Category Archives: The Domestic Front

R is for Rodents

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Rodent controlWhen mice skitter across your kitchen counter in broad daylight, it’s time to call in the pros. That’s how Dave the Exterminator came into my life. He was the White Knight to my Damsel in Distress, and I fell for him hard.

Dave praised me for correctly identifying mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer. “Most people are way more in denial—they think they’re coffee grounds,” he cooed. Who wouldn’t love a guy willing to credit me with astuteness when it had actually taken mice traipsing through the dinner preparations for me to give him a call?

Dave came, he soothed, he plugged my holes. Like a partner who loves you anyway despite cottage cheese thighs, he reassured me that mice were a natural part of living next to open space, not a sign of dubious housekeeping or moral rot. Best of all, he came every couple of days with his little black bag to discreetly remove the corpses. The dog loved him. Who can resist a man who passes the pet test?

My friends tried to temper my infatuation. “Sure, he’s cheerful and reliable. But do you really want to throw over your husband for a guy whose name is stitched above his pocket and who carries around dead mice in a briefcase?”

They had a point. But even if it wasn’t true love, my first exterminator will forever have a place in my heart. Also on my refrigerator, since his company’s magnet reassures me that Dave is there for me should I ever be invaded by mice again.

Today Mick the Termite Man arrived on my doorstep. Having a doorstep meant the house was still standing, so the call was obviously premature. Since I wasn’t buried by a towering mound of sawdust, I saw no need for further Exterminator Lust. But the Homeowner’s Association insisted that I go on this blind date, interested or not.

The dog liked Mick as much as he’d liked Dave, but this time I was more discerning. Politely bored, I only half listened as he told me about what he’d found in probing my siding. He showed me a tiny hole near the garage harboring termite feces. With unseemly excitement, he said there was no way to tell if the infestation had just begun or had been there for years. For $4,000 he’d be glad to tent the house and kill everything in it. Except, of course, the termites might come back right away.

“What’s the point, then?” I asked, like a woman pushing 40 finding out after the first cocktail that her date has suspicious gaps in his resume and no interest in having children. Why bother to even order an appetizer? Chitchat over bruschetta is for those with time on their hands and hope in their hearts.

Maybe the dog was still a sucker for animal magnetism, but my taste had matured. This was a guy who went around pumping poisonous gas into people’s houses, after all! And the termites, unlike their rodent counterparts, were hardly causing me to shriek and jump on top of the stove in a pathetic pre-feminist caricature. If they wouldn’t bother me for several years, who was I to bother them?

Sorry, Mick. Sure, you can give me your phone number. I’ll maybe call to set something up. Like after the house collapses.

But wait a minute. There on the corner of the estimate was a faint notation in red ink: “Tell about rats.”

“What’s this?” I asked, pulse quickening.

“Well, there are some rat droppings, nothing much . . .”

Move over, Dave.

P is for Pinnacles

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Pinnacles_National_Park_-_Flickr_-_Joe_Parks

It’s a steep haul up the High Peaks Trail, especially when you’re seven months pregnant with your first child. But back then, giddy with promise, my husband Jonathan and I floated past the massive boulders of Pinnacles National Park. Cresting the summit, baby bulk and all, I relished the double take of the buff, shirtless teenagers loitering atop the rocks. They paused mid-swagger to glance in horror at my swollen belly as I conquered the mountain in my smocked maternity top.

Our family has returned to the Pinnacles again and again, drawn by the massive cliffs, soaring spires, and lush spring wildflowers. Leaving behind the fragmented kaleidoscope of daily life, we are calmed by the reliable sameness of the timeless, indifferent peaks.

Yet even in this constant landscape, change is under way. The fantastic rock formations are the remains of an ancient volcano ravaged by erosion, creeping steadily up the Salinas Valley along the San Andreas Fault. I am grateful that only subtle clues dispel the illusion of permanence. A precariously balanced boulder has fallen from its perch. Spatters of chartreuse and rust lichen toil as alchemists, turning rock to soil. Their magic allows monkey flowers the color of apricots to bloom from dirt pockets hidden in solid stone.

Time has worked its alchemist’s magic on us as well. Two years after our initial trip, we camp at the Pinnacles, weighed down by the accoutrements of toddlerhood — diapers, goldfish crackers, juice boxes, a travel crib. Emma, whose in utero view had been obscured, now enjoys the scenery from the baby backpack that digs into our shoulders as we trudge along the dusty trail.

When we return again, the campground has been paved over for more parking. This time, we have two young daughters in tow, barely out of diapers. But Emma and Ally are definitely into sit-down strikes at the prospect of hiking more than a few hundred yards. Not wishing to fight an uphill battle, we content ourselves with the flat path at the base of the mountains so the girls can splash in the creek. Jonathan, impatient with the meandering pace of childhood, sprints to the summit while the girls and I delight in wild bouquets and rocky forts along the valley floor.

The next time the Pinnacles beckon, Emma and Ally gamely traverse the High Peaks Trail. They are enchanted by poppies sprouting out of boulders, the rock that looks like a camel. The girls nibble on miner’s lettuce and strategic bribes of chocolate, scampering around the summit while their tired parents lag behind. Rocks and children tame each other: whininess turns to exultation, forbidding stone becomes an infinite playground.

Although the incline invites vertigo, the girls clamber up and down, up and down the footholds chiseled into the rock, swinging from the metal banister as if nature and the Park Service had fashioned monkey bars just for them. Jonathan and I must squeeze through the narrow cliff passage in an awkward crouch. But it is just the right size for Emma and Ally, who march through boldly upright, giggling as their crooked parents bump their heads against the rocky overhang.

We are not the only ones who find the Pinnacles a good place for families. Condors, recently reintroduced to the park, build nests in the sheltered crevices. While they teach their young how to catch thermals, we show ours how to catch the shine of buttercups on their chins in the warm sunlight.

Now our daughters have taken flight too, soaring and wavering in their own grown-up landscapes. Alone again, Jonathan and I make our pilgrimage to drink in the riotous wildflowers and steadfast rocks whenever time allows. As always, we stop in Soledad at Pacheco’s Mexican Grocery for tortas — soft white rolls dripping with spicy carnitas.

Soledad, gateway to the Pinnacles, has sprung up even faster than Emma and Ally. Twenty-seven years ago, it consisted of Pacheco’s, a prison, a few dusty streets of dilapidated houses, and a fleabag hotel with a cracked, empty swimming pool. Now the highway billboard reads: “It’s happening in Soledad.”  Vineyards dot the hillsides, and a tony resort lies adjacent to the Pinnacles. Kids from tidy homes with manicured yards swarm the soccer field at the spanking new school. A vast shopping center dwarfs the original Main Street, but we still head to our old Mexican grocery. Pacheco’s, whose tortas remain a juicy, scrumptious bargain, is as timeless as the Pinnacles.

Fueled by the succulent tortas and memories, Jonathan and I start up the High Peaks Trail once more. Although stiffer and a little creaky, we ascend quickly past the boulders and apricot blooms of monkey flower.

Again and again, we come back to ourselves in the shelter of the enduring cliffs.

*

What is your favorite family place that you return to over and over?

N is for New Nest, Spiffed up with Cleanser (and Love)

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cleaning suppliesI am down on my hands and knees in my pajamas, scrubbing my daughter Emma’s bathroom floor. The one-inch hexagonal tiles were clearly not installed with college kids in mind, to say nothing of the Deco light fixtures and grooved wainscoting. Every nook and cranny is caked with grime.

Emma is asleep upstairs in the bed abandoned by the previous tenant. She’s exhausted from yesterday’s 12-hour drive and the thought of setting up her first home outside the dorms. But I’ve been up since daybreak.

It’s been years since I’ve cleaned my own bathroom. I replenish the empty bottles of Soft Scrub and Windex that Maria leaves on the counter. That’s the extent of my exertion. How do I instruct my daughter in the lost domestic arts?

“Make enough money so you can hire a housecleaner” is my usual advice. But Emma at 20 is years away from a good paycheck.  What was I thinking when I let Maria scrub the toilet?

Emma may have grown up with Maria, but I grew up without hired help, under the tutelage of a mother who swore by Peg Bracken’s I Hate to Housekeep. When I was just a few years older than Emma, I shared an apartment with my friend Jane, whose mother’s domestic Bible was more Lutheran than Peg Bracken. Their credo was “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”  Jane once surveyed the bathroom I had just scoured and asked in a despairing tone, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you about cleanser?”

My mother did teach me about cleanser, but she imparted a different lesson. She associated housework with the humiliation her own mother endured scrubbing floors for a sadistic boss during the Depression. My grandmother humbled herself for a pittance so her daughter would not starve. Maria, albeit with a kinder employer and higher wages, does the same. I am lucky to escape their desperate need. But here I am, another mother engaged in the sacrament of love through sacrifice, down on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor for my daughter.

By now my back is aching, so I pause to stretch. Chrome faucets, mirror, and light fixtures gleam. Stripped of encrusted layers of filth, the wainscoting and baseboards are blindingly white. I survey my efforts with pride, grateful that years of paid help have not stripped away my ability to clean, limited though it may be. For the grueling labor that is basic to love cannot be hired out.

Emma is awake at last. She comes downstairs, yawning and stretching as she stumbles into the bathroom. Her delight is a balm for my sore knees and stiff back.
After breakfast, we search out provisions in Emma’s new neighborhood, emerging from the hardware store with a Swiffer Sweeper Starter Kit and several other weapons in the war against grime.

Back at the house, Emma and I tackle the kitchen together. We work side by side, scrubbing the Formica counters, polishing the cabinet fronts. I remember a moment years ago, when baby Emma kept me company in the kitchen, her luscious neck folds spilling out of the collar of her cotton jammies. As I sat on the floor polishing with the cleaning rag, I glanced to my side. There she was right next to me, vigorously wiping circles on the cabinets with her blankie. Baby Emma grinned with delight as we swooped, cackling, into one another’s arms.

Now Emma spritzes Windex on congealed spills atop a glass table in the living room. We ooh and ahh over the house’s multiple charms—the elegant bathroom, soft pine flooring, built-in window seats. Emma and I scheme about getting rid of all her housemates’ junk. I think, If only we could get rid of them, I could move in here with you, and we could really fix it up nicely! But I keep this sentiment to myself.

The next morning I must head for home. Emma is content to stay behind, running her Swiffer under the sofas and across the honey-colored floors.

I go into the gleaming bathroom one last time. Pausing in my morning ablutions to admire my handiwork, I see that I have missed some spots. The window is streaked, and stray cobwebs dangle from the upper molding like Spanish moss. But overall, the bathroom cleans up nicely. It has good bones.

I’ve missed a few spots with my daughter as well: how to budget, how to scrub a toilet, the uses of cleanser.  But Emma, too, cleans up nicely. She has good bones.

My aching bones remind me again of my gratitude for Maria. I’d still advise Emma to earn enough money to hire a housecleaner. But I would impart some additional wisdom as well: Learn how to clean, so that someday, if you are lucky enough to be moving your daughter into her first house, you can know the sheer joy of scrubbing her bathroom floor on hands and knees while she sleeps.

*

What was it like moving into your first home away from home? If you have children, what’s it been like helping them set up in their newly fledged adult lives?

M is for Movie Group

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAYears ago, when our daughters were in kindergarten and third grade, my husband and I started a book group with other families we knew through our kids’ school. Five couples and 11 kids met for a potluck dinner every few weeks. The third-graders discussed The Babysitters Club (this was before Harry Potter was invented); the younger children pitched fits. Total chaos. Plus, I noticed over time that a mixed-gender group tends to choose a lot of books about war and history.

Still, we had a lot of fun for many years, and even read a few good books along the way.

Once our Babysitters Book Club kids had all gone off to college, my husband and I decided it was time to start a new group. By this time we had wised up, and knew our limits. No kids, of course—we only invited empty-nesters (different friends from our old crew, since I still harbored resentment about some of those literary choices). No full-scale dinner parties—just dessert.

And, best of all, no books–just movies! An assigned book you don’t like is a torturous investment. An assigned movie you don’t like, on the other hand, is a serendipitous nap!

Our movie group kicked off in 2008 with Elegy. I don’t remember a thing about the film, except we all agreed that anything with Penelope Cruz in it is worth seeing for the visuals alone. (I personally have a crush on Jesse Eisenberg, making me the lone member who didn’t think his Mark Zuckerberg was an asshole in The Social Network.)

Elegy was the one and only movie we all saw together, sitting in our stretched-out row in the theater. After that, people have seen the movies on their own, according to what works best for their schedule, including whether they can only stay awake if it’s a matinee (not naming any names here!).

The challenge is picking a movie that will still be around close to the time of our next group: If we see it too early, we won’t remember it. After all, we’re all old enough to be empty-nesters—which means we don’t recall anything that’s happened more than a few days ago. (If we see a movie in our independent art theater, my husband and I won’t remember it at all, because we will have slept through it—even the matinee.)

I adore our movie group, which rotates among our houses every few weeks. The hosts provide dessert and pick the movie, usually with consensus reached via email beforehand. But if I wanted to pick some obscure Jesse Eisenberg film, it would be my prerogative to cram it down everyone’s throat. Every host but me always makes food to match the film’s theme—a nice touch that I always forget. Except when we saw The Help, but I just couldn’t bring myself to serve chocolate pie.

Other than Boyhood, which we all loved, and Unmistaken Child, which we all hated, we never agree. Part of the fun is predicting who will have what opinion.

One thing’s clear, though: the right people are married to one another–movie tastes are similar between the members of each couple. This vindicates my husband and me, because years ago, we developed a theory that couples’ compatibility could be predicted based on the 10 favorite and 10 least favorite movies of each (those dogs in the middle, i.e., the bad films my husband likes, don’t count so as not to skew the results). My husband and I had to put our theory aside to save our own marriage after a dispute about a very fine film, The Piano. But now our data set of four couples proves its validity once more.

So, if there are any algorithm geniuses from Netflix and Match.com out there who want to cut us a percentage of the killing they will make from our theory, give us a call.

Or better yet, catch us at the movies!

 *

Are you in a movie group? What’s your favorite movie? Would your relationship withstand the test of our Movie Compatibility Theory? If not, would you ditch the theory, the movie, or the relationship?

F is for Family Life

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bunny-crib-beddingI just became a grandmother. Pepita, as we affectionately call her, sleeps a lot, nestled in her bunny-bedecked bed. She is tiny, her head a perfect oval, as bald as an egg.

Maybe that’s because Pepita is an egg. My 13-year-old daughter Ally just brought her home as part of Family Life’s attempt to prevent teen pregnancy. All eighth graders are charged with 24/7 responsibility for their hard-boiled infants. No sleep-aways in the refrigerator next to the leftovers, no cracks or substitutions, no transformations into egg salad allowed. During PE class or nights on the town, a reputable eggsitter must be found. Ally even has to read 20 minutes a day to Pepita. Unlike with real babies, no pages can be skipped, and the egg’s grandparents must vouch in writing for this exemplary parental behavior. Also unlike with real babies, the experiment with teen parenting lasts only five days, and no college tuition must be salted away.

My neighbor, whose kids are much older than mine, had warned me about egg babies years earlier. She described how all the eighth-grade girls fussed and cooed over their charges, spending hours planning play dates and making little outfits for them, while the eighth-grade boys pretty much left their children in their lockers for the week. Since I have a lot of friends my own age whose parenting styles parallel this gender divide with only modest variation, I was dubious about Family Life’s ability to transcend hard-wiring.

I am happy to report that my daughter is breaking gender stereotypes. Ally tends more to the neglect side than the cooing side of the parenting spectrum. True, she deigned to decorate Pepita with a marker-drawn bow, big blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. But soon after coming home with her new baby, she was trying to unload her on me.

“Can’t you just keep her in your purse?” Ally wailed as we prepared to go to a photography exhibit. “I don’t want to lug her around, and you’re bringing your bag anyway!”

“You’re the one who got pregnant!” I countered. “Deal with it.”

Pepita spent her first art opening crammed into a linty, airless pocket of her sulky mother’s sweatshirt. After that, she’s been pretty quiet. You might almost be tricked into thinking how easy it is to have a baby around the house (or locker). After all, eighth-graders have to read 20 minutes a night anyway just for English.

One thing’s for sure, although I didn’t need egg babies to clinch the case: At 13, my daughter is way too young to become a mother.

And having only recently liberated my purse from carrying around snacks and extra socks for my own kids, I’m way too young to become a grandmother.

*

I wrote this several years ago. Now Ally is a language assistant teaching English to babies and toddlers in Barcelona (or maybe she is “exposing” them to English, just as they are exposing her to constant viruses). According to Ally, exposure to the real thing–germs and all–is an even better preventative than egg babies! 

*

What are your experiences with efforts to prevent teen pregnancy?

E is for Easter

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I thought I would take another day off and recycle an old post today, but I am refreshed from Sundays off on the A to Z Blogging Challenge. How appropriate that this first Sunday happened to be Easter. I guess you could say I’m experiencing a resurrection of the writing spirit!

I was raised as a Unitarian, where Easter meant church and a new spring outfit, complete with hat, coat, and shiny shoes. There were also, of course, drugstore chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and dyed Easter eggs. We hid the jelly beans as well as the eggs around the house, and 15 years later when my parents  emptied the bookcases for a move, dessicated sugar orbs fell out from between the pages.

Now I’m a lapsed Unitarian, which means my Sunday mornings are my own and I don’t get fancy new duds for spring. The family I helped create is more apt to celebrate Easter with a hike, preceded, of course, by eggs and baskets with better chocolate and strict rules about jelly beans.

Now I have even given up the baskets–our daughters are 26 and 24, with one in Barcelona, where it costs a small fortune to mail anything. The other one, who has recently moved home, was horrified on Easter Eve to hear that there would be no chocolate rabbits in store for her this year!

But we still hike. We got out before the rain came–just a sprinkle on Easter itself, with more forecast for later this week. Here in California, where we are suffering through the worst drought in history, the weather itself feels like a miracle of resurrection.

I’ve included some pictures from the altar at which we celebrate. The ones at the top are my iPhone-gathered bouquet from my Easter morning walk around our neighborhood. And these are from my favorite place in the world, Point Reyes National Seashore (our Easter weekend hike happened to be Muddy Hollow to Estero/White’s Gate to Glenwood trails and back):

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How did you spend your day off? What rejunevates your spirit?

D is for Dog

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Button puppyMy husband and I are cat people, but our daughters failed to get the memo. Despite a menagerie of two felines and an assortment of rodents, the lobbying for a dog began in earnest when Emma, our eldest, was in second grade. In between constant replays of “Homeward Bound” and “Milo and Otis,” Emma vowed to take care of all things puppy if only we would grant her wish. She even promised to pick up poop.

We’re bad parents: We said no. So Emma brought out the heavy artillery: Begging. Whining. Pitching fits. After a solid year of this, our firm “no” turned squishy. Not only did we fail to hold the canine line, we also failed Parenting 101 by caving in the face of  her atrocious behavior (unsurprisingly, this soon became our m.o. for dog-rearing as well).

Of course, I was the weak link. If it had been up to my husband, we never would have accepted even one of those “free” goldfish foisted upon families at school carnivals. But after Emma went to work on me, I went to work on Jonathan. On a long, romantic hike I outlined why we should overthrow reason and do something crazy, like get Emma a dog for her ninth birthday. “Besides,” I concluded my pitch, “Maybe we could surprise ourselves and let in new love.”

Jonathan, who pays attention to research saying that marriages fare best when husbands agree with their wives, knew he was doomed. But at least the birthday girl was thrilled with the promise of a puppy as soon as we got back from our summer vacation.

Upon our return, we headed straight to the Humane Society. Emma was in heaven when she saw their brand new litter. Who knew that Rottweiler-Pit Bull puppies could be so cute? Still, it was not the mix I had in mind, even though Emma saw no need to look any further. This time, I did not cave, resolutely removing my screaming, betrayed child from the premises while simultaneously saving my marriage.

Fortunately, the next day there was an ad in our local paper for a litter in a nearby town. We knew we’d found our puppy as the mellowest little black-and-white guy yawned and waggled his tail. Thus Button entered our lives and our hearts.

Emma and her younger sister, Ally, were enthralled as Button waddled up and down the stairs after them. They were less enchanted by his needle-like puppy teeth, and spent Day Two climbing into the lower branches of a tree to avoid his nipping enthusiasm. Many days thereafter they ignored him completely.

In his intemperate youth, Button chewed through one sofa, several shoes, and two pairs of Jonathan’s glasses. Neither girl ever picked up any poop.

But one promise was kept: We could, after all, let in new love.

*

Button lived to a ripe old age. He had a great life, a great death, and we miss him. He was the perfect dog for our imperfect family. How have you handled kids and pets?

B is for Boomerang

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Boomerang

“Bite your tongue.”

That’s advice I’ve been taking to heart ever since our 26-year-old daughter Emma moved back home right before Christmas. Emma spent two years as a starving artist in Brooklyn after college and a temporary job in Russia—she loved living in New York City, except for the starving part. And the weather. So now our little fledgling has come home to roost.

Just as Brooklyn is the thing for young adults to do, so is boomeranging back.

For someone who spent as much time as I did mournfully anticipating the empty nest, then moping around once I actually had one, you’d think I’d rejoice at Emma’s return.

But it’s surprising how quickly you can fall in love with a clean house. Not to mention the husband you’ve neglected over the past couple of decades.

Just as Emma had grown fond of her independence, so had we. Now we’re all like not-quite-roommates who are trying hard not to engage in nagging and eye-rolling. (Guess which habit matches which generation!)

There’s nothing really wrong, exactly. Emma is sweet, and definitely more mature than when we packed her off for Adventures in Young Adulthood. She tells us that she was the one in her Brooklyn household who always turned off the lights and kept the place clean (I’d really hate to meet those other housemates).

But it’s true that she now leaves smaller debris trails than she used to. Emma also cooks dinner for us once a week, chips in for gas and groceries, has found work, and takes her art seriously. She seems to be following some inner plan, although what it is and on what time line the plan will unfold is anyone’s guess.

Still, having Emma back is a tough transition—for all of us. She misses coming and going as she pleases without parents wondering if she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I miss turning off the radar on that particular nightmare. On a more mundane note, I also miss being able to get into the car knowing that NPR will come on instead of some horrible noise from a different preset. I miss dishes done on my timetable. I miss towels that hang neatly from the towel rack. I miss not feeling like a control freak who is constantly resisting the urge to nag. I miss my unbitten tongue.

In the meantime, I keep reminding myself how lucky we are to have a child we love and who loves us, and who feels secure in the knowledge that she has a home to come back to.

Two children, actually: Emma may soon have company. Her younger sister, Ally, has been living in Barcelona, but she, too, plans to move back at the end of the summer while she figures out what comes next.

I used to say (and even mean it!) whenever the girls visited for holidays, “There’s nothing I like more than having everyone here under the same roof again!”

Be careful what you wish for.

 *

 Anyone boomeranged back into your empty nest? How have you weathered the transition?

Transplant

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A pot of flowers doesn’t seem like much. It can’t begin to compensate for the loss of rose beds, lemon trees, azaleas just coming into their glory. But at least it’s something to greet my in-laws the day they’ll cram what they can from sixty years of marriage into two tiny rooms in their new retirement home.

My husband’s parents have never much cared about material things; flowers are the one indulgence they allow themselves. A pale yellow Cecil Bruner rose foams over the entry of the Craftsman bungalow they are about to leave behind. Bluebells, daisies, holly—every season’s bounty—grace the coffee table in their living room. Now the vases, furniture, and garden tools have all been donated to charity. My father-in-law, who disapproves of brooding as a foolish waste of time, has banished all misgivings about their imminent uprooting. Still, he confessed to me a few days earlier that he felt a pang as his prized roses started to leaf out. He will want a bit of dirt to fuss over.

At the nursery, I select lemon-yellow ranunculus, blue pansies, white impatiens, and a single periwinkle to spill over the edge of a big ceramic planter the color of cream. The rich black potting soil tumbles from bag to bowl. I carefully ease the flowers out of their plastic cubes and transplant them into the readied dirt, adding soil to fill in the empty spaces. I give the pot a gentle soaking. It looks perfect.

I arrive at the retirement home an hour before the movers and my in-laws are due. Yellow caution tape, the kind used in crime scenes, blocks the path to the 4- by 6-foot concrete pad we charitably call a patio. Perhaps the dismantling of a long life is indeed a crime, but I am too rushed to appreciate the symbolism.

I inquire at the front desk about the obstruction.

“Which unit are your in-laws moving into?” asks the receptionist.

“It’s on the end, overlooking the swamp,” I say.

“We don’t call it a swamp,” she admonishes before explaining that the path is cordoned off due to high tide warnings. “We say ‘marsh.’”

Since my in-laws refer to their fellow residents as “inmates,” I imagine them bristling at the euphemisms, if not the rising waters, about to engulf them. They may be old, but they’re nobody’s fools.

Swamp or marsh, it is clear that no senior citizens will be allowed to wander off into a flood zone, so I resign myself to a treacherous detour. Bracing against the weight of the pot, I gingerly pick my way across soggy hillocks toward the patio. A few more steps and I’ll be home free on the solid concrete.

As I bend to put the pot in place, it slips out of my arms. I watch helplessly, unable to reverse the inexorable crash. Dirt and ceramic shards are everywhere. The flowers I had so tenderly transplanted now lay crushed under two cubic feet of soil.

I pull the biggest shard from the rubble, frantically combing through the dirt with my bare hands. The sweet blue faces of the pansies emerge, and here is the tattered head of the ranunculus. One after another I toss the survivors onto the shard. It is a cool, overcast day; with enough soil clinging to their roots, perhaps the flowers will pull through.

But I cannot yet tend to the shocked transplants. I still have a “Welcome” banner to install, a mess to clean up.

I shake the dirt off my jeans and sneakers as best I can, and struggle to unlock the front door. My in-laws are zealously tidy; their new home, with all the charm of a chain motel, at least makes up in spotlessness what it lacks in character. Or at least it did before I tracked in dirt. Now the traces of my good intentions are ground into the carpet.

I affix the “Welcome” banner to the blank walls. Fishing a crumpled tissue out of my pocket, I blot up the mess as much as possible before finally turning my attention to the drooping plants.

Bare handed, I scoop up some of the soil from the patio into the plastic nursery pots, sweep the rest into the grass with the side of my foot, then head home with my load of distressed flowers and dirt.

There I find an old terra cotta pot, slightly battered, with a patina of dirt and mildew. Filling it almost to the brim with the salvaged potting soil, I carefully transplant each bedraggled flower, once again troweling in dirt around the edges, gently misting off stray soil before giving everything a good drink. The blossoms are wilted from their ordeal, but are starting to perk up a little.

I hope they’ll take root in their new home.

*

I wrote this four years ago when my in-laws made their big move. They’ve taken root just fine, as has my father-in-law’s garden! 

Out with the Old, In with the . . . ?

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January 2015 calendarBefore the fresh start to the New Year started going a bit stale, I got a jump on things during the lull between Christmas and January 1. With no more presents to wrap, holiday feasts to prepare, and most of my clients out of town, I had plenty of time. Most of it I spent hiking in the glorious crisp weather we had following the deluges that brought green to the parched hills and a brief fantasy that our drought might be over. (It isn’t, but what’s the point of New Year’s if not hoping for things that will soon fail to materialize?)

When I wasn’t hiking, I was unsubscribing. Not quite ready to tackle the actual clutter in closets and drawers I’d resolved to conquer, I could at least take a stab at virtual clutter. How satisfying to hunt down the microscopic click here from all the defeated congressional candidates we’d supported who were now sending holiday greetings while asking for more money. And kudos to the Sierra Club, which uses a big font for Unsubscribe—not so worthy of praise that it kept me from clicking, but still, I appreciate their thoughtfulness. The ever-persistent requests for $3,$5, $10, ANYTHING, PLEASE, WE’RE SO DESPERATE!!! from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, like the mosquito that whines in the night, were harder to get rid of, but for the moment there’s no more buzz in my ear. Sorry, Nancy Pelosi. Bernie Sanders I kept on board, just in case.

Since I felt so good about purging emails, I moved on to purging my stacks of unread New York Reviews collecting dust on my night stand.  Vowing to be ruthless, I decided beforehand to stop only for articles about “The Serial.” Since the New York Review is too high-falutin to traffic in the most popular podcast ever, I was able to make short work of my tall pile, though I did pause for a few essays, including Michael Chabon’s  short paean to Oakland, before remembering why I had never made it through Kavalier and Clay or The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. More successful at drawing me in was an article on the theory of broken windows policing—perfect for the New Year, since it’s another hopeful idea that hasn’t panned out too well. I passed on “What Happened to the Arab Spring?,” “Is There an Answer to Syria?,” and “Did Patrick Modiano Deserve It?” I guess I will never know, nor will I ever know who Patrick Modiano even is.

“Oh no!” my husband cried in dismay when I told him with relish of my purge, of my disloyalty to intellect and knowledge. But disregarding the opinion of others is one resolution that has gained traction over the years. My NYR-free nightstand has meant I am almost caught up on New Yorkers. And I finally began Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, which I have been magically thinking about reading for years.

Then there’s my favorite ritual of honoring the change in the calendar: packing away all the holiday ornaments and tossing the Christmas tree over the balcony.

Of course, now that I’ve unsubscribed from 2014, the question remains: What do I want to subscribe to in 2015?

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How about you? What do you want to unsubscribe from and subscribe to this year?