Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A Weekend At Nance's

Every so often, one or both of the boys will decide to have a Spendover at the Dept.  This is usually initiated by Jared, who is a less frequent visitor because he hates driving almost as much as I do.  He decides that he has had enough of the Fraternity Atmosphere of his place on the weekend, or that he wants to watch Cleveland Cavaliers basketball with his father, or that he wants real home cooking, or that it's someone else's turn to assume full responsibility for Othello, the household cat.  Invariably, Sam appears, and we are a Whole Family once again.  Once it's all over, I discover the following:

 Things Which Occur After Sam & Jared Have Spent Time At Home

1.  We are out of potatoes
2.  And the fancy pretzels
3.  And barbecue chips
4.  I have to clean up beard trimmings around the sink and soap dish again.
5.  There are way more recyclables to go out
6.  Oh, and we are out of salami, too
7.  I have inherited some miscellaneous laundry

Briefly, allow me to comment:

1.  The boys--and yes, they are in their twenties, but will always be boys to me--exist on restaurant food and pasta.  Jared will make baked potatoes, but neither one of them makes mashed potatoes with gravy (why would they?), so when they are going to eat here, I make sure they get a Traditional Sunday Dinner, if possible.  I roasted a turkey this past Sunday for them, and made a ton of mashed potatoes and gravy.

2. & 3.  Kind of self-explanatory.  We have a cupboard devoted entirely to snacks, hence its name "The Snack Cupboard." They both hit it pretty hard.  As far as fancy pretzels, they are Snyder's of Hanover Pretzel Pieces.  I highly recommend the Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper variety with a nice chilled Chardonnay.

4.  For some reason, they trim up here and cannot see those teeny tiny hairs behind the faucet and on the wall-mounted soap dish. I am positively manic about it--always screeched at them concerning it when they lived here--but still this skill eludes them. 

5.  The Pepsi consumption is unbelievable.  Jared is observing Sober February, or there may have been several brown bottles in there as well.

6.  Sam and his girlfriend stopped in yesterday.  He had a headache, and neither had had any lunch.  I told them there were coldcuts in the fridge, including salami.  Except...that there wasn't.  Jared had eaten it.  All.  In a day.  Okay.

7.  Where did this white sock come from?  Whose teeshirt is this?  What is this pair of boxers doing in the towel hamper?  Is that Sam's work outfit under the livingroom chair?  Sigh.

Why did I have all these bigass children?

12 comments:

  1. We are ALWAYS leaving something at my dad's house when we visit. I am 47 & Mike is 52. So, that never ends.

    I've tried the cracked pepper Snyder's pretzel pieces, but the honey mustard ones make me swoon - yum! I'll bet they'd go well with some raisins :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suppose that's the price you pay for the pleasure of their presence these days.

    I don't know which is more frustrating: "Where did this white sock come from?" or "Where did that (other) white sock go to?"

    Sink hairs are a huge pet peeve of mine. Also: disappearing nail clippers. I know we have at least a dozen of them around the house, and I can never find even one pair when I want it. So I now have that one pair hidden.

    Speaking of hair, your right arm/wrist/hand is looking, uh, somewhat hairy. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've got a pair of those too. I have a pair of ripped and shredded jeans and a tee shirt, ditto, in the laundry right now.
    And a dog. For ten days. It never ends, just as The Bug commented.
    What a wonderful post about motherhood; you can always make me smile.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You love every minute of it. Except maybe the shopping and cleaning. ;)

    I'll miss my bug when she moves out someday. And maybe it will still bug me when she comes home and leaves all of the lights on and splashes water everywhere and leaves the curling iron plugged in when she leaves the house and uses her towel exactly once before putting it in the hamper. But part of me will miss these annoyances when they're gone.

    I'm sentimental, I know...

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Kids...these days, Why can't they be like we were-perfect in every way..." :>)

    ReplyDelete
  6. dbso--Or at least as I was. I was Oh So Perfect. Just ask my mother.

    j.@jj--I love their banter and joking when they are here, and the way they become Human ShopVacs with my cooking. Sometimes, I look at them, and I wonder how it all happened, that massive transformation from little boys to big men. And it's always funny--and instructive!--to hear their perspective/memories of things that occurred in years past.

    Mary G.--I'm glad to be so evocative a writer for you. Do your visitors pick you up and haul you around, too? Sigh. I get a lot of that, but at least now they warn me first. No dogs, though. Did that once, and now the boys are cat people. Sam's dear kitten Madden passed away, so he is catless. Jared and his housemates have Othello, who has appeared in my sidebar a couple times. Your Dog Relative is very cute and amiable-looking, but large, which means "worky." Good luck with THAT.

    Ortizzle--OH, NAIL CLIPPERS!! Rick was just grousing about that same thing! What is the deal with those? I stash them everywhere, and they disappear, whether the boys have been here or not. I buy them for a stocking stuffer every year, and even in their Easter baskets sometimes. They're in each car, nightstand drawers, bathroom vanity, etc. But they wander off anyway. At least I know it's not just US.

    Bug--Maybe you and the Professor need a nanny! LOL. I like the honey mustard ones, too, but for a while those were supplanted by the cheddar cheese. Then I found the salt and pepper, and now I'm onto those. Anything to get me OFF of Lay's Original.

    And that raisin thing...Urk. I really don't care for raisins, except IN things, like raisin bran, which I eat maybe once every five years. And I have a curried broccoli salad that has a handful of raisins and peanuts in it. But, honestly, dear, raisins, eggs, and cheese...how did your palate not warn you it would be horrid? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. When my kids(All in their 50s but still kids to me)come to visit ,the first thing they do is go to the Secret Hiding Place for candy.

    We have had the SHP since they were teen agers and the place has never changed. It is still the same cabinet it always was. But it is the Secret Hiding Place so that's where all candy goes as it comes into the house.

    I went to visit my daughter shortly after she got married and the first thing she showed me in her new apartment was her SHP for candy.

    Of course, all three sons also have a SHP for their candy and my Grandchildren all know where it is and run straight to the SHP when Nanny's sweet tooth acts up.

    I sometimes wonder how much more candy we would have had to buy if where we kept our candy wasn't a secret....

    ReplyDelete
  8. The whole problem with the mommy blogger clique is that it does not include any mommy bloggers with kids out of elementary school. You can remedy that.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I hate to suggest this, but kids multiply after they get out of college. Now I have giant grandchildren.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Gah, nail clippers. I like the idea of putting them in Easter baskets. We do one family Easter basket around here (rather than one for the kid and none for us, or one for each of us), with something for everyone (there's only one kid, so it's not too confusing). I may put a dozen nail clippers in there. Six for toenails, six for fingernails. TMI? Sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  11. J@jj--Where are Gen's? Hee hee. And, please, TMI at the DoN? Is that even possible?

    Mage--Bite thy tongue! Don't even mention the "G" word here.

    V-grrrl--I'm laughing and laughing at being called a mommyblogger.

    Nancy--I like the idea of calling anything a Secret and then having everyone in on the Secret. That way, there's no pressure and lots of fun.

    ONE MORE FOR BUG--You know, now that I think of it, tossing broccoli, curry, peanuts, and raisins together also sounds awful, yet that salad is wonderful. Who am I to say that your concoction of eggs, grits, cheese, and raisins is automatically icky? Belated apology to you!

    ReplyDelete
  12. :)

    P.S. It IS yummy - but leave out the cheese - that was pretty disgusting.

    ReplyDelete

Oh, thank you for joining the fray!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...