I think we did it– the place next door is done and it’s so nice that I want to live there. On Monday I would have bet a boat that it would not be ready for the arrival of the Christmas crew tomorrow — my son and his family– but it is. My list is pretty short: food, sponges, Kleenex, soap.. and as my friend Teresa reminded me, a first aid kit. Chip said we could give them some Band-Aids but I’m thinking I want everything from the ice bags to an epi-pen, but that’s me. “Twinkle lights” she texted tonight. We need more twinkle lights. It’s dark 3/4 of the day right now.
Tonight I’m drying a batch of freshly laundered towels for both places and making beds and tidying up in JJ and her family’s rooms upstairs. She is coming with Henry ( 6 months) and Emilia ( 3 in March) tomorrow on the ferry with her brother and his crew. Also, grandaughter Caroline is in Juneau with them and riding home on the ferry to help with the children. JJ gets a sister gold star by picking up the Aussies at the airport at 2 am ( the Seattle flight was late..) and her older sister Eliza earned more points by hosting everyone for dinner tonight and making them all king salmon, broccoli and sweet potatoes.
I have been thinking a lot about family, and what holds us all together. Love. Like. Certain quirks. Just knowing each other so well and forever. A common sense of humor. That may be the most important. Also, knowing who does what well and playing to our strengths rather than harping on weaknesses. Today the little house, as we are calling it, was given my mother’s old rugs, a little side table and an old chair from my parent’s house that I shipped across the country after we cleaned their old house. The first picture I hung is a favorite photo of some of our kids and their cousins swimming in the Chilkat River back when they were the same age as our grand kids. The second is a painting of sand pipers that my dad made. I remember him working on it when I was very young. Those birds were in our first cape cod style home on Long Island, and it also hung on the wall of a grander, Edwardian three-story on an oak lined avenue, and later, in my parent’s farmhouse in Dutchess county. Papa Bob has been on my mind so much lately– as we come up to the anniversary of his death (Christmas Eve.) If I’d have known he was going to die that night I would have let him have a second bloody Mary. I wish I had.
