And then one day the door blew open

I am all alone in my house at 7:45 in the morning.

It is very, very still.

Not winter yet, so not even any fan noise from the pellet stove.

I'm listening to the radio on the computer, and drinking my coffee (very good coffee, by the way - the husband has developed a regular weekly trip to the coffee roasters in Hood River who know him now, and save him a pound from the freshest darkest roasts each week).

Although the bearded young giant is usually incommunicado at this hour anyway, I always know he's here, and today he's not here. He's in Portland with the other young giant. They had a brothers' night out last night because this weekend is the weekend the older of the two takes off for Olympia - to stay there and not come home at night, and to have new intellectual challenges - and to live among roommates and other strangers.

Last night the brothers had a night out, and then the older stayed all night and will take the younger to his college for the day's orientation for his own new college adventure this year.

Last night, we two - the mom and the dad - turned out the lights and put the dishes into the dishwasher all by ourselves before we went to bed (it turned out that we haven't forgotten how after all). This morning when we got up, the other bedroom doors were open to the breezes, and the rooms did not contain any of our children. None. All gone.

wow.

For the past two years I have been stalking this hidden place - this Wardrobe in a spare room- this Secret Garden. The door was behind the strands of ivy called things like "student loans" and "application process" and "I really do have to have another pair of pants if I can't do laundry whenever I want to at school."

I got here - to stand in front of this door - through the math lessons and the first jobs and the driver training and the movies ... and the stories and holidays and Halloween costumes and Christmas stockings (about 30 of those one year because all the stuffed animals had to have them) and noon Mass in the middle of the week and two-wheelers with the training wheels removed and rainy days spent running off a bit of pent up energy in the nearly deserted visitors center at the Bonneville Dam.

I got here through unidentifiable rashes and persistent runny noses and various sprains and bruises and I came through a learned proficiency with Arnica and ice packs. I got here through bedtime routines and guitar lessons and road trips and "shall we pull over and take care of this?"

I got here through a murmured, gloating "ha ha ha" as the last one to finally become "taller than mom" passed by me in the living room and made a bit of a production out of noticing the top of my head again.

And here I am.

For two years now, I have circled this new place. For two years I looked at that door and knew it would open eventually. I could see it - touch it - it was right there, but it was closed.

Today, this morning, all at once, the door in the wall blew open.

Later today, the older, bearded one will come back here again. He will be here until the weekend, and I have been threatening everything from universal doom at the dump to strangling him and hiding the body if he doesn't clean his room in the next few days. He has been wondering what his nearly senile aged parents will do without him when the TV remote or the other household electronics need to be operated. For "four more sleeps" he'll be here, and then he and his dad will pile all his stuff into the car and off they'll go.

The door now blown open will not close again.

This is the place where David and I live now.

Once, a long time ago, we informed a small sleepy child that "this is a two-person bed" and so no, he could not come in. He could be on the carpet beside the bed if he wanted to, though.

Now this is a two-person house.

How odd.

Now the door has opened and we are in a two-person house. Our secret garden is for us, and we have waited with great anticipation for this. We worked for it. We made sure the small sleepy children grew up to anticipate their own doors and gardens. And now it's here. This is it.

And it's beautiful, all right.

All the doors are open in here, for one thing, and the light and breeze pass through freely. There's no more need for quiet or privacy or keeping out the toddlers. This is a wide open place.

There are new things growing and we will tend them together. And the seasons look different in here. I can't really take it all in, but it's beautiful.

You go ahead without me for a minute. Look around. No, really. Go ahead. In fact, see that area over there? It's called The Mom Finally Gets Her Degrees. Maybe you could go poke around over there and figure out what some of that stuff is. No, I'm okay. I just want to sit here for a minute. Really. I'll catch up later.

Oh, wait. Did you bring any tissues? I could use one.

Souls Only, Please

We, here in this house, are not very good Americans, I fear. We have a quirk - an oddity - a little bent, you might say. It feels like I'm confessing something very, very bad here, but it is the truth. Okay, I'll just say it.

We are not good consumers.

We do buy stuff ... just not for the sake of buying stuff. We buy books, but usually they're not new. We buy electronics - after a lot of research. And a coffee maker and coffee grinder (more research) have recently joined our kitchen, along with the most recent purchase - an electric tea kettle. (Now we need to buy some more counter space because the top of the dishwasher isn't quite adequate anymore.)

And we do sometimes buy medicines. But we do not have any regularly purchased (aka, "maintenance") drugs in this house. Until now.

Now we have a woman person (that would be me) who needs a regular prescription of bio-identical hormones, and today I made my first refill phone call.

And I did not speak to a soul.

I pressed buttons instead, for the input of data into a machine.

This was, to my mind, a distinctly creepy experience, but I'm not going to rant about the problems when anyone without a vocation for it gets into the businesses of religion, education, or medicine, or when, worse, we have machines do that sort of work. I'm still trying to get the words right for that particular topic. No, today it's the creepiness of talking on my phone in the privacy of my own home (which is bad enough, as far as I'm concerned), but not to a person ... to a machine!

I routinely hang up on computer generated calls, and lately, after I say hello, it's not the clicks and silences of a computer trying to tell a person I picked up the danged thing. It's a recorded voice! There are actually computers making calls and then not bothering to hook up my phone to a real person, but instead are hooking up my phone to a recording!

And is that recorded voice telling me anything at all that I care to hear? Nope. Not ever. Not even one time. The recorded voice is actually trying to make a sale!!! (Am I takin' crazy pills here? Is that not completely nuts?) I'm so desperate to buy something that I'd buy it from a recording on my phone?

The phone call to the pharmacy brought me the words, "without talking to a soul." And then I heard myself. "A soul." That's why I hang up on recordings or calls obviously dialed by a computer. If I'm going to talk, it has to be me - my soul - talking to another human - another soul.

Talking out loud to myself counts, by the way. Holding long conversations with imaginary people, or holding court with my reflection in a mirror - that counts. That's just a way for me - my soul - to commune with itself. If it's good enough for the Psalmists and every other woman in my bloodline who ever cooked or sewed or thought of the perfect thing to say long after the opportunity had passed, it's good enough for me. I'm allowed to talk to me.

And I'm allowed to talk to you. Writing and reading - that's from one soul to another as well.

But if you want to communicate with me over the phone, please bring your soul to the conversation. I'll know if you don't. I have caller I.D.

John Morra

Oh oh oh oh! High Desert Home's Susan has found the most amazing artist! His name is John Morra. Take a look. Click on his name to see the rest of them. Thanks, Susan!

Today, on the "farm"

We don't really have an actual farm, of course. But - just in case you didn't know this - our last name is Lillegard, and that's Norwegian for "little farm," and we do have two goats (if you don't count Yogi the Aging Defoliant, currently living in the other barn at the other brother's property), and we have had cows and steers, and we do have a tractor, and hay, and other farmish things. So ...

Today on the farm,

...the goats are now tied out in the side yard, close to the house, yelling from time to time, apparently just for the exercise of vocal chords and the testing of the sound properties between house and well house. For some reason, every goat noise sounds like a very funny joke, and it makes me laugh. It's so random!

...the "lawn" (field grass hay growing in the smaller, uphill space of field between house and forest) was mown by means of chuffing orange tractor and field mower. There's something about the sight of the husband on the tractor, turned half sideways in the seat to keep an eye on the results as he passes, that makes me happy all the way to my spinal column. There is something about that intellectual, multi-lingual, brain atop the body of the farmer. Somehow it's completely what it should be.

...and a very coily, skinny, sinewy little snake has been removed from the bathroom laundry, by means of a bathroom wastebasket that I am now informed "is a useless shape." I was unaware that bathroom wastebaskets needed to be purchased for their snake removal facilitation, and when I mentioned this, I got, "well, mice then." As in ... at least purchase wastebaskets that would help with mouse removal. Somehow this just never occurs to me while I'm standing in the wastebaskets and toothbrush holder aisle at the store. (And who will remove my snakes and mice when that bearded young giant heads off to school in a few weeks? I know the getter of such things isn't going with him, and so we shall have to come to some sort of arrangement, she and I ... sitting there so innocent like, in the doorway ... snakes, for cryin out loud!)

Anybody else wanna proofread this thing before we send it out?

Morning Edition, September 5, 2008

People planning to go duck hunting may find a different quarry.

Government permits for hunting migratory birds are called "duck stamps." Duck stamps, which cost $15 a piece, are required to hunt migratory waterfowl. The government uses nearly all the revenue to purchase waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. In 2006-2007, the latest figures available, duck stamp purchases brought in nearly $22 million.

But a printing error sends people trying to acquire duck stamps to 1-800-TRAMP24 instead of 1-800-STAMP24.

Very friendly women answer the phone.