Everybody is Leaving Cobble Hill for Thanksgiving!

Oh the desire to be different.  At Kidsville Chris, a young man in his early twenties told me today that he doesn't want to go home to Tarrytown for Thanksgiving because he doesn't want to have to talk to his family about "getting a real job", etc. I told him parents who are older, like myself, feel the same way.  We don't want to have to explain to our children what we are doing.
"You can't go home again" is the fabric of American life.  We are always supposed to move on, move away, do better, be better.  We are supposed to surpass our parents, not just in job, career, everything.  It's a part of the American myth.  So Chris, a young man who got his masters in biology has been working at Kidville while he applies for jobs.  It seems like he'll wind up in the pharmecutical area.  But even though Tarrytown is about 50 minutes outside New York city, as Chris puts it, "he worked so hard to get away, he doesn't want to go home".  I have lived so many places I am starting to wonder what "home is" or who I am.
I have not lived in New york area since 82. That's 32 years ago.  I have been in sunny Southern California, LA, since 82 when we moved to San Francisco.  We bought on one of those anvil mortgages one of those house that was 4 stories with views of the city and the bay from every story.  We paid $750,000 in 1982 and it's probably 10-12 million now.  My job was to remodel this house which was the former South African Counselate with very little money.  This was San Franscisco, Pacific Heights where the Getty's lived.  I didn't want anyone to know but I painted the whole house inside myself.  When the kids were in school I would go to the paint store and tell them to put a little more yellow, or red, or blue in the paint.  As an artist I loved to mix paints.  One day I went to this paint store on Divisadero and they were mixing the paint, adding a little more yellow or red to an already mixed gallon of paint and the top was not fully on and the paint started going all over the store.  I often wonder if all the paint and paint remover I used over the years caused my Parkinsons!
So here I am in Carroll Gardens in a new apartment in a largely French section.  It's a big apartment, Jordans paint 4000 a month for it, but getting the girls up and down is a nightmare.