Yes, We Have Brains. They're in That Box Over There. No, Maybe That One.
We get up every morning and we work all day at our various jobs.
The child's job is to throw out the trash in his room so that it doesn't get packed; this takes him a long time, as he hasn't yet cultivated temporary detachment, so each piece of paper must be exclaimed over. He gave away more than half his stuffed animals (no prodding from me); the rest have been taken over to Bear's Retreat, where they line the walls of his new and empty room, getting acclimated, I guess, or maybe serving as icons of the genius of the house.*
Sam has to make a lot of telephone calls; the tree people never did get back to us, so he had to call new ones, and they never got back to us, either. He gets to choose whether or not he tries again or starts over. In the meantime, though, we've made a couple of excellent discoveries, which are that the tree we thought was a sumac is a black walnut, and the tree we thought was an exotic import of some kind is a pear tree.
Clearly, arboreal experts we're not.
I'm amused that it took us so long to suss out the pear -- indeed, we'd still be trying to look it up in the tree book if a friend hadn't been helping Sam put the child's swing set back together, after taking it apart and dragging it over to the bears' house, and said, Sam, that's a pear tree! After which we looked at it, and indeed it was. We'd puzzled over it for months, previously. Look! This tree has little fruits or nuts on it! What could they be? And clearly it's in the rose family; why, if you cut the little unripe fruits open, they look just like apples, only pear-shaped! And it has nice shiny leaves! Maybe it's a quince!
An exciting life, that's what we've got, full of little discoveries.
And then, of course, it's my job to go into the office and write stuff and plan stuff and consult with students and colleagues and go to meetings, and then come home and pack things up.
The Really Beloved Friend came over twice this week to help me make inroads into the sewing room and the kitchen. We made such good inroads into these rooms that later, when I was trying to make biscuits, I discovered that I had no baking sheets, which was because I had taken them over to the Bear's House and stuck them in the lovely baking sheet cupboard.
That was the day that Sam discovered that he couldn't monitor his blood sugar, on account of having taken the little cabinet wherein the supplies resided over to the bears' house, where it was holding up the mixer and the bread machine, in charming fashion.
How people live with several houses is beyond me. Those people with houses in New York and Florida and Zurich -- how do they do it? Don't they lose things all the time? Aren't they at dinner, discussing art with their buddies, when they turn to the wall to point out a beloved painting, only to find they're in the wrong house?
And what about the books?
It would drive me mad, I tell you; I can't even keep track of the baking sheets.
We're planning to "camp out" at the bears' house on Friday, before the furniture gets moved in. We are SO looking forward to this. We've not yet been there in the dark, or in the early morning, or certainly not in the deep nighttime, and we love the place so much, and want to get to know it better, we can't hardly stand it.
But I'm telling you, the next day we're going to discover we've left three things we desperately need over there.
*************************
*TO THE GENIUS OF HIS HOUSE
by Robert Herrick
COMMAND the roof, great Genius, and from thence
Into this house pour down thy influence,
That through each room a golden pipe may run
Of living water by thy benison,
Fulfill the larders, and with strengthening bread
Be evermore these bins replenished.
Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground,
That lucky fairies here may dance their round;
And after that, lay down some silver pence
The master's charge and care to recompense.
Charm then the chambers, make the beds for ease,
More than for peevish, pining sicknesses.
Fix the foundation fast, and let the roof
Grow old with time but yet keep weather-proof.
The child's job is to throw out the trash in his room so that it doesn't get packed; this takes him a long time, as he hasn't yet cultivated temporary detachment, so each piece of paper must be exclaimed over. He gave away more than half his stuffed animals (no prodding from me); the rest have been taken over to Bear's Retreat, where they line the walls of his new and empty room, getting acclimated, I guess, or maybe serving as icons of the genius of the house.*
Sam has to make a lot of telephone calls; the tree people never did get back to us, so he had to call new ones, and they never got back to us, either. He gets to choose whether or not he tries again or starts over. In the meantime, though, we've made a couple of excellent discoveries, which are that the tree we thought was a sumac is a black walnut, and the tree we thought was an exotic import of some kind is a pear tree.
Clearly, arboreal experts we're not.
I'm amused that it took us so long to suss out the pear -- indeed, we'd still be trying to look it up in the tree book if a friend hadn't been helping Sam put the child's swing set back together, after taking it apart and dragging it over to the bears' house, and said, Sam, that's a pear tree! After which we looked at it, and indeed it was. We'd puzzled over it for months, previously. Look! This tree has little fruits or nuts on it! What could they be? And clearly it's in the rose family; why, if you cut the little unripe fruits open, they look just like apples, only pear-shaped! And it has nice shiny leaves! Maybe it's a quince!
An exciting life, that's what we've got, full of little discoveries.
And then, of course, it's my job to go into the office and write stuff and plan stuff and consult with students and colleagues and go to meetings, and then come home and pack things up.
The Really Beloved Friend came over twice this week to help me make inroads into the sewing room and the kitchen. We made such good inroads into these rooms that later, when I was trying to make biscuits, I discovered that I had no baking sheets, which was because I had taken them over to the Bear's House and stuck them in the lovely baking sheet cupboard.
That was the day that Sam discovered that he couldn't monitor his blood sugar, on account of having taken the little cabinet wherein the supplies resided over to the bears' house, where it was holding up the mixer and the bread machine, in charming fashion.
How people live with several houses is beyond me. Those people with houses in New York and Florida and Zurich -- how do they do it? Don't they lose things all the time? Aren't they at dinner, discussing art with their buddies, when they turn to the wall to point out a beloved painting, only to find they're in the wrong house?
And what about the books?
It would drive me mad, I tell you; I can't even keep track of the baking sheets.
We're planning to "camp out" at the bears' house on Friday, before the furniture gets moved in. We are SO looking forward to this. We've not yet been there in the dark, or in the early morning, or certainly not in the deep nighttime, and we love the place so much, and want to get to know it better, we can't hardly stand it.
But I'm telling you, the next day we're going to discover we've left three things we desperately need over there.
*************************
*TO THE GENIUS OF HIS HOUSE
by Robert Herrick
COMMAND the roof, great Genius, and from thence
Into this house pour down thy influence,
That through each room a golden pipe may run
Of living water by thy benison,
Fulfill the larders, and with strengthening bread
Be evermore these bins replenished.
Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground,
That lucky fairies here may dance their round;
And after that, lay down some silver pence
The master's charge and care to recompense.
Charm then the chambers, make the beds for ease,
More than for peevish, pining sicknesses.
Fix the foundation fast, and let the roof
Grow old with time but yet keep weather-proof.
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