Practicing Domesticity: Are you just always having a party?

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Are you just always having a party?

For the first month we lived here, we often got weird looks. Sometimes people would drive by the house really slowly, staring. The braver ones came up and asked if we were having a party.

Mystified, we replied in the negative, saying we were renting the house for the semester. Oh, yes, they'd heard the professors were leaving - and they took all the kids? Yes, they took all the kids. Well, that's nice of them to let you stay there. Yes...it is...<pause in confusion on both sides>

And then we'd say the magic words: "there are five of us." At this, lights would begin to come on.

"Oh...that explains all the cars."

Cars. That's what all the staring was about.

Five people = five cars. Allow me to introduce you to (L-R) Stella, Chiara, Ladybug, Petey, and Sven.

But wait, why not park in the driveway? Ah, yes, well, it's already occupied. You see, our professors own three vehicles and seeing as how they flew to France, they couldn't very well take them with them. Hence, the presence of three more vehicles that we have affectionately dubbed The Van, The White Car, and The Stick Shift (as college students, we're naturally creative).

So, 5+3 = 8. Oh yes, at any given time there are eight cars parked in front of our (or the neighbors') house. But why all the strange looks? Had people never seen this many cars parked in front of a house before? Perhaps, but apparently not on a consistent basis. Also, bear in mind that we live in a neighborhood of professors, who, while they may have parties (not sure, but we haven't been invited yet) do not tend to attract large crowds of people who need to drive - often they just walk over from their home down the street. We also live at an intersection of roads, meaning that anyone living anywhere on the circle must drive past our house in order to leave by the main road. All of these factors combined ensures that there is no way our cars could go by unnoticed.

We also get to drive their three vehicles. Around and around and around the block.

All we need now is some kind of screen and we could have our own drive-in movie theater - anyone have an extra-large sheet?

1 comment:

SabrinaMarch 30, 2011 at 11:31 PM
I have many large white sheets you could borrow. This would be a superb way to have the neighbors over for that party they already assume is going on at the house. Popcorn and several blankets on the lawn should draw a mighty crowd. what a great way to end the year.
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What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Source: Sleeping Preacher (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

The Silence

by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Are you just always having a party?

1 comment:

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