house and home

Late last night, she put together her gingerbread house. We watched her, and we watched a movie, running in the background, and occasionally we picked stories and anecdotes from the Net – to toss around the room, to anyone who was not yet dozing.

This morning, they left me the gingerbread house.





I looked at it all day long. (Soon, I’ll place it in a woodsy place, so that birds and beasts can get their share of holiday sweet stuff. I hope they’ll love it as much as I have loved it.)


And then I watched them go off – first, toward the Capitol -- for breakfast (Ed and I trailed behind)…





…and then for real. You could shrug and say – so what? You’ll see them tomorrow in Chicago. And I will and it will be wonderful. But as I put away the last towel and I make a hospital corner out of the just washed sheets, as I store the two extra napkins and placemats, and return the drip coffee maker to its basement resting place, I don’t think about Chicago tomorrow, but instead, I think how they will next return here, to my condo, next summer and not before that.

And that is a sad thought.