Ch Ch Ch Changes in the 'Hood

We're losing our good friend and neighbor Diane. She sold her house, which is due to close next week, and today is her big estate sale.

Wifey is over there already, helping to handle the folks who are going to come and hopefully buy, some Waterford, and Baker Furniture, and Henredon, etc...Diane has fine taste is stuff...

Diane and her husband Charlie moved in about 8 years ago. Charlie chases ambulances like I do, and Diane is a federal prosecutor. At the time, Diane's boy Garrett moved in, too, but would leave soon after for college. We all became close friends -- enjoying dinners together, as well as talks by our firepits, and a few adult beverages.

Shortly after arriving, Diane and Charlie put on a wedding for Diane's daughter which was, by a factor of 10, at least, the most extravagant affair we had ever attended. It was during Christmas week at Vizcaya, and the party rivalled anything any of us had ever seen on tv or in the movies. Crystal champagne flowed like water, for example.

For a few years, Diane and Charlie and Wifey and I organized progressive New Year's Eve dinners, with some of our other neighbor friends, like Jeff and Lili, and Mark and Anne. We'd go fro mhouse to house for different courses, and the champagne flowed, and we all enjoyed each other's empty nester or near empty nester statuses (except for Jeff and Lili, who started late and are still very much in the parenting business).

Well, two years ago Diane and Charlie split up, and Charlie moved to the Grove. We figured that Diane wouldn't stay in the huge house by herself. At first, she thought about another house, but Wifey and another close friend, Cindy, used their persuasive qualities, and it looks like Diane will be moving to a gorgeous condo, very close by. So that's the good news.

Diane has amazingly large amounts on her plate, between these moves, and her kids, and her job. And like me, she has an ancient mother, although she's fortunate in that HER mother agreed to move to an ALF in Indiana, so she knows the lady is safe and secure and not alone...


Diane is midwest sweet, although still a very strong woman. It's good she'll still be close, but we'll still miss her smiling face next door.

The new owner is, apparently, a chiropractor who hit it big with a bunch of injury clinics. Who knows? Maybe we'll end up doing some business together...

D2 is sleeping the wondrous sleep of Spring Break. D1 is due over in awhile -- the three of us plan to bike over to the old Parrot Jungle, where the Village is holding their Taste of Pinecrest. I like my parrot grilled, with a little mango chutney...