WARNING: Slow Blogging Ahead…

 

My parents are coming to stay for a week.  They’ll be here off and on through the holidays.

 

You cannot guess the trepidation I feel about this landmark event.

 

My parents haven’t stayed with me for any length of time, ever.  Not in my entire adult life have both of them stayed for more than a night.  They’ve always stayed with my sister if they needed to stay for a weekend.  That’s not an option this time, for a number of reasons.  And of course, they’ve always been welcome to stay here (I remind myself of this, too).

 

I’ve done things in preparation which needed to be done anyhow, but I’ve clearly gone over the edge in doing them.

 

Yup, the pantry cupboard, the Pandora’s Box of this foodie’s kitchen, needed to be purged and re-organized.  But in my zeal to make everything easily accessible for my parents (who’ve not stayed here long enough to grow comfortable with my housekeeping), I’ve lost it.  I’ve gone over the edge and deconstructed the disorder to a new minimalism.

 

The tea has been removed from its cardboard store box and put into clear plastic containers, now featuring Dymo labels, “Green Tea”.  “Chai Tea”.

 

My cupboard now features “Cocoa Mix”.  “Popcorn”.  “Wh. Wheat Flour”.

 

(My son, a beginning reader, discovered during this exercise that “Cereal Bars” is a big word.  I guess it is, in his world.)

 

Even the shelves are labeled: “Snacks”.  “Pasta”.  

 

It’s like someone swapped out the rat’s nest that was my pantry with Martha Stewart’s pantry.  It’s intensely scary.  All that’s missing is a tiny uplight and lacy paper doilies on each shelf.  Who is this psycho freak in the kitchen, I wonder, it can’t be me.  Perhaps my mind, my soul has been subsumed by a pod from outer space, forcing me to prepare for the Overlord’s arrival.  (Hey, that could explain a lot, could explain the parents and subsequent spawn, the family who puts the “fun” in dysfunctional…)

 

My daughter, so like her analytical father, is in seventh heaven, a blissful little smile of a smirk on her face, making a constant hummm-click, huummmm-click with the Dymo labels streaming out like a cheerleader throwing confetti or an angel streaming manna from above.

 

<sigh>

 

Anyhow, I thought I’d let you know that blog posting here might be a bit scarce over the next week because of guests underfoot.  The kind of guests I should be entertaining some and keeping occupied more.

 

Wish me luck and a bounty of Prozac.  There will be plenty of blog-fodder fallout, I’m sure.

 

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A quick parting thought: remember the movie, “Home for the Holidays” with Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr.?

 

I could have written that screenplay, I think, every time I watch that movie.  Dang, that could have been my family…except for the cigarette smoking…and the mother's wig...

 

Think I’ll rent it tonite to prepare myself for what’s ahead.

  11:01:24 AM    comment []