We had barely been in the old house three months and were excited to learn that we would have two of the three families with us for Thanksgiving. And I was going to out-Norman Norman Rockwell, if it killed me.

I imagined the family lazily coming downstairs in the mornings, with their coffees, gathering in front of a fireplace, rejoicing in being together, catching up, laughing, getting a little caffeine buzz. In reality, our son had conferences calls each morning, our daughter-in-law had a little cold and we encouraged her to sleep in, and the teenagers emerged somewhere around noon, their language indistinguishable from guttural noises. Okay, so we failed Norman 101.

Now it was on to kayaking down the May River for the kids during the day, I thought. Oh, I could just hear their tales of competition, who got the wettest, how much fun it was. For the adults, a slow amble downtown, enjoying the art galleries, little shops, wine bars. I think the wine bars made the list but not much else.

Somehow we made it to Thanksgiving dinner. The table was stretched to its fullest, chairs scrunched around, the fireplace ablaze. A beautiful turkey, cooked to a golden brown, food brought by family members, everyone looking spiffy. A heart-felt blessing was said. A little wine hit for the adults, the candles lit, linen napkins…..it was oh, so terribly Norman. And then the teenagers started texting.   No, No. No. Not in my plan or at my table. What to do? I know those looks when you tell them to stop. They glare, obviously unhappy and certainly not willing to join the party. It was going to get ugly. Help me, Norman. Oh, that’s right….you never had to deal with texting. I’m on my own here.

We have a box of “dinner-party questions.” I ran to get them, quickly sorted out family appropriate cards and delivered two to each person at the table. This was either going to be a complete disaster or it was going to work. At the very first question, my middle son managed to seriously (and I think on purpose) offend both his mother and his wife. She and I looked at each other, locked arms and left the room, vowing never to return. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the phones go down and the lips turn up. What could be better than a family fight right in front of their very eyes? They were hooked. Couldn’t get enough. They were also fascinated by answers to the questions…..we all learned something about each other. The cards were a blessing.

The teenagers cleared the table, served dessert and…hold onto your hat, Norman….asked to play Catch Phrase after dinner!   Happy times can’t be prescribed, I guess. They have to evolve. We got lucky. So, Norman, I still love the memories you evoke in your paintings. That Thanksgiving, we made our own.

I must ask your forgiveness for the following. I just can’t help myself. I’ve tried but to no avail. This is going to be ineggscusably corny and potentially painful.

Our delightfully eggcentric neighbors have just built a chicken coop. First , let me say that I am eggcited to think about eating a warm egg. Now, a friend of mine says he’s never eaten anything BUT a warm egg. How can that be, I asked. You don’t have a chicken coop. He simply said that by the time he’d cooked his egg, it was warm. (Collective groan, here, please.)

Anyway, I am looking forward to this eggceptional addition to the neighborhood. The coop is positioned in an eggstremely secluded part of their yard so the chicks won’t be a problem. (Pity the poor rooster.   Does he know his role in this process is noneggsistent? All that crowing about nothing.)

I gather there will be an eggstended gathering of chickens, names to be determined upon their arrival. They are coming from an eggslempary source so the eggs will be something for us to eggsclaim about, of that I am eggceedingly certain.

I don’t know eggsactly when they are due to arrive but their eggsistance and subsequent production will, no doubt eggceed our fondest hopes and eggspectations. If all goes well, perhaps the tribe will be eggspanded. Who knows?

Now at this point, I am assuming that you wish that I would eggspire, become eggstinct or just plain go away. So I shall. Do you know how many pages there are in the dictionary devoted to words starting with “ex” that offer the opportunity for this to go on and on? I think that I deserve an eggshortation for my self-control (eggsclamation mark here, please.)

P.S. You really didn’t think I was going to go away quite that easily, did you? This has, after all, been an eggsistential egggsperience so eggspediting my eggsit has been a little eggcrutiating….no doubt for all of us.

What qualifies something to be history? Does it have to be old? Does it have to have global impact? Do life and death have to be involved? Must it be a tale of survival and loss? To involve war? Does it have to be hard to learn (an aside here…I failed every history course I ever took…yes, I know about Columbus but don’t pin me down on the year).

Does personal history count? Or does it have be relevant to an era of change and revolution? Does it have to relate to a “period” as in furniture….Queen Anne, Chippendale, etc?

Or can it be a simple tale with a beginning, a middle and an end which has a powerful effect on the people involved? No war, no history books, nothing era-specific, just a story?

There’s a blanket in this house that stands for a period of our family history. We know its whole life…..it started in a Target store in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And now it lives on the May river in a 200 year old house. Every time it is touched, folded, washed, pulled up to a neck for warmth, spread out for a cat to sit on, it generates a flood….all within a nanosecond…of emotion, relief and gratitude.

It was the blanket we bought when our daughter-in-law was so terribly sick. There was no way the heating system in our little motel room could keep one of us (yes, me) warm enough. This one did the trick . We were there for three chilly months. Sarah lived. That was our goal. And that blanket …The AAB (Ann Arbor Blanket).. is a constant reminder of the ordeal, the hoped-for-outcome, the very fabric (yes, a little corny but true) of that time in our lives. And no one can tell me it doesn’t count as history. I know better.

We all know what that means. I don’t pay much attention to it because our children take care of it for me. They arrive with fear and terror that something out of date will be served to them. They check all cans, every pasta box, cake mixes, soups and so forth. Out goes everything that doesn’t meet their standards.

Then it’s on to the spices. I’ll admit to a slight lack of attention to those little jars so it’s probably good to have a cleansing.

The freezer and refrigerator are next. My husband’s mother kept all her jellies, marmalades and jams for at least 30 years. He didn’t know that refrigerators had lights in them until he left home. I’m not that bad but there are always a few things in there that have seen better days. Out they go.

Now they hit the medicine cabinet. After that clearance, if your body needs attention…….tummy-ache, ear-wax, allergies ….you can just forget about it. There’s no help for it in this house.

In a way I appreciate the help. It’s hard on the budget to have to replace everything but it’s not really a bad thing. I like to think that it’s their way of taking care of us.

So, I’m not too worried about my out-of-date items being tossed. They’ve been doing this for us for years. No….I have a new worry. I guess the best name for it would be a sell-to-date.

Am I the only one whose favorite products are gone? I mean really gone! Not just out of stock but never to be replaced. Totally discontinued. I think chapstick is the only product that I like that’s still available.

Hair products used for years….gone. Lipstick color that goes with everything….gone. A favorite mascara….gone. Bath salts enjoyed and loved….gone. Comfortable under-garments….gone (am I really supposed to get used to thongs?)

I loved certain writing pens….gone. Shirts from Lands End that used to fit perfectly….gone. Pants that actually got close to your waistline…gone.

But all of that pales in comparison to the discontinuation of the Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll.   If you want to see what a terrible thing Kraft did, just Google those cheese rolls. Angry, angry women and I’m right there with them. How am I supposed to make my famous garlic cheese grits without that product…..or spinach madeleine? You just can’t do it. The stuff never goes bad so the cognoscenti went out and bought cases of them. I wasn’t among them, alas.

So buy in bulk and hang on to it. Cause if you don’t, when you want it, you’re not gonna be able to get it. The young sales staffers smile at you but you see their pity. When I ask for something old and wonderful and no longer available, I know they’re thinking…..poor old thing.…..I’ll bet she’s got lots of yucky out-of-date products in her cupboard and doesn’t even know it.. Well, they’re wrong about that but I still want my old lipstick and my Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll.

The move was exhausting. What move isn’t? What goes and what stays? Are we doing the right thing? Are we crazy at our age to move to a larger house with no storage? Isn’t this backwards? People said…oh we envy you…you are so brave and adventurous. We’re pretty sure we know what they said when we were out of earshot and we wondered if they weren’t right. But we did it anyway.

The move was even more exhausting than I had imagined. There’s a small…really small…bedroom on the second floor of the new house…right next to the church. It’s more of a cubby than anything else in which I spent the first few weeks after the move, away from the world. One afternoon in the middle of one of my seemingly endless naps the church bells began to chime. In my haze, I assumed they were checking to see if they work (trust me, they worked). I began to count but on and on they went. Surely, I thought, they could figure the problem out faster than that.

We quickly learned that the church bells peal at funerals…..once for every year of the person’s life. How soon we changed our thoughts about the number of times the bells ring. Now when we hear them , we quietly begin to count. We think about the people in the church, honoring the person for whom those bells toll. We say a quiet prayer for each of the souls, the one being honored and the ones in mourning. But perhaps more than anything, we count…slowly and deliberately. One, two, three…..

What we want is for those bells to go on and on……signifying a life lived long and , we hope, well. When the bells stop too soon……(and that changes with our own perspective of a long life)…..we emotionally join the mourners. We’ve heard them stop at thirty…..and hoped that it was a mistake….that the system failed. But it’s fool proof and so we ask ourselves…..why? Why so soon? Not enough time here…..those bells should not be for them. They’re for those who have fulfilled their lives. But it happens, of course. We know that intellectually but, let me tell you, those bells bring it all home. There’s an ache when they stop….a finality, an auditory clamp to the end of that life. They quit as abruptly as they began.

Fleeting, isn’t it? Two or three minutes of bells being rung and it’s over. Suddenly and maddeningly over. If I could go over there and ring those bells some more, I’d do it. I can’t of course. They’re as programmed as our lives and no one can do a bloody thing about it.

The ladies of the swimming pool were discussing the fact that all the towels that were generously supplied by the club for swimmers and sunbathers have been stolen. While I wasn’t surprised, I think that’s pretty poor behavior for club members and their guests. I gather it’s not uncommon but that doesn’t make it right.

I asked one of the swimmers if she’d ever stolen anything. She admitted she had. I asked about it only to find out that in fact she hadn’t. She’d received something in the mail that was not meant for her; she called the store and they said ”Oh, just keep it.”   That’s not stealing.

Later that evening I asked my husband if he’d ever stolen anything. He said he had. I asked when and where and what. He said it had been recently and it was willful, intentional and purposeful. He’s an honest…..to a fault….person so I was a little surprised. I asked where. He told me, and to protect the guilty I will only tell you that it’s a large home goods store that starts with an L and ends with an e’s.   Now I’m shocked and a little concerned. With fear and trepidation, I asked what the item was. He said it was a screw. That indeed he had willfully, intentionally and with purpose paid for 12 screws and taken 13. Is this a throwback to when he used to buy a dozen donuts and get 13 as in a “bakers dozen”? No, apparently not. He felt that the store was charging usurious rates for the screws and so he just helped himself to the 13^th.

Well, of course now I wonder where that screw is. Has he comingled it with all the other screws so I won’t know which one it is? Has it already been screwed in somewhere so it is no longer distinctive as a “purloined screw”? Will I always wonder where it might be? Should I take a screw from one of the thousands in his workshop and return it to L…e’s? Should I call the manager and report the theft? Do I have to accompany him every time he goes to L….e’s to keep an eye on his sticky fingers? (He goes to L….e’s at least twice a day so this could become a hardship on me.) Should I personally go there and make good on the screw? When the MasterCard bill comes in, will I forever look at the amount he spent there and know that it should be 5 cents more?

I’m searching for comfort here. 52 years of marriage and I hadn’t known this side of him. Oh what to do? Will I ever regain the trust I’ve had for all these years? How shall I manage the angst? I think my best advice to myself is to just screw it. Well, not that particular screw….I still feel bad about that one but I’ll get over it.

Addendum:   The Shaming of the Screw

He had returned it. The screw that is. Put it back in the very basket from whence it came. Couldn’t take the heat. I told you he was honest to a fault. Now you know. But I think this is bigger than the screw. Perhaps other perps would like to share their story with me. I’ll write it up, they’ll atone for their high crime or misdemeanor, the world will be a better place. We’ll have to deal with all the flying pigs, of course.