Sam Is Home!

"You have my whole heart. You always did.

You're the best guy. You always were."

-- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Queen and Jack of Hearts 11-27-14

"Catelyn wanted to run to him,
to kiss his sweet brow,

to wrap him in her arms so tightly
that he would never come to harm ..."

-- George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

My oldest son, Sam, is home for Thanksgiving. He got here yesterday.

He's a busy guy. He hasn't been home since returning to college in August, and I was really starting to miss him. 

We're having a very quiet, very small Thanksgiving Day at home. 

No travels. No company. No biggie.

It's what Sam requested. He has been working very hard at his grueling and relentless academic load and needs a chance to chill out and catch his breath before he goes back for the final stretch of the semester and exams.

So last night I cut his hair. He made a pumpkin pie. We went to a couple of stores for a couple of things. I bought him a tire gauge. We ordered pizza. We watched crappy television. Right now he's upstairs, sleeping in.

He's only here for a couple of days, but I'll take what I can get and try to give him what he needs and not bother him with what he doesn't. 

Having my whole little family home under one roof is what I'm most thankful for. My house is full, and so is my heart.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Good Snug House

"We felt very nice and snug,

the more so since it was 

so chilly out of doors."

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Monopoly house 11-21-14

"Some people talk of morality, and some of religion,

but give me a snug little property."

-- Maria Edgeworth

"Oh, a cottage! How charming.

A little cottage is always very snug."

-- Jane Austen,  Sense and Sensibility

"From my observation, the older you get,

the more you like the word cozy."

-- Holly Goldberg Sloan, Counting by 7s

Halloween Decorations

"Nature is a Haunted House -- but Art --

a House that tries to be haunted."

-- Emily Dickinson

Bird house with Lego Wicked Witch of the East legs 10-30-14

"Proof of our society's decline 

is that Halloween has become 

a broad daylight event for many."

-- Robert Kirby

I don't decorate for holidays.

Well, barely. I'm not a total Grinch.

At Christmas, I let the guys decorate a tree and hang up the stockings, but I don't help.

For Halloween, we carve pumpkins, but that's it.

Otherwise, nada. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

I just don't enjoy decorating my home. I hate the fuss. I hate the clutter. I hate having all that extra shit competing for space. It makes me feel closed in and claustrophobic and anxious in my own house.

Holiday decorating seriously fengs with my shui.

I do enjoy other people's holiday decorations, however. Especially the Halloween kind.

The more elaborate, imaginative, scarier, gorier, spookier, creepier, funnier, cleverer and sillier, the better-er.

Around here, gravestones, skeletons, cobwebs and giant inflatable M&M vampires are becoming as ubiquitous as Christmas lights and Nativity sets.

It always gets me how a house known for its tastefully elegant Christmas displays will, come October, have a full-on grave yard scene on the front lawn, with severed heads and tombstones and empty coffins and bony corpse hands clawing up through the mulch, complete with screams and other haunted house sound effects.

Anyhoo.

Halloween is tomorrow.

I will be in costume.

My home, however, will not.

Small Things Done With Love

"Not all of us can do great things.

But we can do small things with great love."

-- Mother Teresa

Wire hangers 10-20-14

"If I give all I possess to the poor 

and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, 

but do not have love, I gain nothing."

-- 1 Corinthians 13:3

When it's all said and done, my life probably won't leave much of a mark on the world.

In the grand scheme of humanity, I am a pretty damned small, insignificant potato.

When I see the Mother-Teresa-sized greatness of what some people do to inspire hope or elicit change or otherwise help the neediest needy among us, I feel very small indeed.

I'm not a humanitarian or a visionary or a hero.

The stuff I do isn't world-scale stuff.

This weekend, for example. Nothing I did was a very big deal. At all.

Here's a rundown:

I yelled and cheered like a damn fool when Leo busted through the line and sacked the shit out of the the opposing quarterback Friday night.

Big deal.

I ironed all my guys' dress shirts.

Big deal.

I made pancakes and sausage for Sunday breakfast.

Big deal.

I cooked my husband a big homemade steak-pineapple-basil pizza with no sauce, just how he likes it. It was all his. He didn't have to share it with anyone. He got the whole thing to himself.

Big deal.

I bought my neighbor, Rick, a six-pack of beer. We had a gas leak because the idiots who hooked up the new stove had their heads up their asses. Rick works for the gas company and came to the rescue and fixed the problem at no charge.

Big deal.

I wrote a couple of blog posts that only a very few people (and by few, I mean few) will ever read or care about.

Big deal.

I talked to my son Sam on the phone. He's at college and is stressed as fuck under the extreme weight of the intense course load he's carrying. He unloaded, I listened. I tossed in a little inappropriate humor and juicy gossip, and by the end of our conversation Sam was laughing -- like really hard snort-laughs. And he asked me to send him some homemade oatmeal cookies. I'll do that today.

Big deal.

I told you it was all small stuff.

But I can honestly say that I did all of those small things because I felt great love, or gratitude, or some other really good feeling, for each and every one of the people I did them for.

When it's all said and done and my life is up in smoke, I don't give a fiddler's fuck if anyone remembers a single thing I said or did.

What I do hope they remember, though, is how I made them feel.

And I hope I made them feel a little loved.

That'd be a really big deal.

My New Stove

"Now ... cooking's a lot of fun ...

come in and I'll show you why."

-- Frigidaire electric range advertisement, 

Ladies Home Journal, 1940

Folded paper stove 10-17-14

"Don't worry dear, bring them ALL home.

Dinner for 8 is a cinch with our new Magic Chef."

-- 1950s Magic Chef gas range advertisement

I enjoy cooking, and therefore, I cook a lot.

As a result of so much use, my trusty old stove was showing some signs of wear and tear.

I wasn't concerned with the cosmetics. But the oven door wasn't closing properly anymore. And when the oven door doesn't close right, heat gets out and your baking gets fucked.

That's no good.

Also, sometimes the oven just shut itself off while I was still cooking in it.

When that happens, heat goes away and your baking gets fucked.

Again, no good.

Good cooking requires good-working equipment, and so my kick-ass husband went out and wrangled me a big shiny new professional grade gas "range."

It got installed yesterday.

It's the shit.

I plan on cooking up lots of good things.

Being A Mom

"Whatever life brings, we'll share," she says,

"and I can do no more than the best I can."

-- Carol Emshwiller, Carmen Dog

Mother and child 8-31-14

"Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn't know you had,

and dealing with fears you didn't know existed."

-- Linda Wooten

Life is plenty challenging already, and as my boys press their way into manhood they'll have to strive and try and work hard to impress others, and win the affections and approval and acceptance of others.

Fuck the others.

I'm their mother.

I give them that shit for free.

My own two boys would probably be the first to say that when it comes to mothering, I'm no kind of nurturer.

I'm not the soft, homey, touchy-feely tender type.

They'd probably say that sometimes I get it right.

They'd definitely say that sometimes I totally fuck it up.

No matter what they say, I just hope that in my care, such as it is, they'll always feel loved enough, and safe enough and important enough.

Mostly, I just hope they'll always feel that they simply are "enough."

A Good Home

"Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave,

and grow old wanting to get back to."

-- John Ed Pearce

Old chopper looking for a good home 6-30-14

"The ache for home lives in all of us,

the safe place where we can go as we are

and not be questioned."

-- Maya Angelou

Sometimes I feel so worn out, rusted, old, damaged, ripped, torn, useless and unattractive that I think I must be unlovable, un-wantable.

And then I come home.

I have a good home.

There are people here who love me, in spite of all my wear and tear, in spite of all my damage, in spite of all my flaws.

When I can't see any good reason why anyone would want to keep me around, the patient, tender, kind -- did I already mention patient? -- people in my home somehow do. 

It's a good thing.

Without them and their love, I don't know where I'd be. 

A Surprise Visit From My Very Own Kid

"Well, hello there, Mother," Sebastian said in a voice like silk.

"Surprised to see me?"

-- Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

Monster finger puppets 1-28-14

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved."

-- Charles Morgan

"Vernon! My dear, what a delightful surprise!"

-- Georgette Heyer, Frederica

Typically, when someone shows up on my doorstep uninvited and unannounced, my first thought is "Aw, shit."

But when it's my own kid, home for a couple of days because his college canceled classes at the last minute due to dangerously frigid temperatures, my first thought is "Aw-some!"

He didn't stay long, but while he was here I got to mother him a little bit. I cooked meatballs and spaghetti and we all sat down and ate dinner together. I cut his hair. I popped him popcorn (real popcorn on the stove). I rode along in my PJs for a late night drive through run. We went to the mall and didn't buy anything.

No big whoop. Just little stuff. 

Still, it was a really good surprise.

He could have done anything he wanted with his days off. He didn't even have to tell us he had days off. And whatever he chose to do, I would have been fine with it. He's a big kid living in a big kid world, doing big kid things.

But I have to admit, it did feel mighty good that, given the choice, he chose to come here.