After a three-day visit from my mom—one that involved some tasty cooking with the younger teen, some playing with the little girl and some clearing out of lots of stuff with me—we enjoyed a three-day visit by our lovely artist friend and then a weekend visit by my godchildren and friend, as well as a host of other visitors near, far, adult, child. The analogies to our house are often Grand Central Station or the B&B B&B (Baskin and Buttenwieser for those first B’s). As friends have said to us before, “You never quite know whom you’ll see there.” Having upheld our reputation this past week, I’ll say this: as exhausting as it may be to have a stream of wonderful people coming through one’s house and life, there’s nothing better than enjoying a life this rich in wonderful, special, beloved people. Nothing.
I’ve also learned (again) that one of the great pleasures of godchildren is they fall under the more love is more love category of family. What parents do when choosing godparents (in my circles of those that do, nonreligious, almost hippie version versus anything that smacks of longstanding tradition) is trust that the adult selected will shine some extra love on that child, whenever and however it goes. This has been so for our kids, from the visiting godmother this weekend who happens to work on Broadway as her godson would so love to do (he didn’t see her, too busy with the 24-Hour Theater Project, stage managing one of the six plays) to the valentine mailed from London by another to another son—and on. Whether the attentions are constant or very intermittent you know there’s just… more love. And wowza do I have love for my godchildren, big-time.
Amongst other things, mine brought a big ol’ dose of cool into the house. Young adulthood looked shinier to my kids, teen and small after the weekend. What’s more in ushering in a magical 24-on-the-24th birthday I found a pretty dream team combo—this cupcake (no. 2) plus this frosting. I take these things seriously, even if I can only vouch personally for the frosting (having gone gluten-free). My blue-ribbon panel raved about both.
Even after my mom left the clearing out continued, spurred in large part by the clothing swap the upstairs gals were having early Sunday evening. I used their event as a deadline to toss—and toss—and toss some more. My drawers and closets feel less cluttered and I still have many surprisingly old clothes that seem entirely serviceable. The fallout from the clothing swap is going to our Hospice Shop (attention thrift-shopping locals, between me and say fifteen young women, there must be some absolute treasures plus some definite volume at the Hospice Shop). The utter adorableness of the gaggle of twentysomethings here was undeniable. I didn’t get a shot—too dark—of about six of the swappers on the couch watching Mad Men on our with-cable television later that evening. Having visited with my formerly twentysomething BFF with whom many Tuesday evenings were spent watching thirtysomething the weekend had this lovely full-circle sensation.
