Hosting amidst chaos

As I mentioned in the last post, the past few weeks have been full to the brim. In addition to all the running around, we've also spent a nice chunk of time entertaining friends, which is both a delight and a distraction.  Having company to dinner requires a lot of last minute scrubbing at our house in preparation, even if the entire place was scrubbed just a few days before.  Dusting, shuffling papers, washing dirty dishes, vacuuming, wiping soppy sinks. . . I think my grandmother did these chores every day, but how did she have time for that?

I'm also hesitant to invite people over because our house is not exactly conducive to entertaining. We have waterstained sinks and toilets, small rooms, uncomfortable chairs, and dim lighting and no climate controls.  I don't think the state of this house would bother me so much if we hadn't lived in other houses that were more spacious with updated bathrooms. And if I weren't prideful. This house is good for practicing humility and humbleness - we've had to creatively reconfigure or donate some things. Plus, we have teen-aged boys. Phew.  Fortunately, we have a back patio; otherwise, we'd rarely have people over.

Then there is the hurdle of planning the menu when company is coming.  Any allergies? What do I have time to make? What will the company like? Do I have to go to the grocery?

It's enough to discourage a person from inviting people over at all.

But we like to get invited to other people's houses, so every once in a while I feel compelled to entertain at our house.

Plus, there are people we like to hang out with but who either are intimidated by inviting our large family over or they are more averse to the preparation than we are, so if we want to spend time with them, we invite them over.

This article that  Melanie linked to by an episcopal priest from Knoxville struck a chord as he writes about "scruffy hospitality," which means not waiting until everything is perfect to have people over. Friends who have to have perfect cleanliness or require a dinner experience off the food channel aren't real friends.  We'd like to give our friends that, but we'd rather spend time with them than not. A good dinner and conversation bring joy to everyone and create community and friendship.  We really aren't that close to our new friends until we've eaten with them.  As Knoxpriest writes:

Scruffy hospitality means you’re not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home. Scruffy hospitality means you hunger more for good conversation and serving a simple meal of what you have, not what you don’t have. Scruffy hospitality means you’re more interested in quality conversation than the impression your home or lawn makes. If we only share meals with friends when we’re excellent, we aren’t truly sharing life together.

Don’t allow a to-do list disqualify you from an evening with people you’re called to love in friendship. Scheduling is hard enough in our world. If it’s eating with kind, welcoming people in a less than perfect house versus eating alone, what do you think someone would choose? We tell our guests ‘come as you are,’ perhaps we should tell ourselves ‘host as you are.’

So a couple of weeks ago we practiced this idea, although I read the article after making the invite to have our priest over for dinner. He is new at our parish this year, and is an interim pastor on loan from the Philippines. Our first Mass at the parish was his first Mass last summer, so we have felt a sort of kinship with him. I like to have priests over because then the kids see them being human. They open up and talk. They show off a little bit, but often they enjoy the meal as much as we do, even though they initially wish for kid company. Meanwhile, I think our priest enjoyed the time to relax and eat with company.

A couple days before he came over, we had a birthday party at the park for our 8 year old. I'm done with parties now for a long time until the baby begs and pleads. Having the party at the park was supposed to make things easy, but lugging over all the food and supplies was more complicated than I thought. 

Our most successful recent foray into entertaining was hosting a Navy family who just moved here from Naples.  They are staying in a hotel for a month or so until their house is available.  Remembering how grateful we were to get invited to a bbq while we were crammed into the 2 bedroom apartment for a month, I invited them over for a spontaneous burger night.  (The nice part about "Spontaneous" is that you give up on perfection because you don't have time for it.) Chips, burgers, beans, and brownies: easy, kid friendly food. Tossed up a salad with fresh tomatoes for a healthy choice.  

We knew this family slightly when we lived in Mississippi, but we didn't really keep in touch, and our kids had never met.  They have five kids about the same ages as ours. It's wonderful when you find family friends who have a kid friend for each kid in the family.  This family doesn't have a baby, and you never know how teenagers are going to hit it off, but this time the chemistry was right. Nine year old boys can meet and say: "Legos" or "Star Wars" or "Minecraft" and they are instant friends.  Eleven year old girls stare at each other for awhile and then decide each other is okay. Fortunately, both of our fourteen year old boys are comfortable in their own skin, despite being not quite typical, so they hit it off. Sixteen year olds take longer to open up, and I wasn't sure how the crowd was going to mix, but perhaps because of the shared military lifestyle or the interest in BBC shows or the ability to commiserate about younger siblings, they were able to find enough to talk about to make a connection. As the other family left, their eleven year old daughter said, "Thanks for dinner. It wasn't nearly as miserable as I expected!"  A compliment from a kid used to attending "mandatory fun" events. 

The other event we hosted was a "teenager party." Our two older boys are close enough in age and personality that they share many of the same friends. They have received multiple invitations from their friends for dinner and movies, so I felt like it was our turn to host. Plus, one of their best friends was moving this summer, so I wanted to do a goodbye party for her. I also needed to cook the ribeye roast her mom had given me while cleaning out her freezer before the move.  (A nice piece of meat. And a nice perk of Navy friends: you benefit from their cabinet clean-outs. I also inherited crema de caballero - the Spanish version of Baileys. Yum.)  I avoided cleaning by having everyone over to the in-laws for paddleboarding and a cookout on the channel. My husband's brother and sister-in-law were heading out of town and said we could use their place, which is much nicer than ours. They have water access. So 10-15 teenagers  and a few parents came over. We mostly stayed on their back patio, which is right on the water, and drank wine and indulged in small talk.  

The boys weren't necessarily thrilled about the idea. They just want to "hang out" without younger siblings around.  I made some salads and roasted potatoes and burned a lemon blueberry cake to go with it. Fortunately, another family made dessert, and I had stuff for s'mores, so there was plenty to eat. We got wood for the fire pit and sodas and set up the paddle boards and kayaks.   I think the kids had fun. Sometimes it's hard to tell, but they laughed and talked till late, and we enjoyed getting to know some of the parents.

After each one of these dinners, I lay awake and tallied all the things that didn't go as planned.   I was exhausted. I'm not naturally an extrovert, so coming up with conversation starters wears on me. But my husband thrives on company, so I've grown into being more social.  I like cooking, but mess things up by experimenting. I don't get into the small detail part of hosting a party like my friend does who gives coordinated party favors.  We usually invite families over when we entertain, so the level of noise and the quantity of food escalates.  Sometimes conversation lulls amid the chaos.

But despite my anxieties and second guessing, these dinners are usually fun for me as well as the kids, and I hope for our company. After each of these events we feel a little closer to these people. My sister-in-law once said she wouldn't friend anyone on Facebook she hadn't had dinner with. A little restrictive, but there is an intimacy you feel with people whom you've hosted and fed.  Entertaining requires a certain openness to vulnerability. People can see your piles and photos and art and dirty dishes.  But they also see that you want to be friends.  It's Eucharistic.  The labor is worth the reward of sitting on the back porch with a glass of wine and friends. 

Soon I get to be a guest for a time - tomorrow we leave for summer vacation! 

Copying from GretchenJoanna and posting photos of my neighbor's pretty roses.
An act of hospitality by the people on the corner of the street.

All I got . . .

School's out, school's out; teachers let the monkeys out!

And they are all at our house!

The middle of June has arrived already, much to my disbelief.

And now it is nearly midnight as I sit down to catalog some of the activities of the past two weeks - I've got nothing of importance to say, except to type up a quick review of happenings for the family members who aren't on facebook who read this blog.

School ended June 13th. Prior to that we had the end of school awards ceremonies. An eighth grade graduation. A track awards banquet. A middle school concert. Graduation and confirmation parties. Multiple going away parties. A ketchup birthday party. Gifts to buy for graduates, confirmands, teachers, an eight year old birthday girl and party favors for her guests. A fourth grade play about the gold rush. A walkathon. A field day.

And I got my hair cut. The baby got shots. The kids all got good report cards and awards for academic excellence. The oldest got a job as a life guard and an award for being a faith leader on the track team. The second oldest got elected class president. The third oldest got an award for being a faith leader for the eighth grade. So did the second grader. The sixth grader received an award for exemplifying the school mission statement.

The older kids had physicals, but the younger kids still need them. All the kids need to see the dentist. The big car needs new tires. The newly minted lifeguard needs plain navy sweats.  The newly born nephew and goddaughter need gifts - some sort of acknowledgement celebrating their birth.The kids all need new books for summer reading lists. I need to do a lot of laundry and organizing and travel preparation.

Listmaking.  It saves me.

In a few more days we depart for our summer travels. We are leaving in waves. A couple days ago, one son left for a mission trip to New Mexico with the youth group.  Before he returns a group of us will fly away to see the grandparents; a few days later the rest of the fam will follow in the car. We'll spend a couple weeks visiting grandparents and cousins and enjoying the deep green of a midwestern summer, and then we'll all drive home together over a period of three days, most likely, unless something comes up. Hoping to spend a day at the Grand Canyon on the way.

 Before we pack up we have been trying to have a little summer fun with friends: the beach, the park, the bowling alley.  It has been fun, but it has prevented me from getting ready, or getting words out.

I'm looking forward to our trip back to the Midwest in order to have a vacation from life and from the kids' requests to be entertained. I'm sure they will still complain about being bored, although I don't know how they can do so with impunity. I can barely find time to breathe after running them around.  The end of the school year is second only to Christmas on the busyness scale.

And now for your entertainment: I've got a bunch of baby pictures.

This kid's got to get a better haircut.

Baby's got a swimsuit and a belly.

We're losing our heads around here.

Got ketchup?

This baby is in the 97th percentile for height, weight,
and head circumference, as you might guess by the chins and cheeks.

He's got poison oak from a backpacking trip. 

Baby's got a mustache.

How to Deal with Popular Teen Books that Contain Actions Unpopular with Me

A hazard of having kids whose reading you can't keep up with: sometimes they read things you'd prefer them not to read.

One of the boys just finished The Catcher in the Rye. I'd meant to reread this when Salinger died, but I never got around to it. My son picked it up and read it and left it lying around, so I finally picked it up and reread it. Oops. I had forgotten about how foul Holden's vocabulary is. I had forgotten his interest in sex, except his sterile encounter with a prostitute. How do you forget so much of a book, especially so much that you'd think you'd remember?

On the one hand, I'm comforted by the fact that reading Catcher in the Rye didn't scar me as a teenager. I talked to my son about it, and he mostly was surprised this book was regarded as a classic, that so many people liked it because he didn't think that it was so great. He apparently didn't identify with Holden, the disillusioned adolescent, or at least he didn't admit that he did. I think I had more sympathy as a teen for Holden's disregard for phonies. My son diagnosed Holden's mental illness early on.  Are readers of Catcher in 2014 more attuned to mental illness than the audience for whom it was written sixty years ago?

The other book I picked up from the kids' reading pile was John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. I'd heard this book is the big teen read, and it's being made into a movie, and author Green is also a fellow Hoosier, so I've had this book on my to-read list for awhile out of curiosity. It's the story of two cancer-ridden teenagers who fall in love. My sixth grade daughter brought it home from the school library.  She'd only read two chapters. Thank goodness. I blazed through it last night, all the while in the back of my mind scripting "the talk" I needed to have with her. In the first chapter, one of the characters is observed making out with his girlfriend, kissing and feeling her up. Later in the book, the two main characters consummate their love after they first express it. The boy has to remove his prosthetic leg so the scene isn't too titillating, but still. I get why teens love it: star-crossed young lovers search for the meaning of life while they fall in love, talk wittily to each other, and get to visit Amsterdam.  They discuss their skepticism about a hereafter and about whether life has meaning.  Their conclusion is that their lives have meaning because the "universe wants to be noticed." Their heroism lies not in great sacrifices or great courage or great nobility, but in paying attention, noticing the universe and the people they love. The boy, Gus, admires the way Hazel, though she has done nothing notable with her 16 years, has tread lightly on the earth. Their courageousness lies in falling in love even though they know they are "grenades" who will hurt each other by dying, but they decide the pain is worth the joy.

There are a lot of quote graphics related to this book - more interesting than the cover

The author writes about how he came up with the idea while he was working as a chaplain in the cancer ward at a children's hospital. He wanted to write a book that wasn't sentimental about the children he met there. They were funny and normal, not always wise and beyond-their-years. The book isn't as sappy as it could have been, but it plays to popular ideas, and so strikes me as sentimental and predictable. I appreciate the book's affirmation that even brief lives have meaning and purpose, but it isn't exactly grounded in faith. Faith is presented as an option, but the main characters are skeptics. Teens having sex seems to be a given. I don't want my eleven year old to read it. The challenge: asking her to turn it in without encouraging her to read it on the sly.

So when she came home from school, I asked her to walk to the corner store with me. "Is this about the book? Are we going to have 'the talk'?" she asked. Very perceptive. Actually, the whole ordeal went very well. When I asked her what sex was, she thought it was kissing and making out. "Weird," was her evaluation of what I told her to correct her misperceptions.  Afterwards, I thought of a bunch of things we still need to talk about - fertility monitoring, for instance. But she did tell me she didn't really care if she read the book or not.

Ironically, that afternoon, one of the high schoolers came home and pulled the book out of his backpack and told me his friends who are girls want him to read it.  He offered to loan it to me, not knowing I had read it the night before.  I told him it had parts in it I objected to, and he said he could guess what.  We actually had a pretty good little discussion about whether the author was trying to write a good book or a book that readers call "good."  Ahh, the joys of parenting.

Happy Anniversary to Us

June already! The first of June was our eighteenth anniversary.  My husband had to leave for some travelling Sunday morning, so we toasted our marriage's longevity with our favorite Cook's "champagne" the night before after having dinner with friends.

How can we have been married eighteen years? I don't feel like I'm old enough to have been married that long. I feel like I'm still this age:

Teenagers in love

We went to a graduation party this past weekend and I had a conversation with a student's brother who just graduated from college. He was excited about starting a job two weeks after he graduated. We were excited about getting married two weeks after my husband graduated. (I had been out a whole year.) Were we too young?

Our church has the nice practice of praying for couples celebrating anniversaries during the intentions at Mass. Another couple married the same week as us is celebrating their 60th anniversary.  Cheers to them! Praying we'll make it to 60 since we got an early start.

These are the "hard work" years people told us about when we were engaged.  We didn't believe we'd have those years at the time. The card I gave my husband said something about "life in the fast lane." (This year I went for the humorous card with cute dogs on the front, instead of the romantic one.)  Like others, there are many days when our conversations are to-do lists: who's picking up whom, what time we have to be where, grocery lists, appointment reminders, etc.  There are some days when we don't talk because I'm being peevish. There are some days I talk at my husband because I am anxious about something. There are some days when he is gone and our phone conversations are simply a catalog of what has happened that day because I am too tired to think of anything interesting to say. But, thankfully, there are some days where we fit in a morning walk or sit down on our back patio and have a glass of wine - usually cheap, like Cook's - and talk for awhile. The night of our anniversary eve, our teenagers came out to join us (not for wine) after they got home from a social event and filled us in our their night. We didn't mind the interruption. We are discovering that one of the pleasures of being married a decent interval is that our maturing kids are pretty fun to talk to.

There have been some studies about whether married people or people with children really are any happier than single, childless people. But you don't get married because it is going to make you happier, (when are you ever happier than in the midst of young love?) but because you can't imagine going through life without this person who has the good of your soul in their care. Marriage opens you up to all kinds of potential miseries. But it also opens up a world of joys.

Like this cute person:

And now because poets say things about marriage better, I'll let them. I can't remember if I have copied this poem here before or not. I like John Ciardi.

Most Like an Arch This Marriage

BY JOHN CIARDI

Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds   

and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.   

Mass made idea, and idea held in place.   

A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.

Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean   

into a strength. Two fallings become firm.   

Two joined abeyances become a term   

naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.

Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,   

what’s strong and separate falters. All I do   

at piling stone on stone apart from you   

is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss

I am no more than upright and unset.   

It is by falling in and in we make

the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake,   

in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.

John Ciardi, “Most Like an Arch This Marriage” from I Marry You (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1958). Used with the permission of the Ciardi Family Publishing Trust.

Source: The Collected Poems of John Ciardi (University of Arkansas Press, 1997)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176395

And for fun:

Yes, I'll Marry You

Pam Ayres

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
And here's the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking
And it's creepy and it's late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It's you that has to mend it,
You have to face the neighbour
Should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me
It's you that has to whack him.

Yes, I'll marry you,
You're virile and you're lean,
My house is like a pigsty
You can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner
Which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas,
You can cook it every night!

It's you who has to work the drill
and put up curtain track,
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages,
But none of them for you,
And so before you see the light,
I do, I do, I do!

http://www.wedding-references.com/poetry_on_marriage.htm