The road is long and paved with gold, or so they say

And now one last and curious bit of news from my parents. This doesn't seem to be explicitly a reaction to Hurricane Sandy, but who can really say? My father woke up one day last week --- before the Nor'easter brought them seven inches of snow, by the way --- having decided that yes, it was time to move. My mother described it as apparently being a visitation from the Archangel Gabriel telling him it was time to retire and move. That seems like pretty low-level stuff for Gabriel, but he probably needs some projects to keep busy before the Last Trump.

This is, primarily, just my father deciding he hasn't got any objection to my mother's plan that they sell the house --- which, though wonderful in many ways, is also too expensive for their indefinite living while retired --- and move to somewhere presumably better. There's no selection on where this will be, though. My father had been living in dread of South Carolina, which he had the idea my mother had selected, but he no longer seems to have anything against that state. He also hasn't got any particular preferences among the world, though. My mother describes this as ``baby steps''.

And yet he is taking steps: by the end of the week he had moved at least five yard-style trash bags full of stuff out of the garage. I'm somewhat amazed by this, since I know where I got my hoarding instincts from and I'm not as bad as him. My mother expressed amazement that he was able to get five bags out without making any appreciable difference in the pile of what remains, but after all, emptying a house is like that. Stuff just regenerates, hydra-like, until you manage to break it below some critical mass. Plus he's got to get rid of all those documents regarding late-1980s ISO 9000 certification for the chemical company that he used to work for, and that's now collapsed entirely.

Trivia: A German legend holds that marzipan was created in 1671 by a man named Marzip, cook to a wealthy Brandenberg doctor, who one evening asked for a special almond dish for his guests. In the story Marzip is ultimately rewarded by being made cook to the Elector of Hanover, then retires to his hometown of Lübeck and opens a marzipan factory. Source: Sweets: A History Of Temptation, Tim Richardson.

Currently Reading: 1848: The Revolutionary Tide In Europe, Peter N Stearns.