A Portrait of Chaos
I'm sitting in a kitchen chair, gulping down oatmeal straight from the bowl. I'm holding Marky on my lap, crying, because he wanted to go outside and ended up pinching his hand on the door.
Stevie is struggling to double-tie his shoestring. He has money to spend on today's field trip, ten dollars, but can't find his little money pouch so that he could keep it safe in his pocket. His eyes lit up when I gave him the ten. But then I said "but I want change." "How much?" "Nine dollars." Wait a beat...just kidding.
Still sitting, just two minutes for breakfast. A quick survey of my surroundings--rubberbands and straw share space on the (filthy!) floor with scraps of food from the last several meals. The white area rug--what the hell was I thinking?--is scuffed with dirt. Hovering over it, 8 flats of leggy seeds struggle for light from the south-facing, still-trimless French doors. In fact, there is no trim on any door, and no baseboards, either. Oh well--we've only lived here 11 months.
The straw, strewn about a cluster of kitchen chairs, a large tote 1/2-filled with Kevin's winter clothes (the other 1/2 is strewn on the bedroom floor), and the soft lingering odor, are the leftovers from the two bottle-fed lambs that Mr. Heifer brought over last night. He's on his way to a 'destination wedding' in Cancun. These two little lambs have been on the bottle for a week and he can't just leave them! So he brought them to us. They'll stay in the barn during the day, but I brought them in last night because the critter who is getting our chickens dug a very noticeable hole in the hay right where the lambs--who are about the same size and weight as an adult chicken--would be sleeping. And I'm not losing another lamb! So I packed the large plastic dog bed that Mr. Heifer transported them over in with newspapers and straw and put them in the dining area. They drink sheep formula from actual baby bottles, about every 4 hours, their tiny tails wagging, wagging, wagging. It's hard to get cuter than that. But they do kinda smell up the joint.
The kitchen sink is full of dishes soaking in yesterday's cold, grey dishwater. There is detritus on every surface. In front of me and the crying toddler, a large pile of clothes awaits either the garage sale bag (I'm dreaming) or the winter clothes tote. In the living room, crumbs litter my pretty rug, and my black coffee table is scuffed and dull. To my side, sorta unwanted mail piles precariously, unsorted and unsightly, rendering that little square of counter space completely unusable for setting down purses and briefcases ("And what do you do sir." "I'm unemployed."). So we set them on the kitchen table, which looks like it hasn't been wiped down in a month of Sundays.
Do you have those moments where you see yourself and your environment in another's eyes? A bit of an out-of-body experience? I had a moment like that, sitting there in the chair, seeing my house and my life as others might see it. Yikes. If I said I didn't sometimes long for a bigger house with slightly more enclosed spaces to divide! and CONQUER!, I would be lying. There is this, though--Kevin sleeps on the couch all the time now. I'm getting very used to having my own bed, my own room, my own door to close (even though it's enclosing a bit of a mess right now). When we do build a house, I'm seriously considering a room of my own.
Stevie is struggling to double-tie his shoestring. He has money to spend on today's field trip, ten dollars, but can't find his little money pouch so that he could keep it safe in his pocket. His eyes lit up when I gave him the ten. But then I said "but I want change." "How much?" "Nine dollars." Wait a beat...just kidding.
Still sitting, just two minutes for breakfast. A quick survey of my surroundings--rubberbands and straw share space on the (filthy!) floor with scraps of food from the last several meals. The white area rug--what the hell was I thinking?--is scuffed with dirt. Hovering over it, 8 flats of leggy seeds struggle for light from the south-facing, still-trimless French doors. In fact, there is no trim on any door, and no baseboards, either. Oh well--we've only lived here 11 months.
The straw, strewn about a cluster of kitchen chairs, a large tote 1/2-filled with Kevin's winter clothes (the other 1/2 is strewn on the bedroom floor), and the soft lingering odor, are the leftovers from the two bottle-fed lambs that Mr. Heifer brought over last night. He's on his way to a 'destination wedding' in Cancun. These two little lambs have been on the bottle for a week and he can't just leave them! So he brought them to us. They'll stay in the barn during the day, but I brought them in last night because the critter who is getting our chickens dug a very noticeable hole in the hay right where the lambs--who are about the same size and weight as an adult chicken--would be sleeping. And I'm not losing another lamb! So I packed the large plastic dog bed that Mr. Heifer transported them over in with newspapers and straw and put them in the dining area. They drink sheep formula from actual baby bottles, about every 4 hours, their tiny tails wagging, wagging, wagging. It's hard to get cuter than that. But they do kinda smell up the joint.
The kitchen sink is full of dishes soaking in yesterday's cold, grey dishwater. There is detritus on every surface. In front of me and the crying toddler, a large pile of clothes awaits either the garage sale bag (I'm dreaming) or the winter clothes tote. In the living room, crumbs litter my pretty rug, and my black coffee table is scuffed and dull. To my side, sorta unwanted mail piles precariously, unsorted and unsightly, rendering that little square of counter space completely unusable for setting down purses and briefcases ("And what do you do sir." "I'm unemployed."). So we set them on the kitchen table, which looks like it hasn't been wiped down in a month of Sundays.
Do you have those moments where you see yourself and your environment in another's eyes? A bit of an out-of-body experience? I had a moment like that, sitting there in the chair, seeing my house and my life as others might see it. Yikes. If I said I didn't sometimes long for a bigger house with slightly more enclosed spaces to divide! and CONQUER!, I would be lying. There is this, though--Kevin sleeps on the couch all the time now. I'm getting very used to having my own bed, my own room, my own door to close (even though it's enclosing a bit of a mess right now). When we do build a house, I'm seriously considering a room of my own.
posted by lulu | 6:43 AM
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