It's not adieu, just au revoir...

So tonight is our last night as full time residents of Milanville - at least for now. Tomorrow we move to Park Slope and become just another bunch of weekenders.

I'm blowing very hot and cold about the whole thing. Well wouldn't you be?

And of course now it's time to leave, things here in Milanville are just getting interesting (does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?). Yesterday I was invited by a lovely local couple to join the official Milanville community, which we will most definitely do (I hesitated because I was still being paranoid about whether I was persona non grata in this village but they wouldn't have asked if that were the case, now would they? Also yesterday I received a lovely, positive comment from a local reader which made me feel much better - thanks, whoever you are. Who knew I had a local fan? Terribly exciting). Another lovely chap I've been chatting to when I bump in to him out walking offered to teach me to ride his horses this summer (he somehow guessed I was scared stiff of the beasts; am I, then, so obviously wet? No, don't answer that.). And tonight Will and Grady of Narrowsburg Roasters (the coffee shop) fame took me to the premiere of a movie about local conservation heroes called Nature's Keepers (coming soon to PBS). Here we networked with other local greenies (who make me and Dot look even more like rank amateurs at this game than we already did) and found out we could volunteer with the Delaware Highlands Conservancy - orientation is on April 13th.

These events had the combined effect of offering me a vision of an alternate future in which I spend my days combing the river banks gathering rubbish while deer nuzzle my hand in gratitude, tending my vegetable patch while teaching Dot about conservation and sustainability (obviously I have to learn about it first but that's a detail), networking with other Milanvillers to Keep Milanville Beautiful and trotting about on my piebald steed.

Instead of which I'm going to be doing daily battle with a gajillion other commuters on the dirty streets of NYC in order to sell people things they don't need from the confines of a grey office cubicle while someone else looks after my precious darling girl.

And I'm doing this why, again?

If I was an optimist of course I'd tell myself I could do both. And maybe I can. Plus my masterplan is to turn all our clients green, thereby making a bigger difference than I could by just not buying styrofoam trays of veg in Pecks and haranguing my poor hubby about his light compulsion.

I'll keep you posted about how all that goes. Once I'm back at work I'll probably be posting a bit less often (after all, much as I'd love to chronicle the detailed struggles of a green activist in corporate America, I'd only end up with a lawsuit on my hands and the sack), but you never know. I've become awfully attached to the blog and can't believe people are still reading four months after I started.

And anyway, I'm not going back to work till Wednesday.

In denial, moi?

Deep breaths and we'll take things one day at a time...