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At the end of December, the fates conspired against us and our furnace and our washing machine broke close to simultaneously. We live in Vermont, where it gets so cold (it is currently -25 degrees Fahrenheit) that some schools will close upon hearing the weather forecast (not ours, thank goodness!). Accordingly, our first priority was to ensure that our house had heat and hot water. I contrived to make the washer limp along until I reached the end of my patience with it. I was sure I’d make it a few months. The new one arrived today, in all its energy-efficient, front-loading glory. 
Next to the coffee maker, the washing machine is the most important appliance in our house. If I had to, I would hand-wash our dishes. But there’s no way in hell I’d hand-wash our clothes. After my husband came home, I encouraged the five of us to crowd around it like the proverbial golden calf. They oohed and ahhed for about five seconds before the boys lost interest and drifted away.
“You may not EVER get inside this machine,” I said to Medium, who had stayed behind to watch me fold laundry.
“Why not?” asked Medium.
“Because if the door closed, you wouldn’t have enough air and you would die.”
“Oh,” she said.
“And your brothers shouldn’t ever get inside it, either.” I added, thinking I was emphasizing my point.
“Why?” she asked.
Sometimes I wonder just how much my children care for one another.
I fully admit it: I’m still in shock. Yesterday, WordPress editors featured OINKtales on their “Freshly Pressed” page. 
Traffic to OINKtales jumped exponentially and 41 people (and counting!) have commented on “Playing the Name Game.” In the fast-moving world of the internet, people don’t get fifteen minutes of fame. They get fifteen seconds. But these feel like my fifteen seconds and truly, I am enjoying every one of them!
Thank you, Readers, near and far! Thank you for reading, liking, commenting, laughing and sharing. I love to write. And though I write because I want to, for my family and for myself, it is thoroughly rewarding to believe that there other people not affiliated to me by bond or blood who are amused by my words. One of the wonderful things about being a blogger is making connections with people I might not have connected with otherwise.
And finally (although this is beginning to sound like an acceptance speech – t’is the season, after all), thank you, WordPress! Thank you for spotlighting your bloggers on your “Freshly Pressed” page; it’s an honor and a privilege.
Visit OINKtales often. Better yet, become a subscriber. I can’t promise you’ll be entertained, but I’ll do my level best. 😉
There’s a woman in town whose path often crosses mine. She is lovely and very sweet and she never fails to say hello to me. And for the life of me, I cannot pronounce her first name.
I know what her name is and at home, it rolls off my tongue (I’ve practiced). There are songs that have her name in the title and songs where her name is in the chorus. You’d think I’d remember this when I see her at the grocery store, the gym, in the parking lot of our kids’ school.
Sometimes, I call her by her daughter’s name. Sometimes, I get it out with the emphasis on the wrong syllable. Most times, I smile widely and nod. Always, I am mortified. I do not blame her if she believes me to be an idiot.
Embarrassingly enough, she’s not the first person that I have had this mental block with. My first week of college, I met a guy named Andy. I thought his name was Gary. Over the next few months, he had to correct me so often that I jokingly began hedging my bets when I ran into him by calling him Andy-Gary. It stuck. He didn’t care much for my company (go figure). Even today, when I thought of him I had to pause and ask myself, Was it Gary? Or Andy?
My apologies kind lady; I mean you no disrespect. I will try not to make your musical name sound so discordant. In the meantime, I won’t be offended if you start calling me something else. I’m thinking I deserve it.
We have a basement rec room that is largely unused unless we have overnight guests, in which case presto-chango! it is our guest room, or the kids have friends over, when it becomes a free-for-all room.
Henry has a friend over. It is her first time visiting us and of course, the two of them head to the basement. I am getting dinner together when I hear feet pounding up the stairs.
The pounding stops. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Henry says. “Are you coming?”
“No, I’m staying down here.”
There’s a pause. I know he is processing her expression of independence. Henry rarely chooses to be alone. He is either trailing after his siblings or he is being trailed by his friends. He does not comprehend self-selected solitude.
“Okay,” he calls down. I hear a few more footsteps on the stairs, then: “Oh, Janie*, don’t worry about the scary monsters near the door over there. I turned the light on so they won’t bother you.”
He emerges from the stairwell and before I have composed myself, he darts into the bathroom. I am not surprised to hear small footsteps on the stairs shortly thereafter.
“I’m just coming up to check on the dog,” Janie says.
“Paco’s fine, honey. You know, it’s perfectly safe for you to play downstairs – you don’t have to wait for Henry.”
“No, thanks,” she says to me. Turning away, she calls to him through the bathroom door. She sounds exasperated. “Alright. I came up and am right here sitting next to the wall.”
“I hear ya,” he calls back. Janie and I listen to the sounds of the toilet flushing, the faucet running, the hand towel holder squeaking. The door slides open and he is there, looking for all the world like the cat who ate the canary.
He grins at her, then at me. “We’re going to go back down to the basement. Okay, Mom?” They depart without further ado.
He doesn’t understand privacy but he is a budding master of psychology. My apologies to all of Henry’s friends, present and future. If this is what he’s like at five, Lord knows how he’ll be at fifteen and twenty-five.
*Not her real name.
The kids and I spent the morning strolling the streets of Rockport with my father-in-law; mostly window-shopping but occasionally wandering into a souvenir shop (of which there were many). My mother-in-law and G.G. had wisely parked themselves on a shaded bench in the park and waved us on hours before. As the sun climbed higher in the sky and the kids’ blood sugar levels plummeted from salt-water taffy spikes, I suggested we head back. My father-in-law shook his head: “There’s one more store we have to visit.”
The kids took up the chant, “One more store! One more store!”
I sighed and assented. There is no persuading my father-in-law once his mind is made up.
He set off at a brisk clip down Bearskin Neck. Small, Medium and Large trotted after him like he was piping a tune on a magic flute. The gap between us grew larger and so he was 30 feet from me when I saw him reach his destination. I actually gasped in horror when I saw the sign:
He and the kids tromped in. I stood outside and took this picture.
You get what you deserve.
And I felt I deserved a moment to myself.
(In all fairness to my father-in-law, who is a wonderful man and grandfather, the House of Glass has a lovely toy store in the front of the building. While I might not have allowed the kids to walk past hundreds of dollars of breakable items just to get to some toys, in the end, nothing was broken. And as they say: All’s well that ends well.)
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