NO PLACE LIKE HOME

29 December 2021

When Jeri moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, she found a room to share with the daughter of the woman who owned the house.  She and the daughter shared the room until Jeri graduated and started working for Berklee and the daughter moved to Israel.

Jeri stayed in the house until the woman decided to sell it and buy another house.  The second house was two flats.  The woman moved into the upper flat and Jeri moved into the lower flat.  Jeri, and eventually Jeri and Phil, have lived in that flat for some 20 years.

Several months ago, the woman decided to sell the house and move to Kansas to live with her daughter.  She told Jeri that she and Phil would have to find a new place to live.  (Actually she told them at first they had to be out within a week...fortunately that didn't happen!)

They spent weeks looking at places to rent and places to buy.  The problem was that they had become such a part of their neighborhood, knew most of the neighbors, many of whom were also musicians so they would have neighborhood concerts and parties and parades and they hated to leave. 

Jeri also rides her bike from home to Berklee, even on snowy days, because they keep the bike lanes plowed.

After the frustrating hunt for a new place to live, they explored the idea of just buying their flat.  There have been a lot of positives and negatives with this idea, but ultimately they decided to buy it.

One reason Jeri was not able to come out here for Christmas was that they had to sign the paperwork  to buy the flat and today they finally did.

They now own their flat.  It's going to be expensive for them, but they don't have to leave the neighborhood or their house and they can start doing things other than trying to figure out where they are going to live!

And Jeri can now plant her avocado trees!

This was news I was so happy to get.  Yesterday was just a depressing day for me.  No particular reason, but I was thinking about all the things that had made Christmas so different this year.

Then someone else in the family tested positive for COVID 19.

Anyway, with all that was going on,, I just found myself being very depressed yesterday and today I am feeling so happy for Jeri and Phil.

Of course Jeri has been wishing there was a way she could get a job and return to California and this pretty much insures that they won't even be thinking about  that, but she is happy where she is and I'm so glad they can stop worrying about it.