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The interesting thing about the Housening is not that April knew things were pretty much settled by the time that Mike came up with the (very well telegraphed) idea of eventually taking over the Pattermanse after John and Elly retired. The interesting thing is that Elly was pretty much the last to realize that things were pretty much settled long ago. This snippet from one of her last retcons:
It's grown on me, which is funny since I didn't really want to move! I love it nonetheless. Cleaning takes little effort on my part, and I feel quite free after giving up so many possessions.
tends to explain why that is. What we're dealing with is Elly's resistance to being thought of as old before her time. As I explained in my other essays about helping Mrs Baird and her parents divest themselves of all of their excess possessions, Lynn has it in her head that one of the rites of passage into senior citizenship is selling off all the stuff a person needs to accommodate guests, family and other spongers and moving into a tidy little cottage somewhere. (The second stage, of course, is moving into the sort of anteroom to meeting one's cremator that Jim, Iris and Mrs Baird underwent.)
Simply put, the Elly who still feels like a little orphan girl now that Jim's mortal remains have been interred next to those of both of his spouses (I assume that the odd tendency of elderly caregivers to follow their charges in death claimed Iris about four years ago or so) didn't really want to not have the sort of chaos she claimed to resent. Without anything to complain about, who was she?
It's grown on me, which is funny since I didn't really want to move! I love it nonetheless. Cleaning takes little effort on my part, and I feel quite free after giving up so many possessions.
tends to explain why that is. What we're dealing with is Elly's resistance to being thought of as old before her time. As I explained in my other essays about helping Mrs Baird and her parents divest themselves of all of their excess possessions, Lynn has it in her head that one of the rites of passage into senior citizenship is selling off all the stuff a person needs to accommodate guests, family and other spongers and moving into a tidy little cottage somewhere. (The second stage, of course, is moving into the sort of anteroom to meeting one's cremator that Jim, Iris and Mrs Baird underwent.)
Simply put, the Elly who still feels like a little orphan girl now that Jim's mortal remains have been interred next to those of both of his spouses (I assume that the odd tendency of elderly caregivers to follow their charges in death claimed Iris about four years ago or so) didn't really want to not have the sort of chaos she claimed to resent. Without anything to complain about, who was she?
