kitchen mouse

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“Hello little mouse.
Welcome home to your house.”
Words I said to my youngest son as we met at the top of the stairs.
He’d just returned home from an overnight with friends.
He was walking up.
I was about to descend after starting a load of laundry.
He was almost to his bedroom with a twin pack of Little Debbie snack cakes in his hand.
He hadn’t gotten there quite fast enough.
He replied with a grin and attempted a Jedi mind trick with the words, “You didn’t see anything.”
Oh, but I did.
The pantry is self serve and holds a plethora of goodies.
If only the food refilled automatically…
Though from his point of view, it does.
Gradually, when favorites are “disappeared” from one too many mouse raids, the children are learning to recycle the empty boxes and tell me if something is nearly or completely gone.
[creak of pantry door]
[tip toe tip toe away]
[crinkle of the wrapper]
[mmmmm so yum]
NOTE TO MOUSE: Throw the “evidence” away.
*squeak*

March 15, 2015
This conversation really occurred at the top of the stairs around 10:30 this morning. Afterwards I checked the pantry and there is at least one unopened box of Little Debbie snack cakes remaining. My oldest son calls this particular flavor, “Heaven Bites.” They must be really, REALLY good!

Big Day here

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Yesterday was a lilac scented morning walk, filling and delivering 100 water balloons to the park for the fifth grade picnic, attending junior high chapel presented by eighth grade, and more. Today started with another morning walk, though birdsong was more noticeable than the still blooming lilacs. It will be a quieter morning inside than usual because my oldest gets to sleep in a bit, not needed at school until midday for pictures and practicing for eighth grade graduation. No caps and gowns, just dressed up with a tie, but not the Star Wars one that he really wants to wear because it is against the rules this time. Half a day of school for my fifth grader because I'm springing him early for the 2pm ceremony. Cake after. Store bought. Big day here. Hoping for more smiles than tears. My, but that was a fast school year.

May 23, 2014

6:57am
School is on here. The phone call last night and the email from the public school announcing a one hour late start had the best wording. Funny thing is, they sent the email in bigger, red colored type too. I think they really wanted to cancel again due to subzero temps. It is -6, feels like -20. Life goes on and school must to. I get it.
No driveway drifting overnight. I needed that l’il “win.” Blue is taken care of now. Sidewalk needs a l’il help, then back in to rouse the oldest boy, with dynamite if needed. I opened his blinds already. Sunlight. Expose the teenager to sunlight. Step one. 🙂
There is color in the sunrise. Warm looking yellows and golds. An illusion. It is snot freezing cold. So much for poetic…there’s the blunt as hell. 😉
Heading back outside now. Not quite Hoth-like. Blue could walk on all four paws.

February 6, 2014

back to routine

7:27am
-Blue gave up fussing about not being able to see his dog buddy Jake, and decided to just eat breakfast instead.
-8th grade boy was shocked, amazed and thrilled to find a new MythBusters on the DVR this morning. You see, it’s not just a new MythBusters, but A NEW STAR WARS MYTHBUSTERS!!!! Are you kidding me?! Pure awesome right there.
-Best of all, thanks to the folks at Discovery Channel, that TV show was the incentive my 5th grade boy needed to come out from under the layers of cozy covers where he was burrowed when I told him it was wake up time, a little after 7a.
Up, dressed, breakfast, backpacks with lunches packed…we just might make it.
7:33am now
Gotta go!

The words above were posted in real time as my Facebook status. It is 8:24am as I post them here at Tumblr. I just walked through my front door, after delivering one boy curbside and waiting with the other until the bus arrived. It did. *whew* My breakfast time is next. Coffee. Taking my mom to the train station mid morning. I have a whisper of an idea for how I’m going to spend my day, but I’m not yet telling. Wednesday today. All day. Going to make it A Good One! First step is taking my winter coat off. I’m holding my phone with a turquoise knitted glove and typing with my thumb. I will. Letting the words flow ‘til then…

Time to play, “The Matching Game.” It was my husband who collected Hallmark ornaments. First Star Trek and then later, when they were released, Star Wars. He always said they were worth more if we kept the boxes too. Unpacking boxes and unwrapping from bubble wrap to hang them on the tree. Then, less than a month later, pairing up the ornament with the picture on the box and wrapping them up in plastic bubble protection once more. Love. His for space movies and their universe of collectibles. Mine for him. Our sons share his love of SciFi. I’m boxing them up carefully because someday this collection will be divided between my boys and hang in their respective homes. When that day comes there will be room on my tree for different ornaments. You know, all the non-SciFi ones.

January 1, 2014
2:35pm
I’m still procrastinating by writing, but at least I started AND I’m standing up!

bedtime mayhem

I said, “It’s bedtime.”

My oldest son heard, “It’s time to put on a stormtrooper helmet, grab a noise-making blaster, blare the Imperial March from your back pocket, and come down to the main floor looking for a fight.”

My youngest son minded by getting pjs on but heard, “Grab a sharply pointed pencil to wield like a lightsaber, while simultaneously threatening your big brother with a glass of ice water, and moving quickly from here to there dodging blaster fire.”

Blue heard, “Mom’s tired. Everybody GO CRAZY!”

December 17, 2013

a pasta smile

Cooking TIE fighter pasta for supper tonight. That’d be “farfalle” or “bow ties” for the rest of you. My husband came up with the Star Wars name to convince our sons to try eating pasta in a new shape. The name stuck. Tonight when I said I was cooking “tubes” or “TIE fighters” my oldest boy requested the latter. I’m cooking it using the super fancy, really nice, saucepan with a strainer insert that my husband and the boys gave me one Christmas. (This was a week or so after I tried to drain the pasta fast, using just the saucepan lid to drain the water, and instead poured our supper into the sink with the garbage disposal.) Oops. May the force be with you.

October 2, 2013

I’m wool gathering in the kitchen
warming my hands
on a ginormous mug o’joe
leaning on the counter
dishwasher sloshing
running humming
boys watching Clone Wars
now nearly through
snow covers the ground
February air has snap
inside is warm
my kitchen spot the best
for quiet contemplation
coffee drinkin’ daydreams
blue sky is emerging
from behind a wall o’clouds
wool gathering
thinking
not just a barnyard pursuit
baa
brrrr
ya sheared me a l’il close
not yet anyway
shearing is for Spring
after winter wind abates
real wool gathering time isn’t here
not quite yet

February 23, 2013

Evanescence

aclarityofconscious:

Evanescence is a gradual thing,
Nearly imperceptible to the human eye.

Small pieces simply blend into the background clutter,
Blurring what were distinct lines.

Subtly the erosion continues,
Widening the gulf between the present and the absent.

A larger world, hardly noticing or caring
Of what is being lost, continues on without skipping a beat.

And eventually the foreground and background 
Blend seamlessly around what once was there,

But now is…
Nothing

I read this poem last night. 

When I stalked your page, the way you stake out mine. 

You taught me a new word in the process, Mr. Scrabble. 

And made my heart hurt. 

I hate that you feel this way. 

I can read between the lines.

Is it because I put together the Star Wars thing?

And that is usually your job?

I just knew you were tired. 

From working all day. 

From giving blood before chemo again. 

From Making An Appearance. 

I was trying to help. 

I made it worse. 

Par for the course it seems. 

You are here. 

You are with us. 

We are so thankful for that. 

Every day you’re here. 

Cancer can’t have you. 

You are going to beat it. 

We’re going for the cure. 

You are going to beat it. 

(Because it bears repeating.)

I love you damn it. 

SO BIG!

Sorry I am a mess at showing you…

even after all the years we’ve been together. 

You’d think we’d have it down by now.

Today is a new day.

Screw evanescence.

It’s for steam and fog.

Not people. 

You are here.

Very much with us. 

And we are thankful.

1. (noun) evanescence: the event of fading and gradually vanishing from sight; “the evanescence of the morning mist”

© Turquoise Tangles, in reply to aclarityofconscious