The people in my small group have strong opinions about breakfast. On a couple different occasions, we’ve had loud discussions over what ought to be consumed at breakfast, leading to threats of “just oatmeal” for supper at our next gathering, reminiscing about Cream of Wheat, and impromptu cereal-tasting sessions.

At one of these events I tasted someone’s breakfast of choice: raw oats. Which sounded terrible, but one taste and I was whisked back to when I was in highschool and my dad and I often ate raw oats and milk for breakfast. It was good after all!

Since then, I’ve been eating raw oats for breakfast a few times a week.

Usually, I dry toast them in a cast-iron skillet for added flavor, and then I pile all the other goodnesses into my bowl: chia seeds, coconut flakes, pumpkin seeds (Costco’s big bag is the best!), pecans, and raisins. Sometimes half a banana. And milk!

It takes awhile to chew through (which is nice, considering how much I enjoy the act of eating), it doesn’t make me feel yucky full, and I love starting my day tanked up on all the good things. 

***

My husband and I recently burned through season 11 of Alone. (Netflix currently only streams two seasons.) 

Some people find the show too slow, but I think it’s anything but. No food! Freezing temps! Everything on the line! It’s inspiring to watch hardworking, earthy, creative people prove their mettle. Plus, seeing some poor soul claw through the dirt for a small handful of miniscule roots to tide them over for a day full of hard, physical labor while I munch popcorn on the sofa has a way of putting my life in perspective.

(It’s always a little head-scratching, though, how contestants start the season so pumped about the money prize,* and then by the end, they’re all like, “Who needs money? People are where it’s at.” To which I say, I could’ve told you that and spared you 57 days of slow starvation…)

*I have a hunch the producers require them to say stuff like that to hype things up.

***

Last year, we invested in washable party dishes — bowls, cups, dessert plates, and dinner plates. They live in a big tub in an upstairs closet, so whenever it’s our turn to host Foodie Group, or a birthday party or family reunion, they’re ready to go. The dishes (we got four sets) are lightweight and compact, they don’t break, and they’re much more pleasant to eat from than paper plates. 

Of course, the downside is that you gotta wash them, which isn’t a big deal — except for one problem: if you don’t wash and then immediately rinse them in the hottest of hot waters, they have a lingering greasy feel.

I’d resigned myself to this drawback, but then when we were cleaning up after Eucefe’s party, on a whim I suggested to my husband that he try dumping some white vinegar in the rinse water. And it worked! One dunk in the vinegar rinse and there is zero greasy residue. 

So if you struggle with freshly-washed-yet-greasy plastics, try vinegar.

***

Today’s sermon, courtesy of Shakespeare: The Stranger’s Case.

***

Regarding our country’s current love affair with book banning, Jenny Lawson recently wrote the following paragraph illustrating the insanity.

Sometimes it feels like we’re living in A Brave New World (restricted) and that the book burning of Fahrenheit 451 (also restricted) is closer than ever, with no Sense and Sensibility (also restricted) about what this will cost. It feels like we’re going through The Crucible (also restricted) and are caught in a Catch-22 (also restricted) where we can’t convince people how terrible it is to ban books because they either don’t know the power of books or they absolutely know it and fear it. It’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (banned) how book banners go out on some kind of A Discovery of Witches (also banned) and fight against Acceptance (banned) and of diversity, while we are losing All The Beauty in the World (banned). America is a Beautiful Country (banned) in so many ways, but we will lose so much of that beauty if we don’t make Changes (banned) to cherish and embrace and grow what makes us Educated (banned) and compassionate. The diversity of voices is necessary…it is a reflection of who we are and who we want to be. A plethora of ideas and voices and experiences…This Is What America Looks Like (banned). We can’t just pretend that Everything’s Fine (banned) and that this is just an overreaction of Anxious People (banned). Do you think this is what the founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton (banned) envisioned? I’m going to stop here because I’m sure you can see that this dumb paragraph is WAY TOO EASY TO WRITE because there are so many books they have issues with and you probably get the picture already but y’all….Jane Eyre? The Color Purple? The Odyssey? Crime and Punishment?? THIS IS WHAT WE’RE SAVING TEENAGERS FROM?

So if you’re looking for some good reading material for the summer, there you go.

***

This week, I was introduced to Tim Tams and now I’m mildly miffed that I never knew about them before.

There was a box of them in the snack photo I posted on Monday. I thought they were some generic box of cookies, but then someone commented that they now had a Tim Tam craving, which made me wonder if I was underestimating their value? So I ate one and then immediately “toaded” them up, sticking them in a ziplock and stuffing them in an upper cupboard so I wouldn’t eat them all in one go. 

The straw method is next.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (6.10.24), pepper jack cheese, the coronavirus diaries: week 66, ba-BAM, pulling the pin, a photo book, mud cake, the smartest thing I did, the quotidian (6.11.12), in the middle.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Next up, I’m moving to Paris.

Boon: when you ask to borrow a can of beans from a neighbor and you get homemade ones.

Sausage, spinach, and all the cheeses: total comfort.

White cheddar, ready for skinnydipping.

Hot Wax on Floor Tiles
^{Jackson Pollock meets Sloppy Cheesemaker}

Double chocolate: the messiest scones in the bakery.

Laughing stock.

The Squidge is back home.

Drums, dancing, South African braai, and lots of beer.

And now we’ve got snacks for days.

This same time, years previous: perimenopause: HRT, what are you good at?, happy pork, milk central, the coronavirus diaries: week thirteen, margarita mix, energy boost, the family reunion of 2017, the quotidian (6.6.16), the quotidian (6.8.15), delivery, thorns, Jeni’s chocolate ice cream, how we beat the heat.

This weekend, our youngest packed his suitcase, loaded his car, and left for NASA Langley Research Center where he has a STEM-related summer internship — something related to stepper motors, I believe (whatever they are). 

This move is something we’ve encouraged — strongly. In fact, we’ve told him he’d need to go to a “dorm college” this next year (as opposed to the living-at-home community college situation of the last couple years). So after he’s done with his internship, he’s off to Virginia Tech to study Sustainable Systems Science (whatever that is). 

We are delighted by these changes, and relieved, too, because there’s always an internal exhale when a child makes connections.

But now that they’ve happened, or are happening, twinges of sadness come creeping in. 

This is it, y’all. We brought four humans into the world and now they’ve moved out into it. The home we’ve spent the last twenty years creating now houses just us. (And Eucefe, but he leaves in a few weeks.) 

We are — [drumroll] — empty nesters. 

I thought I was going to love this “It’s Just Us” stage (and I’m pretty sure I will), but right now? I’m mildly bereft.

***

My wobbly feelings are mostly concentrate on one thing: his bedroom. 

See, the children’s rooms have always been a manifestation of their ever-more-pronounced personalities with the accompanying developing interests, vacillating temperaments, and strong opinions. As each of them grew, my already-minimal involvement in their rooms diminished, though my irritation at all the “wrong” ways the rooms were being managed never wavered.

It was their space in my house, and I could not wait to reclaim it. 

So for weeks now, I have been actively making plan for my younger son’s newly-emptied bedroom, a room which has driven me batty with its sprawling chaos.

But then he moved out and suddenly there was no one to rail against about the mess. His room, still cluttered with the detritus from packing, now felt like a shell. The soul had left it, and — poof — so had my excitement about fixing it up.

Why was I no longer excited? The minute I mentally formulated that question, the tears, and the answer, came: 

When I clean out this last child’s room and paint it over, I will have “erased” him from this home. 

Which is melodramatic and absolutely not true. It’s not like he’s died, for crying out loud.

1. His stuff is still here (but I’m gonna box it up). 
2. He will be coming home frequently for at least the next couple years.
3. Home is the place where when you go there they have to take you in — and for all our children, we will, forever and always. 

But this is no longer his primary place. He’s moving on.

***

I was feeling lightly chagrined about my sadness, but then yesterday a friend told me her mother always said the intense loss she felt when her children were leaving home was almost like the grief that comes from a death.

And it is a death, in a way. The family I lived in, and for, doesn’t exist the same way anymore. And even if I don’t want it to exist like that anymore, even if I’ve been encouraging the changes, it’s still a loss. 

***

And it’s not just about the bedroom remodel, either, even though that’s what my angst fixates on. It’s about the house, or me in the house.

When we bought this place, it was for us, and us back then meant two parents, three children, and a fourth in utero. Always, this house has been our family’s. 

What does it mean to reclaim space that was never meant for just two? 

***

When two single parents join households, it’s often advised they get a new space to prevent one spouse from living in the shadow of the former. A new place clears the air and sets them both on equal footing.

So if my husband and I bought this house for our family, maybe we need a new place that’s just for us? A place we can start fresh? 

We’re not going to do that, of course. That’d be silly, this is our home. But with all the children gone, there’s a foreignness to this place.

I’m not sure if I belong, or how I belong. 

***

It has occured to me that my fixer-upper excitement may be a coping technique. Jumping to remodel is my way of outpacing the pain of being left behind. 

The flipside, I suppose, is the urge some parents have to preserve the child’s room as is, so when (if) the child returns, their room will be intact. 

And probably there are some parents who don’t think much about it at all. 

We all have our tactics. 

***

So anyway, our baby has left home.  

A couple nights ago, he sent a photo of the fish he caught with his housemate, and mornings before work, he sometimes sends me outfit-check photos to make sure he is appropriately attired. (He is.) Last I heard, he’s living on bagels and cereal and having a grand old time.

Today I went rug shopping.

This same time, years previous: onion relish, yoga sol, try and keep up, so much milk, in the bedroom, black lives matter, the quotidian (6.3.19), mama said, this is us, brown sugar rhubarb muffins, when the studies end.