The Privilege of Age

My kids are self-sufficient, mostly, and so I can take NyQuill and sleep really late sometimes. When I had babies I couldn't take anything like that. I couldn't take Dramamine for airplanes. I had to be awake and alert, and nurse babies on a moment's nudging in the middle of the night. It wasn't okay to tell a four year old "Sorry, I'm too doped up to come and help you."

With the oldest nearly twenty-four, I can really, truly, zone out.

This was a good week for that. I'm surprised I haven't posted in six days. After a December of daily posts, and feeling that I've done nearly nothing but be online this week, There sits, below this, some photos put up last Saturday.

Everyone at our house has a cold. Not fevery, frightening swine flu like last year. Not achy, sicky flu. Just plain-old colds. The kind where you get well every single day, and snotty again every single night. But there's something nice about it, this week. Nobody had to miss work or an appointment. Nobody was so sick that another person needed to nurse them through. Just hoiky and snotty at night. The house is warm, the roof doesn't leak, and we have lots of tissue. We have pillows and blankets. There's nothing to cry about at our house this season.

I shouldn't post without a photo. Because it seemed so ominously stormy yesterday (though it only barely snowed and it only got the ground wet, didn't land snowily) I was bringing in wood and keeping the fireplace burning. I went out to put the lawn cart in a dry place, and there sat the cat; same cat I wounded by opening a door onto her paw. Same cat, I later learned, that Keith had backed onto with his boots on the day before. Right where my cart goes. The cat parks itself right where people will be moving. If I didn't know for personal sure that she had dry food, canned food and water, I might feel guilty.


Kirby sent a photo of himself, and at first glance I thought he had cut his hair off, but it was evidence that it's long enough to tie back: