Placation Years ago we had an exasperated family member call. For years the family had been trying to get Mother to go to AA and fix her drinking problem. Finally she succumbed to the pressure and agreed, looked up a women’s meeting and went off to test the waters. She returned after a couple of hours and reported that they were a very nice group of women and it had been an interesting evening and they had agreed to add her to their waiting list should they ever have an opening.

Our Move Is Half Complete! And the fires are under control. The destruction is enormous and we are thankful to have been spared. Moving the office from Palos Verdes to Calabasas, which was in the fire zone, was looking very uncertain for awhile. This uncertainty was exacerbated by my own concurrent move to the area.

And the Fires Continue… Moving our physical office and resuming services, as well as my move, has been delayed by the Woolsey fire which continues to keep Calabasas under lock down. But we are fine and fires do not affect our new office location or my living arrangements, just the timing. So if this is short, it’s because we are scrambling to rearrange the schedule we had made to manage the changes.

Last week we asked for suggestions and many of you responded. One question concerned ways in which what we do won't change and those are listed below. The other most common question was about how we can be more accessible to those of you who can't, or don't want, to travel and I've answered that in the second section. More questions?

This will be an exceedingly short Newsletter. As we begin our own transition time, we are going to ask your assistance. By way of illustration, when clients’ spouses, partners, friends, family, employers, and other ask how to be supportive, we always answer, “Ask! And whatever they say, believe them!”

This Newsletter Feels Different. Which is perfectly natural since it is the first one I have written which is “post-closing” up this office and starting the changes to begin in January. Given that, I will start with a few more of the notes many of you have written. “My time with you on Friday was helpful to me as I work at focusing, planning and verifying my thought processes. I feel better equipped to make the hugely important decisions coming down the pike for me because of our conversation.

We Thank You For Your Response! We appreciate all of the emails, comments and calls. One result is that all of the available weeks before we go on our end of the year reorganization have been filled except October 29 - November 2. So if you are still considering, that's where things stand. What’s Your Normal? We hear a lot of questions about what’s “normal.” Whether it’s “normal drinking,” “normal sex,” normal habits, behaviors, family relationships, marital divisions of responsibilities, all the way down to what’s the “normal way to load the dish washer,” or “fold the laundry.”

And Once Again a Former Client Saves Me! Here it is, Monday morning, and time to sit down and write another Newsletter. As been happening a lot lately, one of you has again saved me from mulling over about what to write by sending this: “Ed, I hope you are doing well. It has been over a year since we worked together but I read your e-mail every Sunday before I read the paper. You should pair your exit with any one of my favorite rock bands that are on their 3rd or 4th farewell tour. That will keep you around for a while.

For Those of You Still in Contemplation Hell… At almost any point in our lives we are faced with decisions we don’t want to make. As adolescents it may have been about breaking up with a boy or girl friend. Then there were school choices, marriages, children, divorces, career changes, and any number of other changes we ruminated over until the choice was made for us or the opportunity to choose disappeared. Of course not deciding is also a choice, though a passive, disempowering, and unmotivated one.

And Things Here Continue To Shake Out… It’s interesting how things unfold once you start the ball rolling, or the dominos tumbling or whatever Rube Goldberg metaphor you prefer. A number of you have signed up for slots, though a couple of openings remain, and we are glad that several of you are able to take advantage of work before we go into remodeling mode.