The central problem of familial existence, when all the children in the family have become visiting adults, seems to be that of finding something to do with oneself. Before that time, roles are clearer: mothers know they can mother their babies; fathers can be fathers; children more or less know their place in the pecking order. But what happens when an adult child drops in for a few months, in the middle of a renovation project where there's very little for the homeowners to do but shuffle furniture, hover about, and plan meals around all the construction?
I'm trying to figure out my place in this mess. The parents have identified a few projects I can work on, such as reducing the two enormous piles of sticks and branches in our back yard to something that can be dumped in large plastic garbage cans and dragged over to the curb for "lawn debris" disposal.* I'm also going to be cooking spaghetti tonight; the parents have two large fridges and there's no shortage of food. No reason to go out and eat, really; we can cook just fine with what we have, and being on KP duty would actually come as a relief.
The problem, though, is that Mom can't help involving herself in the process. To some extent, this is how moms are. As she said yesterday when she saw me making a face, "Get over it." My feeling, though, is that unless two cooks really know how to work in synch together, it's better not to create static, especially if both cooks have control-freakish tendencies (cf. Giada De Laurentiis on the Food Network-- yikes).
So I'm doomed to not working alone tonight. Or ever, as long as we're talking food. Mom and I are figuring out what ingredients we have and will be making the spaghetti this evening, after the renovators leave. Perhaps I'll have some photos of how it goes. Wish me luck.
*Ugh-- "lawn debris." It's the suburbs. There's a sanitized term for everything, because it just wouldn't do to say "all that shit in the back yard." I'm sure that, if I were a Mafia hitman in the burbs, "whacking someone" would be re-branded as "annoyance reduction" or some such.
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