnsons, our buyers. Gerry had originally extended the invitation before we went to California. Alas, because of busy schedules on both sides, the earliest date we could do it was two days before the closing. I don't know what the Johnson’s thought when they came and found the house still completely furnished, albeit empty of books and knick-knacks. I remember being very close to panic about the amount of work still left to do. On Saturday morning, I rushed out to pick up the food for the party and got trapped in the car during a ferocious hail and thunderstorm. Needless to say we did not eat outdoors.

As soon as the guests had left, we set to work again on our race against time. And then Sunday came and with it about the worst kind of New Jersey summer weather you can imagine. It rained heavily and incessantly all day. In case you were wondering who was going to move all of this stuff that we own, I should tell you that at our garage sale, the week before the closing, Gerry had asked a young Mexican guy if he would come and help move our furniture. He said yes, and agreed to bring his brother along as well. The two helpers Gerry had hired showed up right on time.

During the course of the previous week, Gerry had already filled about one quarter to one third of the space we could use in the garage with the 125 boxes of books and the 20 or so trunks (foot lockers) containing our most precious ornaments. The task for the day was to put all of our remaining furniture, rugs and boxes in the rest of the space.

Gerry, Bernardo, and Faustino worked all day long dismantling and then carrying and stacking bookshelves and breakfronts and beds and chairs and rugs and so on to the garage. Meanwhile, I was still finishing packing up the kitchen and eventually all of the other little things that had somehow been overlooked, like that pile of boxes in the basement bedroom (eeeek!). In between times I wiped down pieces of furniture that had to be carried out through the yard in the rain to the garage.

By 4pm, it was clear that it would not all fit into "our" half of the garage. There was still the small matter of a 3-piece living room set, a dozen standard lamps, a couple of coffee and end tables, four or five rugs, ... The solution was to run over to Budget and rent a van to take what was left to our friend Moshe’s where we were anyway going to spend the night. Gerry and the two helpers drove a load over to Moshe’s at which point we let them go thinking that we could easily finish the remaining bits and pieces ourselves. Famous last thoughts. We worked that night together until midnight; kept the van and the next day Gerry went to work and I spent the day ferrying back and forth between Bruce Road and Moshe’s taking small items, like all of our clothes(!), that we had overlooked.

We were supposed to drive to Bayonne, New Jersey (about 35 miles north of home) for the closing but a missing Federal Express delivery meant the Johnsons' mortgage money wasn't available until the Tuesday, which meant that we could legally spend the entire evening of Monday finishing off the job of clearing out the house. It was close to ten p.m. and we had almost finished when the phone rang. It was the Johnsons. Could they come and drop some stuff off in the house? We said sure. They arrived close to eleven and finding us with yet another van load of stuff still to go, quickly assured us we could leave it in their basement for a few days. That was most fortunate, because by this time, Gerry wanted very badly to have at least one hour of time to devote to something other than work and moving! And it was nice that in their last "walk around" they asked us about "that white chest in the walk-in closet?" They helped carry it to the basement.

Which brings me to the crux of the problem. Space. It was fast becoming obvious that even without all of those things we had sold, we would have a very hard time fitting into the kind of small place we were looking at. So when we picked up the search again we focused more on places with at least 3 bedrooms or failing that a garage, basement, or other form of storage. We saw lots, always looking for that something special. Lots of times we thought "maybe this is it", only to say "no". Then on the last Saturday of June we saw an ad for a 4-bedroom home in Oceanport a mile from the beach and with a river view. We went over and I loved it! So we made an offer, which unfortunately wasn't accepted immediately because the woman renting wanted to check our credit. So we went out, bought another paper, and looked for more houses.

We called about one of the more interesting ones and had to leave a message. Then we drove to Moshe’s via Gerry’s office to time his commute. When we got to Moshe’s there was a call about the house: it turned out to be in Tinton Falls, just across the street from Gerry’s new office, and we had driven right by it on our way home. We went right over to see it; it was a two-story colonial, very similar to the house we had just sold. We liked it but we'd made an offer on the Oceanport house and weren't sure about the relative advantages of the two. In favor of this one, besides location were that it had a big deck out back, a front porch, and lots of light. Plus, I have always wanted to live in a house with a porch! The disadvantages are it’s not very special, nor is it on water, it backs on to busy Hance Avenue so we get a lot of traffic noise, and it has a half acre of lawn that Gerry will have to mow! And then again, in Oceanport the 1950s style bedroom windows were all at the top of the room so that I would not be able to work at a desk and look out.

Sunday, after viewing several more houses we got a call from the owner of the Tinton Falls house inviting us to come see it again. It turns out that we have a lot in common: he is now teaching in Hong Kong and renting just like we did. And we have some mutual acquaintances here and in Hong Kong. Thinking that we might be a good match for tenant and landlord we were additionally well-disposed towards taking it. We talked it over and decided that Tinton Falls light and location were the deciding factors. So we went over and quickly negotiated a rental agreement. When we got back to Moshe’s we got a call telling us that we'd been accepted as tenants in Oceanport. C’est la vie. As I write this, we’ve been here ten days. All of that work seems a bit like a bad dream. We have sorted out the kitchen and the office. Our bedroom is mostly there, but I still haven't unpacked two thirds of our clothes. And Gerry has set up a great little library in one of the bedrooms that has our eight or nine bookcases lined up around the room.

Every workday Gerry gets up, has his leisurely breakfast, and takes his six minute walk to work. After sleeping the sleep that I am entitled to I get up and have my breakfast on the deck, enjoying the fresh air. Most days are filled with a fair number of chores, which I get through, but nothing seems really urgent any longer oh, except for buying a microwave, which we find indispensable and which the kitchen does not have. (Wonder when it will become standard equipment like the old DW and W/D?) Relaxation is really setting in.

September 20, 1998. P.S. The above was written in the middle of July. Since then Jan has started work and so once again we are both very busy. More in our Christmas missive.

December 6, 1998. Well, the work took over our lives and here we are in December and we still have not managed to send out this letter, which now metamorphoses into the annual Christmas letter. Gerry’s work is going well although as I write this he is coming to the end of a 3-week stint of 12-hour days and 7-day weeks. The software his group has been writing is in system test, the last stage before delivery, hence the frantic activity. I started work at the beginning of August despite my best intentions to enjoy a year as a lady of leisure. The temptation of working only 5 miles from home at a very good rate in an area I already had some expertise (telecommunications networks) was too great. I compensated myself not only with a subscription to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but also to seats close enough to actually see the singers' faces!

Since we started work, our life has had few excitements. One, however, was a visit from two friends from our time in Tehran. We had not seen Anne-Marie and Nader for twenty years and so were delighted when we learned that they would be in the New York area. We selfishly stole a couple of days from their New York stay to spend some time with us in New Jersey. It was wonderful. When you read this, Anne-Marie and Nader, we hope that we will see you before another twenty years

We have each taken short breaks alone this year. Gerry as part of a business trip to California took an extra couple of days to drive himself down to Ensenada, Mexico and find out what life was like in Baja California. His only complaint was how short the trip was. My trip was to visit the folks in Darlington. Most notable highlights: meeting and getting to know my new sister-in-law, Jhiraporn (Jhap) Sornpao Bates and my new great-nephew (my nephew’s son), Callum; visiting the new 4-bedroom house that my sister Joan and husband Mick have just bought.; and finally attending a family reunion dinner for 26 (including Callum’s 2 great grandmothers, grandfather grandmother, four great uncles (all except Gerry), five great aunts, mother, father, uncle and aunt-to-be, six second cousins (i.e. father’s cousins), and two of their boyfriends). And we have the pictures to prove it. It was the first time in three years that all of my mother’s children were together, which also called for a memorial photograph.

We hope to end the year on a ski slope somewhere, although the exact destination has not been determined at the time of writing. We look forward to 1999 with some curiosity. Our lease ends on June 30. It remains to be seen whether we will extend it or not. While waiting to find out we send you all our warmest holiday wishes.