Almost like the good old days

It's wonderfully noisy here, with Melina and Zed in residence for a while. Teenage type music is playing all the time, there is shouting up and down the stairs, there are hundreds of shoes at the bottom of the stairs. Like the good old days.

Melina's new jalopy - procured for free for the summer - is chock-a-block with boxes full of her stuff. The boxes are starting to come out of the car but have only made it as far as the front hall.

I stared her in the eye and said: "Promise me you are not bringing anything home you will not come back for within a reasonable period." We'll see.

She's leaving for Mississippi in ten days, to go take oral histories from old Jews. Anybody know any old Jews in Mississippi she should interview?

I designed this house for the family we were at the time - a mom and two kids who liked to hang out together. The kids' bedrooms are small because I didn't want to encourage them to stay in those rooms with the door closed as I had when I was a kid; my room is just as small because I didn't feel like a master and had no need for a "Master Bedroom" - also because my previous bedroom had been so large and full of projects (my ex's clothes on the floor, my sewing machine and drafting table covered with stuff) that it was NEVER tidy. This room I live in is small and simple, easy to keep tidy, with lots of windows in every direction.

I used to lie in bed here and look out at deer chomping the trees, bushes and flowers - I'd leap out onto the balcony and yell at them but they just stared up at me with stuff hanging out of their mouths, still chomping. Then I built the wonderful deer fence and now I just listen to the birds.

Because the bedrooms are small, there's lots of common space upstairs, full of windows and light (and, well, mess). For a week and a half we will be (sort of) that same little family I built this house for. We lounge around together with our computers, books and projects.

Zed, with his tender back recovering nicely from the spinal fusion, is sleeping on an air mattress stacked on the futon right there in the middle of the action. Last night, after we had salad and strawberry shortcake for dinner, we piled on his mattress and watched Six Feet Under (from Netflix) and then the season finale of Desperate Housewives on tape.

By the way, every single person in both of those shows is cranky and obnoxious. Why don't they make shows about people who are polite and nice to each other? They could still tell jokes.