The Guys and the Gals

It's an interesting summer around these parts. Enjoying our 23 year old son and his 21 year old sister living as family under one roof for a few months is both wonderful and well,....as I said, interesting.

The two invite their friends over to the house frequently and that's just fine. D and I resigned ourselves to the fact that we would no longer be hanging out in the family room much this summer and that the typical evening would not be spent watching the "big TV" in said family room. Instead, we each retreat to our own spaces; me to the bedroom and he to his office/study, both of which are upstairs and away from the more trafficked areas of the house. Our son has made the basement his domain for the summer so most of the time when his buddies are over, the action is downstairs whereas when our daughter has friends over, they congregate in the kitchen, near the table to be close to the laptop computer (Facebook and email at the ready).

The other night, the gals came over, on a mission to sort through Laura's clothing, weeding out stuff to sell to second hand shops and in an upcoming garage sale. The bedroom was in total upheaval (as the photo shows) and may never recover since most of the items never made it into the hands of paying customers. My suspicion is that all this clothing is destined for a donation bin but hope springs eternal for my daughter who is always looking to make a sale. But, who am I to rain on her parade? (yet another tendency I apparently possess along with being judgmental, a quality described in my last blog post).

In addition, the gals had plans to bake chocolate chip cookies (that sounded good to me as I was starving and ready for the daily chocolate fix) but when I ventured into the kitchen after they had abandoned the house to haul all the clothing packed into giant garbage bags out to the car and then to the second hand store, I found a surprise (and no cookies). There, sitting on the kitchen counter open to the breeze was a green plastic bowl full of cookie dough. Getting warmer by the minute this dough and I'm thinking: DUH, don't they know that raw dough is a cesspool of bugs just waiting for the next victim to indulge in the sweetness? What's up with that? But, rather than place the dough in the fridge (like the enabling mother I usually am), I elected instead to leave it sit and fester. Annoyed that I obviously wasn't going to get my cookies, I did feel obligated to warn the group of guys congregating in our house to keep away from the toxic dough at all cost, even if tempted. They were appreciative and steered clear.

So now, on to the guys. Their thing is male bonding facilitated by the exercise of smoking pipes in the back yard. Apparently this tradition started last year when several of them lived together in a rental and continues on even though they're dispersed in all directions this summer. Very serious looking, these guys, taking the puffs and blowing out smoke as they sat on the backyard decking on a cool Seattle evening. I'm sure their conversation was equally as deep as their appearance.

As for me, I'm just the observer of the guys and the gals in this house. I did learn two things though.

First, from my daughter: "Mom, that cookie dough is made without eggs so we can eat it and not get sick."

And from my son: "Don't worry Mom, we don't inhale."

Sigh.