55. Something else

I absolutely, completely refuse to write about change today (and anyway, Ann just covered it so nicely….). I’m going to write about…..um…. my dining room table instead. Yeah. That’s it. The dining room table covered in a  bright yellow oilcloth with strawberries and little blue flowers. The oilcloth has seen better days—it has paint splotches and rips and probably the remains of dinner still clinging to it. But it serves its purpose. It protects this old table—which sits at the heart of our house—from playdough, coffee mug rings and fork attacks. My ex-husband’s grandmother had the table custom-made in the 1930s. The blond wood has now aged to a rich caramel.  An H-shaped cross-bar connects four fat, spindle legs, which in turn rest on a small Ikea rug. Charlotte likes to hang out down there, and looking now, I see her leash (?), a red plush toy bone and a sky-blue marker. The marker is a leftover from  Fragile Blossom’s “office,” often set up under the eaves of the table.  She lies just to the side creating books and drawing her endless princess pictures. With the introduction of wi-fi to our house, I tend to use the table as my office, wedging my computer in beside the laundry, balloons, art supplies, keys, cameras, cardboard boxes, blank cd-r’s, random cords, and a crumpled lottery ticket. From here, I can hear the kids downstairs in their secret headquarters, aka the garage, from which the car has been entirely evicted. The dining room is, in general, darker then I like. Today, though, it is so bright outside that light streams through the two high windows. Dust motes and spider webs sparkle.

Did I mention that, unless we win that lottery, we have to move? I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen this summer. Yeah. Next week, maybe I’ll write about trees or movies or donuts or something.

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