Snippets

My sister and her three kids are in town on their annual summer visit. They drive up from their place in Nashville, and tend to be very casual about when they will arrive and for how long they'll stay. This makes sense because the kids are on summer break and my sister is between jobs, so why not be flexible? Right?

I only found out when they would arrive this summer, besides my sister's usual airy, "Oh, sometime in early July-ish!" when I got this text from her last Monday: "In Virginia. Be home tomorrow night! But maybe late."

I got home from work that night and told the hubs, "So, Jill will be home tomorrow. For two weeks. Guess I better take off from work soon, huh?" I packed a bag and went down to my mom's condo the next night, and since then my life has been a blur of bad sleep, long shleps from the suburbs to my NY office, and a shit-ton of junk food.

To my mom, love equals food. And since the kids are here, the food she demonstrates her love with are kid-things. Potato chips of many varieties. Double Stuf Oreos. Ice pops. Entenman's chocolate cakes and doughnuts and crumb cakes and pound cakes.(Anything Entenmann's, really, will do.) Twizzlers, for reasons no one can figure out. Mountains of bacon. Seas of bagels. French toast and pancakes and banana bread. A never ending stream of pasta and gravy and meatballs, and everything, everything, with a side of delicious cheese.

Three nights ago, we had pizza. Two nights ago, Chinese food. Last night, McDonalds. Today we're going down the shore so I definitely see a boatload of ice cream and funnel cake and boardwalk pizza (surprisingly delicious) or maybe even cheesesteak (mmm) in my near future. I have gained three pounds in one week, and still have another week (maybe?) to go. Oops.

Right now I smell pancakes, and even though I'm already in my gym clothes, and 100% ready to go for a run, something in me is all, nah, screw it. Let's just lay on the couch and feast on carbs to the point of feeling ill, and *then* put on a bathing suit! That sounds like a much more reasonable plan for the day.

One morning soon I expect my sister will wake up, pour herself a cup of coffee, wipe some sleep from her eyes, stand and blithely say, "Ok kids, pack it up. Let's head home." And the flurry of activity will end, and they'll drive gaily off into the sunset in their big red minivan full of electronics and gifts and snacks, and I'll stand in the driveway of a condo complex, disoriented and fat and sleepy, waving goodbye.

And then I'll go back to my apartment and my job and my commute and my salads and my turkey sandwiches on whole wheat, wondering where all of the Fritos have gone, and also the tiny hands that steal them from me when my head is turned.

Fiction

Going south, we watched spring
unroll like a proper novel;
forsythia, dogwood, rose;
bare trees, green lace, full shade.
By the time we arrived in Georgia
the complications were deep.

When we drove back, we read
from back to front. Maroon went wild,
went scarlet, burned once more
and then withdrew into pink,
tentative, still in bud.
I thought if only we could go on
and meet again, shy as strangers.

- Lisa Mueller