Bodums Up--Another School Day Tomorrow!

Dear me, my fingers are so cold. I usually have a space heater up in this room but my sister's family gratefully moved it down to the guestroom so they wouldn't have to wear ski bibs to bed. They are gone. I could retrieve it. I am too lazy. This old house boasts a fireplace in every bedroom--beautiful old fireplaces that must have warmed the toes and fingers of the occupants so long ago. Modern convenience triumphed and now we have one vent--in the hallway--that blows warm air toward the attic door. We bundle ourselves in robes and slippers and pray that the warm air finds us in our bedrooms.

Elspeth, darling girl, snuck in the room earlier, flung herself upside-down under blankets on my bed, and fell asleep. Sleeping children. Something eternally wonderful covers them, bathes their faces in summer sunlight. I want to put my head down on her chest and feel her breaths like the rolling of the sea. . . .

But enough of that somewhat sappy mother moment. Tomorrow it's back to school for Martin--Merry and Elspeth start their second weeks back. I must face my to-do list: Christmas bills, letters and my grant report to write. School lunches to pack, early mornings and homework evenings. It's been a splendid break, utterly splendid I tell you! We capped it off with a leisurely day spent with good friends who like to eat and laugh. This holiday has been full of such deeply good moments: eating, laughing, drinking hot tea and listening to the coffeepot burbling away. My mother declares a personal vendetta when she glowers at my Bodum Frenchpress (too fragile, too fiddly, too cool too fast). To please her I brought in Mr. Coffee. He spent a couple weeks at our house as a welcome guest--wreathed my mother's face in pleasure, and which daughter would not pay 15.99 for that? He left with the company and my intimate friend Bodum is back again, waiting for me to start another school day tomorrow.

Bodums up, mes amis!