Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Yogi Berra once said "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."  Evidently he was giving directions to Joe Garagiola to follow to get to Berra's home.  That notwithstanding, I've always liked the quote in its simplicity.

Lots of Forks in the Road upcoming this week.  Indeed, a veritable plethora of forks in the road, some may even be silver (also referenced in the attribution to Berra).

The first fork deals with Mrs. J.  That lady is a smart business woman.  She's run 3 small businesses, a wine store, a wine tour company (the first in the region, now there are dozens) and a Bridal and women's wear store, all from Main Street in our little town.  She sold the first two over the years, profitably, and has been operating the latter for 5 years.

But, as the title of the post would suggest, there have been some changes lately and it's time for one of our own.

Seems there have been some large scale migrations here.  Certain states have had mass emigrations, I believe based on politics, but YMMV.  In any case, these folks move here after selling their 1200 sq ft. bungalow for a cool $1.6 million and move here to buy their dream home.  

"So....how much are you asking for your home?"  

"$350K"  (5 years ago it would have been $200K).

"Well, I can't pay you any less than $600K"

Pause (for exactly 1.2 nanoseconds)

"Sold"

Which sounds like a great place to be.

If you're willing to move.

We're not.

So our property taxes go up to reflect the price of the most recent "comp".

This also happens to the buildings on Main St.  The owners usually don't maintain a business in them themselves, instead rent them out.  Property taxes go up, guess what follows.

5 years ago, Main St was almost exclusively populated by Mom and Pop stores and had a very eclectic variety of shopping choices.  It's now mainly populated by Wine Tasting Rooms and boutique wine bars.  The feel of the town has changed and not for the better.

In this environment, Mrs J has decided to close he store.  Seems Wine Drinkers aren't all that interested in women's clothes.  More's the Pity.

The silver spoon?

She's gotten her Travel Adviser certificate and is looking at setting up Designer Vacations for people.  Those of you who've read my travelogue posts over the past few years (and enjoyed them) can credit that to Mrs J.  She did all the planning and coordinating.

She's going to do fine.

Fork # 2

Tuesday, we become official "empty nesters".  While MBD and Little Juvat left for college in '07 and 02 respectively, one or the other always seemed to migrate home on a regular basis.  With MBD's wedding in July, she's wrapped up with that.  Seems to want to spend a lot of time with him rather than us.

Wanting Grandchildren, we're encouraging that.

Little Juvat is doing well in his career and has completed two tours in the Sandbox, solo.  While he was doing his bit for "God and Country, the DIL elected to move here and teach school.  While Little Juvat was on his first tour, she experienced an unnecessary tragedy which took a while to recover from emotionally.  We filled the parent role during the recovery process.  We got pretty used to her coming over for dinner and stuff. It also prevented "empty nest syndrome" from setting in.

But Little Juvat and she are deploying back to the sandbox, albeit a somewhat less unfriendly area than his last posts, and which, obviously, allows dependents to accompany.

So, Mrs J and I will be empty nesters and given that she will be working from home vice having a place of business, face time between us will be greatly enhanced.

Which is a polite way of saying, the honey-do list will be 1) long and 2) supervised.

So....I've got that going for me.

Fork #3

Wednesday, I will put my papers in.  No turning back, sink or swim.  Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.

That will give them 2 months to find a replacement.

Hope it goes better than the launching of the Principessa Jolanda.

So, 3 forks in the road.  All, or none, could be silver.  Just takes a little elbow work to find out.


But there will be changes.