The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Highland Piper

Well, okay, maybe I'm reaching a bit.  More like piper on a hill.  I'm from Rhode Island.  We don't have highlands here.  And not many hills, either.

I don't know how old I was when I stitched this little scene (on a pair of shorts) - junior high?  No idea. 

I'm roughly a quarter Scottish, and I went through a brief fascination with tartans and bagpipes for a while.  I think I expressed an interest in learning to play the bagpipes when I was maybe ten?  I had a chanter for a while (like a recorder), and then I guess I switched to flute for a year.  That was the extent of my musical career.  I was more a visual artist.

Clearly.

Instamatic

Hey - look what I found this morning:

Remember this post?  This is the camera I was talking about.  Or one very similar.  Didn't even realize I still had it.  And appropriately enough this morning, I took over 200 pictures (Hi Dad - I'm at it again!).  Have to go through them, but I'll probably post a few later today.

Always

This post is for my Mom, in a way.  It's her birthday today.  She's always been a wonderful mother, except for that time when we were little and she told us we could eat AS MUCH CANDY as we wanted.  That frightened me.  But apart from that...she's done a damn fine job.  From her I've inherited a love of books, and of cooking, and of music, and, hopefully, decent mothering abilities.  Time will tell.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  Mind how you go....Love, Jayne

Not long after my mom's father passed away, after the funeral was over, and we were supposed to start to "get back to normal", I was in my old bed at my parents' house, and I dreamt of him. 

In this dream, I was sitting on a bench in a park - I don't know where, I didn't recognize it.  And he, Grandad, came over and sat beside me.  He didn't look like he had looked toward the end - tired and gaunt and shrunken and sharply angled.  Instead, he was tall and healthy and hearty - full of "vim, vigour and vitality" as he used to say.  He looked as he had when I was younger, when I looked up at him always in awe and admiration and love and a huge desire to be with him all the time. 

I was so blessed with the lives of all of my grandparents when I was a child.  I knew each of them. I have separate and distinct memories of them.  My dad's parents moved to Arizona when I was nearly 4, and they came east once more when I was in the 6th grade.  I never saw my paternal  grandfather - Grandpa - again, but I did see my grandmother shortly after Grandpa passed away - Dad and I flew out to California, where they had moved, and we visited and I met other family members for the first time.

My mother's parents were constants in my young life, especially after I turned 7 and my grandfather had retired and the two of them moved up to Rhode Island and into a house on the same block as ours.  I was 22 when my grandfather passed away - so that's a huge chunk of my life with him in it.

Anyway. 

There I was on the park bench, and him sitting beside me.  And he was wearing a thin maroon windbreaker sort of jacket.  He used to walk down to Healy's News Store on Sunday mornings to get the paper.  He'd pick up two and drop one off at my parents' house before going home.  I can see him coming around the corner of Main street, newspapers rolled and tucked under an arm.... 

He walked at a purposeful, destination-bound pace.  He neither sauntered nor meandered, and I think this was true in most aspects of his life.  I remember sleeping over at my grandparents' house and wanting to get up to get the paper with him.  I knew I had to be up and ready to go on time, so I slept in my clothes, just to make sure he wouldn't leave without me.  I was young and small; he was larger than life.

When he sat down on the bench beside me, he spoke to me in his strong, London-laced voice.

And he said "I always love you."

It was a strange phrase.  Not "I will" or "I have...loved..." - but more of an "I do...."  Not "when I was alive" or "looking down from wherever I am now" - no - it was a constant, uninterrupted thing.

I woke up in tears. 

Days later, back at the house I shared with some college friends in CT, I told one of them - the one with the most religious upbringing - about the dream and asked if he believed that the dead can visit us in our sleep.  It had been so real...I could recall the feel of cool nylon jacket on my palms and fingers as I clung to him in a hug.  He felt solid.

My friend said no, something like that was more likely the work of the devil.

And since I had no way to prove otherwise, I let the subject drop.  With him.  But I didn't agree.  How could that dream be an evil thing?  How?  If anything, it was...uplifting, and joyous, and beautiful.  I didn't discuss it again.  But I still think my dear, wonderful friend was full of crap that day.

Someone larger than life leaves a huge gap in the lives of his family when he is physically no longer present.  The fallout, I think, has never stopped, though the vibrations have softened.  We all handle things differently.  Sometimes wisely, sometimes not.  Regardless, time continues on, oblivious.

I don't visit the grave where both my grandparents now lay.  Well, the physical part of them.  I don't really think they are there.  I think my grandfather, wherever he is, continues to move purposefully and with some destination in mind.  I think he visits libraries, and opera houses, and small amateur boxing clubs where the fighters are there to fight and not just for spectacle or ear-biting. 

For a long time, I kept the green vinyl recliner that had been his.  I actually had it before he died - my grandmother or my mother or someone wanted to get him a new chair.  I couldn't bear the thought of them throwing this chair away, so I claimed it. He'd had the chair when they lived in New Jersey.  When we went down there to visit, my sister and I would sit on his lap on that chair, listening to the soundtracks of "Oliver!" and "My Fair Lady." 

The chair smelled faintly of pipe tobacco.  Borkum-Riff Whiskey blend.  It came in a black and white and silver tin, and there were tall-masted sailing ships on the top and sides.  Even when the chair was no longer in his house, when he hadn't smoked a pipe in many years, especially since the heart attack, I could, if I pressed my face against the vinyl in just the right spot, still smell the tobacco.  I inhaled it like a drug. 

My husband and I have now lived in our house for just over 6 years now.  The whole house had been refurbished before we bought it - so much of it was like new.  It smelled of paint for months.

A couple of times, upstairs here, I have caught a whiff of that pipe tobacco smoke.  Unannounced, unexpected, unexplained.  (I don't have the chair any more.)  I wondered at first if maybe someone in a nearby house was smoking that same pipe tobacco, and that the wind had carried a bit of it in through an open bedroom window.

But I have dismissed that idea.  It didn't last long enough to have come from anywhere outside.  There was no more of it than a fleeting olefactory glimpse.  It was an eye blink of a smell.  There and gone.  But definitely there.

So he has stopped by, I believe, to check in on things.  And I'm sorry the books aren't in better rows, spines flush with the edge of the shelf.  And that I sometimes dog-ear the pages.  But I don't think it matters much.  I think so many of the things that matter to us on a daily basis, things we worry about and obsess about and torture ourselves with and bury - as if that will make it go away when all it does is hide if for a while - I think they don't really matter at all.  They just keep us busy.  And moving.  And distracted.  And we do them anyway.  Because we must do things.

Monday night - two nights ago - I was watching TV with my husband.  The program he had been watching ended, and I took up the remote and began to scroll through the programming guide to see what else was on.  I  am weird like this: no matter what channel we are on, I need to scroll to channel 2 - to the beginning - and proceed from there.  So I did, paging back from wherever we had been until I reached the beginning.  And there, on channel 2 - "Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti in Concert."  I hit the info button - it was the 1990 concert in Rome.  I hit "Select" and settled in for the night.

My grandfather died in 1988 - two years before the concert took place.  I'm sure he was there, floating above in the night sky, eyes closed, index fingers twitching, perhaps, as he conducted along with Zubin Mehta.   He would do that.

I know the whole concert by heart.  I know some of the songs in Italian, or French, German, Spanish...and what I don't know that way, I "know" phonetically.  I even sing along with the orchestra.  I'm sure I'm quite annoying to be around, but I don't particularly care.

I thought about my grandfather while I watched and sang in my chair.  I thought about my Mom, his only child, and wondered if she knew this was on, and if she was watching.  The holiday season is tough on her, I know.  But then, the season is tough on so many people who have lost loved ones and must celebrate without them in a chair at the dinner table. 

I sat there and kind of waited to feel tearful.  I really did.  I waited for emotion to well up in me, perhaps while Domingo sang "e lucevan le stelle", and pour from my eyes.  I waited to feel them sting a bit, and for my nose to feel prickly as it does when I'm going to cry.  But none of that happened.  I just listened, and sang along softly, and groaned and rolled my eyes whenever the program was interrupted because the public television station was in the middle of their fundraising.  And I got annoyed with this one woman who kept pronouncing Pavarotti "pavarot-tay" - what is that?  Get over yourself dear, you sound ridiculous.

And while there was singing, I also wondered if, maybe, I might suddenly smell some pipe tobacco.  Of course that's asking a lot, I know.  He could be watching this from anywhere.  Actually, he could be hanging out with Luciano instead, discussing other great tenors of the past and which arias were their favorites.  But still...I wanted something to happen.   

I've been watching Lisa Williams / Life Among the Dead.  I thing she's fabulous.  First - because she seems genuine.  And because she's got a great smile and funky hair and a cute little blond son and an English accent.  And because I have always been interested in the other side.  And according to Lisa, yes, they do communicate - though not always in the ways you expect them to.  So you have to be open to it, in whatever way it comes.

Well, I sniffed the air - quietly, so my husband wouldn't wonder what my problem was - on and off for a while.  Nothing.  I physically tensed as I tried REALLY HARD to - I don't know - squeeze pipe smoke from thin air through sheer force of will.  Didn't work.   

During one of the breaks, when the smiling, unblinking, fund-raising folk returned, waving CDs and DVDs, I went upstairs to move our son out of our bed and into his own.  He falls asleep on our bed because if both kids go to bed in the room they share, neither one falls asleep.  So this is how we're doing this for now.  It can't go on forever.  My son is five and a half, and growing taller by the minute, it seems.  It's a production picking him up off of the bed - sound asleep, so he weighs twice what he weighs when he's awake.  I lean in and hug him to me and then bend my knees a bit and lean backward to shift his weight onto me instead of the bed, and then straighten up so I don't fall over backwards.  I lug him as gently as I can from our room down the short hall to the kids' bedroom, trying not to whack one of his dangling legs against the door frame in the process.  Then I heave him up so he's somehow horizontal in my arms and then gently - in theory - set him down on the bed.  Cover him with the sheet and blanket and comforter, kiss him on the cheek, whisper "I love you" in his ear.  Sometimes he stays right where I put him, other times he sits up and slowly lays back down against the pillow, rearranging himself into a more comfortable position than the one I dumped him in, or he sometimes  mumbles or babbles in his sleep. 

So I got him settled in and whispered "I love you" and kissed him and was on my way toward the door when he spoke - perfectly clearly, as if he was awake, except that his eyes were closed.

And he said "I always love you."

I was so focused on not waking him or his sister up that what he said didn't really hit me until I was sitting on the couch watching the last portion of the concert, where all three tenors are on stage for that one grand and glorious and fun medly of opera and musical theatre and folk songs. 

And then I suddenly thought - huh?  What did he say? 

He said "I always love you." 

Not "I will..." or "I have .... loved..."  - future or past...

It was more like "I do" - something constant, in the present - in the ever-present tense.  The always.

And I watched the remainder of that concert lying on the couch, snuggled under a blanket, smiling.  I felt...happy.  I didn't feel sad at all.  My nose refused to prickle; my eyes would not cry. 

And - that's a good thing, I think. 

I don't believe we are supposed to cry forever.  I think we are supposed to live our lives - really live them - not wasting a single moment if possible.  I think that is the best way to honor those we have lost.  "Every day an adventure," as Grandad was wont to say.  Our time here is precious.  It's wrong to waste a minute of it.  I think we are supposed to love and cherish those around us - hug our loved ones tightly - and work hard and play hard and laugh and yes, remember, and move purposefully toward our destinations, wherever and whatever they may be.

Sure, maybe my son saying what he said, that way, that night, was a coincidence. 

But I don't believe in coincidences.

I do, however, believe love is endless.

Always.

 

The Simple Things

The service was only about half an hour long. 

The pastor did a few readings, led us in prayer once at the beginning and again at the end.  She was nice - low key, personable, kind, sincere.

The oldest daughter of his four children spoke first.  She read from a couple of sheets of paper, stumbling across the words, her voice cracking every so often, but just as often, her face breaking into a smile as she shared her memories with the rest of us.

He was a good man. 

He enjoyed, as she said, the simple things in life.  Coming home from work, dinner with the family.  Saving all year to buy the perfect gift for his wife, the love of his life.  Children.  Grandchildren.  Cookouts.  Checkers and card games.  Family gatherings.

We lived on the same block, and our houses were diagonally opposite each other.  The youngest daughter and I went to kindergarten together and through all of our school years until we graduated from high school.  We were best friends.  We lived at each others' houses, cutting across the field in the middle of the block rather than walking the long way around.  We referred to it as "going cross-lots."

Her father left for work early in the mornings.  He was of my father's generation - "The Greatest Generation" - and, like my own father - typified so many of those "great" traits.  He worked hard - sometimes three jobs, which I didn't know until today.  He didn't go on expensive or exotic vacations.  He was thrifty.  And with four children, he had to be.  But money isn't everything.  And he, like that generation, and others scattered into generations that follow, understood that.  It's not how much you have in your pocket.  It's how much love you have for and from the people around you.

He was quiet.  If I remember correctly, he wore a hearing aid. 

He had three daughters and a son.  Girl, girl, boy, girl.  And then the grandchildren...I was 14 when the first grandson was born.  I don't like to think about that now, because he's all grown up, this cute little blond boy.  He's got a wife and two children of his own.  I saw him today and I think my jaw dropped.  I never would have recognized him.  Last time I saw him he was scrawny and blond and in his early twenties.  Today he is not a boy, his hair is darker, and he is broad-shouldered and strong.  After his mother spoke, he was the next at the podium.  And after him, one of his younger brothers spoke, and finally, my friend's son.

I don't see the family very often any more.  We don't live in the same town, and my friend and I, we've gone on with our own, different, lives.  But when my sister and I arrived at the funeral home and saw their mother, and then the daughter, daughter, son, daughter standing in line to receive hugs and handshakes and condolences, time fell away, and it was as if we had all seen each other a few days ago.

Their mother looked the same as she's always looked to me.  Her hair is gray, instead of brown, but apart from that, she looks the same.  And the two older sisters - the same.  The brother - he looks older, but still - the same face.  And my friend, the shortest of the bunch, the youngest of the family, she had not really changed in my eyes either.  I hugged her, and she was the only one crying at that time...before the service had started, and before we all shed tears and laughter together.  She said, over and over, "I want my father back.  I want my father back."  I didn't know how to respond.  I just said "I know, I know," and hugged her some more before leaving to take my seat.

My sister and I sat toward the back, over to one side, and sorted out who was who among all the grandchildren.  We hadn't seen a lot of them since they were very young.  So strange to see them as young men and teenage girls.  How can that be?  It was only yesterday that I was that age, and younger, and that my friend and my sister and I rode bikes together and climbed trees.  And now, we are not the kids in the families.  And yet, we still are, in each others' eyes.

The three grandsons spoke of many of the same things - how wonderful their grandfather was, and what a good example he'd set.  They spoke of playing checkers with him (and losing every time), or playing cards, his love of dessert, his great smile.  The spoke of him not only as their grandfather, but as a father-figure as well, and a positive influence on their lives.  Their voices broke, but they continued on without stopping, without trying to hide their emotions.  They laughed, too, at memories, and caused the rest of us to laugh with them.  They brought me to tears again and again, these little boys, grown to young men, speaking so simply and openly of this unobtrusive man.

Over and over the same messages.  He was a good man.  He appreciated the simple things.  He didn't waste time or energy bemoaning what he didn't have, or regretting opportunities that were not given to him.  He appreciated what he had - a large and loving family who absorbed the lessons he taught by example.  Children and grandchildren who spoke of him with affection and respect, sadness, and love.  And an inherited appreciation for those riches that masquerade as the simple things in life.

 

A Summer Afternoon on an October Evening

We're watching the Red Sox/Angels game right now.  It's currently the top of the 6th, we're ahead 4-0. 

It's dark outside, we're inside in the basement living room.  There are some toys scattered around the floor.  The kids went to bed about 40 minutes ago.  Bill has been eating some sort of Starburst candy things (ugh). 

And I'm eating saltines and slices of cheddar. 

Saltines and cheddar and baseball - suddenly I have caught a whiff of freshly cut grass on a breeze across my memory...the sky is bright blue, the sun is shining, the back yard is light green dappled with dark beneath the shade of the maples. 

There is a radio plugged into the outlet in the barn, and a ballgame is on.  The Sox are playing somewhere.  It is probably a Sunday afternoon.  Mom is working in the flower beds.  Dad has mowed the lawn.  Now he's relaxing in a lawn chair, drinking Schaeffer ("...the one beer to have, when you're having more than one") from a can, or maybe it's Schlitz.  We kids have ginger ale.  And there are saltines and cheddar cheese for a snack.

We probably weren't listening to the game all that much, my sister and me, but the sound of the game is still the theme song of this summer memory.  The rise and fall of the commentators as things happen or don't happen on the field, and the accompanying crescendo and decrescendo of voices from the stands.  They blend with the cars going by on Main Street, birds calling from the trees, a dog barking, kids yelling somewhere down the street.  Time stretched for miles and hours in all directions.

Now it is years later.  Time seems to shrink as I try to cram all I want to accomplish into the faster and faster beating of the clock.  Today was a tough day for me, and I left work early with a crushing headache.  I came home to take a nap and try to relax and let go of a mountain of built-up tension.  The headache has gone, and this evening I am lazy, resting on the couch with pillows and a blanket.  I try to stay snug in this relaxed, sleepy state and not think of anything other than the game on TV and, for the moment, this laptop and my thoughts of yesterday.  The tension will try to come back, but it can wait until tomorrow.

For while it is dark outside and cozy-dark inside on this October night, as I listen to this game and bite into crispy saltine and sharp cheddar, it is a lazy summer afternoon from my childhood as well.   

(Go Sox!)

Worth a Thousand Words

I was looking through a couple of OLD photo albums of mine.  Oh my god.  They are hysterical.  And for the most part, the contents will not be posted here.

The first time I ever had a camera - a little instamatic with one of those flash cubes you had to stick on top - I shot the whole roll of film in about 90 seconds - much to the consernation of my photographer father.

I noticed a tendancy throughout the two albums I've looked at - 65% of the pictures at that time (70s-80s) were of family pets.  There are a LOT of pictures of cats.  And my doberman.  And the things they were doing.  Or not doing.  Or when they were sleeping.  On a chair.  On the floor.  On my bed.  On my sister's bed.  You get the idea. 

Anyway, I'll scan some pictures in and post them today if I can.  Right now I hear children coming.  And one of them doesn't sound happy....

Farewell Julia Child

I found out yesterday morning that Julia Child had passed away.

It was on the front page of the local paper, below the fold, and I saw it amid the morning chaos of getting breakfast ready for Alex and "letting" everyone else (i.e. Bill, Uncle, and Cousin) get their own. It was a tense morning - the last morning of this week-long visit. Bill and I were worn out by the whole experience and had finally started hissing at each other about stuff that we wouldn't have hissed about at any other time.

So I didn't have time to read the article until a bit later. But my heart was heavy. I know 91-almost-92 is certainly a "ripe old age" and she lived a great life, and so on.

But still. I felt like I'd lost a distant great aunt that I'd seen a few times and had always liked and admired even if we didn't see each other much over the years. She was out there somewhere and that was a happy thing.

I have happy, warm, comforting childhood memories of Julia on TV. The theme music her French Chef series brings me back to a darkened living room and her distinct voice and personality and her sense of humor. She made it look fun. And it should be. Cooking is fun. Eating is fun. Or should be. (Though if cooking isn't your thing - that's okay. I just think no one should be daunted by it.)

I am lucky to have grown up with no fear of cooking. Of trying new foods or new ways of preparing old foods. Food is fun.

Some memories I have...her show opening with a row of headless poultry arranged across the counter, ranging from a cornish game hen up to a turkey...or another episode where she announced happily "We're having some vegetarians for dinner!" and then corrected herself - "well, we're not going to eat them..."

I loved her enthusiasm, I loved watching her with guest chefs in later years...I loved watching her appear as a guest on Emeril's show and loved how respectful he was toward her. I loved watching her and Jacques Pepin together too - they were a riot.

I am saddened by her passing...but I am so glad she was here.

I hope there's good food in heaven.

Cornish Pasties and Grapenut Pudding

Last night we gathered at my parents' house to celebrate the three husbands' birthdays - my father, my brother-in-law, and my husband. Their birthdays, in that order, cover almost a month - and, interestingly, all three are Aquarians.

Anyway - the group was made up of both the usual and newer members of our little family: my parents, my sister and her husband and their kids(Meredith, Jacques, Calvin and Natalie), my little group (me, Bill, and Alex) and my cousin Steve and his new family - his wife Colleen and the kids, Jake and Amelia. All the kids (except Alex) are around the same age, so they had a great time playing together and running around demonstrating karate kicks and patiently including Alex from time to time.

We all arrived within minutes of each other - Steve first, then Bill and Alex and I, then my sister and her family, and then Colleen and Jake and Amelia. Everyone congregated in my parents' huge living room, with Mom periodically returning to the kitchen to check dinner's progress.

At dinner there were two tables - the adult table (plus Alex) in the dining room, and the kids' table in the kitchen.

Dinner, at my father's request (being the senior birthday boy, he gets that privilege), was Cornish Pasties.

And that's pasties with the "a" like the "a" in "cat", not like in "paste."

Cornish Pasties are basically hand-held pies that contain, traditionally, mostly vegetables and little or no meat. They are filling and cheap, and were easily carried to work and eaten by hand. My Dad's mother was from Cornwall, England, and she used to make these for her family in America. My mother has carried on the tradition, and pasties have been a commonly requested birthday dinner for my father over the years.

Very simple to make - this is the version we usually had:

You make a batch of pie dough - not sweetened - and roll out some of it into a circle around a quarter of an inch thick. (Any size you want - depending on how much you or other people can eat at a time.)

Next, you slice some potato and some onion and some beef (all in small pieces) onto one half of the circle, add some salt and pepper, and then fold the other half of dough over to cover. You seal the edges by folding or curling about half an inch of the dough over and over around the perimeter, pressing to seal...or you could smash the two layers of dough together with a fork - whatever you're comfortable with.

Then you'll need to cut a few slits in the top so the steam can escape. Place the completed pasties on a baking sheet, an inch or so apart, and bake in a 350 degree oven until golden brown.

My mom used to make little letters out of some of the excess dough and "label" each pasty with our initials. This was mostly so no one would end up with hers, which also contained turnips. Dad's mother liked turnips in hers, too.

Anyway, these can be eaten right out of the oven or you can let them cool to room temperature.

And now we veer off the path of tradition onto a little side road...

When I was growing up, we had them for dinner, and we'd all pretty much eat them the way Dad did - he sliced them around the perimeter, flipped the upper layer open, and added bits of butter to the steaming meat and potatoes inside. And then he poured some milk over all of it.

Bear with me - it sounds weird, but it's pretty tasty.

I never knew, until last night, why we did this, other than because Dad did.

It's certainly not the traditional way of eating them.

Apparently this all came about because when Dad was a kid, and his mother served them piping hot from the oven, she poured some milk (or cream) over all of it to cool it down quickly so Dad could eat. I think the butter was supposed to serve the same purpose. (I have a tiny memory of eating saltine crackers with butter on them in my grandmother's kitchen, years and years ago - I must have been 3, as Dad's parents moved to Arizona right around the time I turned 4....)

So anyway - that's how our little family has eaten pasties over the years.

Mom sent us home with some of the leftovers, and Bill put ketchup on his at lunchtime today. I stuck with the butter and milk.

I remember my mother making pasties - or anything else that required working with dough - on the top of the dishwasher. The top was a thick piece of wood - a cutting board/chopping block type of thing which was extremely handy for kneading bread dough or rolling out pastry or cookie dough. The dishwasher was (and still is) on wheels - not the built-in kind - so when not in service for baking, it was rolled back to its place beside the refrigerator.

Yesterday, when Bill and Alex and I walked into my parents' house, the smell of the pasties cooking was intoxicating. Dinner couldn't come soon enough.

I remember when I attempted to make them for my father's dinner for the first time. I wasn't a kid - but I felt awkward and incompetent the whole time. They turned out okay, as I remember, but I was a wreck throughout the whole process. I felt like I had so much to live up to....yes, it's only a meat and potato pie, really, but it's family tradition and history and my mother's seemingly effortless handling of dough that I was torturing myself with at the time.

Since then I have calmed down a bit and have also made pasties without having a nervous breakdown. I've made them wilth leeks and potatoes too, which is very good.

Last night Mom made several pasties, but in pie form - it was easier to feed a crowd that way and less time-consuming than making a bunch of individual ones. But she did, however, make one individual one for Dad.

Dessert was grapenut pudding (also Dad's request) and chocolate pudding and a small Carvel cake for anyone not interested in the other two selections. A Carvel cake is an ice cream cake with little crunchy cookie bits in between the layers of chocolate and vanilla. Carvel is/was a chain of ice cream stores that offered soft-serve ice cream, probably hard ice cream too, and all kinds of ice cream cakes. They advertised on television at different times of the year and offered such celebratory-themed cakes as "Cookie Puss" and some sort of whale...I don't remember...I think they offered a football-shaped one around Super Bowl time...

Anyway, I made the grapenut pudding and the chocolate pudding, both from scratch, and for some reason the chocolate pudding didn't really set, so it was more like gravy. Some people poured it over their ice cream cake, which worked out okay. Alex gave himself a goatee of chocolate pudding and decorated much of the front of his shirt with it as well. He ate the ice cream cake.

We sang "Happy Birthday" as the little ice cream cake was paraded in, and after dessert came the traditional opening of the presents. After that Alex performed a wild almost-naked baby dance in the living room before my sister changed his diaper and wrestled him into his jammies. He was a little blond whirling dervish, and at first I thought he would surely throw up all of his dinner and dessert - he just kept spinning around and around - but then I realized - he knows what he's doing! He was spotting, just like dancers and ice skaters do - whipping his head around and focusing on the same spot on the floor every time. He staggered a little now and then, but miraculously kept his stomach contents to himself.

Pretty soon after that all the adult kids and their respective younger kids said their goodbyes and drove home. It was a typical birthday or holiday gathering at Mom and Dad's.

And it's the last one.

My parents are moving.

After nearly 40 years in that house, they have purchased a smaller home about ten minutes away and by this time next month they will be living there instead of...at home.

It's taken a long time - years - to get to this point. My mother did not - and does not, despite her resolve to think positive - want to move. Dad has been the one ready for this. The house is over a hundred years old and much bigger than they really need at this point. Dad has been logical and patient. Mom has been emotional. They are a good balance for each other.

And I have been sympathetic but also of the opinion that yes, maybe it's time to down-size. There's a lot to be done in caring for that house and yard...and after all these years, maybe it would be a good thing to cut back. At the same time, I've been telling my mother that I understand what she's going through, at least from my perspective of having lived there my entire childhood.

But last night it really hit me for the first time. Really hard.

Bill and I were driving down the street toward my parents' house, and I saw the sign out front, which has hung there, in various incarnations, forever. It was the sign for my Dad's photography studio. The sign is red with white letters (it used to be white with black letters) and it is the first thing you see when you approach.

And then there is the house - huge and white, with a red front door (to match the sign) and an enormous maple tree in the corner of the front yard...a stockade fence blocking off the back yard. I used to climb that maple. We used to have a tire swing tied to one of the branches.

The house is on the corner of Main and Prospect. The Prospect side of the house is hedged in and slightly woodsy looking with some thin trees and towering lilacs and a wide variety of bird feeders. The kitchen faces both streets. You turn onto Prospect and then take a right into the driveway.

But before we did that, before we got to the corner, after I saw the sign, and then the big white house loomed in the darkness - I started crying.

It finally, finally hit me. And it hit very hard last night, and this morning, and now. And oh my God, even though it is the smart thing, the logical thing, the sensible thing to do - and the house they've bought is a nice "homey" house with a fabulous back yard that includes a great hill for sledding - this is my home. They can't move.

But they can. In a few weeks. And I've tried to be positive and cheerful and supportive (the new house is a nice place) - but I've been ignoring how I really feel deep down because I didn't want to turn into what I was a few times last night - a big bawling baby.

I wiped the tears away and took a bunch of deep cleansing breaths as we pulled into the driveway. We were right behind Steve, and he hadn't seen my new car, so that proved a good distraction for me.

But later I made the mistake of going upstairs. Well - it was necessary - the bathroom is on the second floor and my bladder doesn't have the space it used to.

I went into the bedroom that Meredith and I shared for years. I was there last weekend too - Mom has been offering us bits and pieces of things as they attempt to get rid of anything they won't need or have room for in the new house. (Do you want any of these baskets? Anything from on top of the hutch? Anything in this room? In that room?)

So - our room. It doesn't look like it looked when we were kids. It's mostly a guest room now. But there are still things there from our childhood.

And they attacked me. From all directions. That framed, embroidered "Now I lay me down to sleep" used to hang on the wall...Dad put those shelves up...in that corner is the little wooden bear hanging from two strings that meet at the ceiling - you pull on the ends of the strings (just under his paws), one side then the other, and the bear "climbs" up the strings. That has always hung there....

And in the closet - up on the wall in the corner, is the fuse box and the breaker switch. I'm not sure if I've written about that before...but it's a very scary part of our childhood. When Meredith and I were little, Dad told us that if we pulled the breaker switch down, the house would blow up.

I'm sure that was his way of ensuring that we wouldn't suddenly cut the power to everything on the second floor...and it worked. To this day we won't touch it.

...and there on the bureau are two framed black and white studio portraits - one is me, one is Meredith. We are little girls in white tights and dresses, perched on a footstool, smiling at the photographer - aka "Daddy."

And those little girls shared this room from when they were both in diapers and slept in cribs.

When I was little, but still in a crib, I climbed out of my crib one night and painted the mirror with Desitin.

When I was little, the room was covered with grey wallpaper that had some kind of floral pattern in white with bits of green (I think). I thought I'd spruce it up a bit and was caught taping or gluing cut-out birds (which I had probably drawn) to the wallpaper. Soon after that the wallpaper was steamed off and the walls were painted. Dad put up those shelves and also put up a huge bullitin board for any artwork we felt inspired to create to improve the decor....

I remember crawling under Meredith's crib occationally to retrieve the bottle she'd dropped during the nap or at night.

I remember when were were in twin beds that were positioned parallel to each other with a little night table in between...and one year we each got our own flashlight for some holiday. We'd lie in bed at night and point the yellowy beams of light at the ceiling and pretend they were bees flying around....

I remember when I was little I would have to sleep with all of my stuffed animals in bed with me, and it was important that they all be facing up so they could breathe. (How well they'd breathe stuck under sheets and blankets didn't matter, as long as they faced up.)

I can't type fast enough to keep up with this flood...and there's a similar flood that comes close to drowning me in every room, every hallway, every staircase (there are four) in that house. Everywhere I look there are layers and layers of memories....

I took some more deep breaths and went back downstairs. Saw Dad in the dining room and said happy birthday and gave him a hug. A long hug, longer than I've given my father in years. And - there I went again. And he smiled at me and said "It'll be okay." And, with so many "its" swirling in my head at that moment, I asked "what will?" and he smiled again and said "whatever you're upset about."

And I think I stared at him for a minute before I realized that he's right. It will be okay. It will.

And then my mother saw me. (I thought I had mopped up my eyes pretty well, but no.) And she asked what was wrong and I told her "nothing" and she told me she didn't believe me, and I couldn't speak any more and I just tapped on the door frame between the kitchen and the dining room...and she didn't know what in the world I meant right away...and then she did. And I was five years old and she was telling me it was okay. And I pulled myself together again and met her eyes an nodded...and then told her it was hard to stay upset with her standing there wearing a cowboy hat. (A straw one that Dad wears sometimes in the summer when he works in the yard. I have no idea why she was wearing it, but it helped break the spell.)

I had this strange notion of taking a bit of time off from work when the actual moving day arrives...but now I don't know how wise that would be. I don't think I'd be much help, bawling as the movers cart out box after box of my childhood. I don't know what it will be like to see those rooms empty. They have never been empty in my lifetime. They are not supposed to be empty.

And even empty, they won't be empty enough for me, because I'll still see - and hear and smell and taste and feel - layer upon layer of memories.

And I suspect I won't handle myself well the first time I encounter this. Hell, I'm not doing very well now and the house is still full.

But after the shock and the tears and the sadness - no, I don't like change all that much - Dad is right. It will be okay. Because the memories are only triggered by that house - they are not in that house.

They are in my heart and in my mind. And I can summon them up whenever I want to.

Right now, though, I kind of wish they'd go away. There are too many, and they are crowding me.

And I can't take any more of them today, thank you.

So I'll end this incredibly long post. And I don't plan to proof read it, because I don't feel like rehashing this experience. So forgive the typos and mistakes.

Time to go stir the tomato sauce and then go see what my husband and my son are up to.

Time to create another layer of memories here.