(Can I just start by saying that I cannot believe I did not blog about this when it happened?)

Before Flash left for the summer (yes, you in the back, I know I haven’t blogged in forever…) we decided to have a special night out together. I had been to Monaco Bay (made famous by our own Matt Giraud) a few times with TB and others, but Flash was eager to see what all the fuss was about. I took him on a Friday night at 7 for their special “Dinner Show”.

Note: Before I even start let me say this: I know that a bar is no place for a child. And I know first-hand how out of hand these places can get as the evening progresses. On the times I had been there previously, I found it was a great place to be until about midnight and then every bachelorette around seemed to think it was a great place for a drunken party. In any case, I also knew that this “dinner hour” was supposed to be quite tame, a FAMILY event even…so, with caution…I proceeded)

Flash was thrilled to be there. We checked with the bouncer at the door to verify that Flash could indeed come in, he just had to leave by 9. (The bouncer did tell us that if the evening was pretty slow, they often let minors stay a bit longer, it was up to the parent’s discretion.) There was another family with two younger children across the restaurant, so all seemed well.

Within a half hour, however, the first bachelorette party arrived, complete with bobbling penises upon their heads. I was mortified to be sitting there, having dinner with my teenage son, but we had just ordered our greatly overpriced dinner, so we decided to stick it out. Bachelorette #1 proceeded to give Flash a great visual lesson in “what happens when a girl drinks too much” out on the dance floor. I tried to use it as a teachable moment.

By 8, two more bachelorette parties had arrived and set up shop. One party brought along their very own 3 foot-tall inflatable penis and put it on the table. Luckily (?!) Flash had his back to this table and missed out on all the antics that accompanied said penis.

The other party was fairly tame, except for the attire of the bride-to-be. Flash again took note of exactly how bizarre people act when they are drunk. Teachable moments abounded.

Around 8:30, one of the piano players took a request for “Leroy Brown”. In an effort to encourage crowd participation I suppose, he solicited the family with young children seated in front of the stage. He informed the kids that while parents might tell you not to swear, if you’re just singing song lyrics, it’s not really swearing! He taught them the words to the chorus and then encouraged them to sing along LOUDLY as the crowd belted it out one last time. “…baddest man in the whole $#%! town…” Ahem. Flash stared at me in disbelief. Yes, son, this is how adults can behave badly even when they are sober.

By 9 the retirement party in front of us started to get a little loud. The otherwise tame over-50 crowd was now doing shots alongside the bachelorettes and the retiree (a school teacher nontheless) was now dancing on the table in front of Flash. Sigh.

We decided to depart.

The piano playing was lackluster at best. Their newest talent is lacking just that. It just isn’t the same without Matt at the keys. I’m glad I was there a few times to hear him sing and watch him perform with personality before he moved on to stardom.

I’m sure that nights like these won’t help me earn Mother of the Year, but I expect Flash and I will giggle about it for a long time to come!

He was a fifth grader stationed there only to hold the door but saw me sitting outside the cafeteria and struck up a conversation about his latest feat of shooting (and then eating) a squirrel. He was a delightful child with sweet manners and disposition. He paused in his recollection of his adventure to ask me, “Do you hunt?” He started to shake his head like it was silly of him to have asked a woman if she hunts, but then he said, “No, really, do you?”

“No,” I replied with a smile. “I don’t hunt.”

“Does your husband hunt?” he questioned back.

“I don’t have one of those,” I replied again with a smile.

“You’re not married?” he asked with an element of surprise that I ascribe to his disbelief that a woman of my age could possibly still be single.

“No, I’m not married.”

“Not yet, you mean,” he said correctingly.

His optimism far outreaches my own on that topic, but just for the day, I let that phrase roll through my mind with hope.

Not yet.

Oh I know, I signed the papers, I’ve surely moved by now and yet no blogging.

Suffice it to say, I am aware.

But I’m also a little overwhelmed by all the decisions required of me at the moment (from where should ziplocs live, to how long can we go mooching off my sister’s trash service?) and deciding what witty thing to say on a blog post is just low on the priority list. For now.

Pictures, you say? Oh yeah, I could post those. Of cardboard boxes and pictures strewn all over the living room. You could see the guest room without a bed (what? I have to sleep on something!) and my closet the moving catch-all room. But I’ll save you from that. At some point, when I have things more in the general place of where they might live, and when I have a few things on the walls (curtains at the very least) that help make the house a home, I promise I’ll show you my favorite things about the house.

So bear with me.

Besides, NaNoWriMo is only a couple weeks away. You might as well get used to me not blogging.

The last time I signed papers such as these I felt resigned. I was glad to be buying my first home, sure, and grateful for the gift that it was, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I felt as though I had settled for less than my dream. Which is to be expected in a first home, I’m certain.

And since that time, since the leap back to the Midwest, since the change in careers, since all the risks we’ve taken to get here, I have prayed for this moment.

And so here I sit. Looking around my apartment. To the wall that beheld the “Welcome to Michigan!” sign my sister made for us two years ago. To the couch and loveseat, tattered, worn and aged that I have made-do with while I put our money aside for a house, not new furniture. To the handful of plants that survived the move, and have sustained themselves on limited sunlight. To the puppy that I promised a yard to.

In two hours I will sign the papers. And they will hand me my keys. Keys to a yard. To a garden. To arched doorways and a fireplace. Keys to a home with a guest room. To a lawn with flowers and trees. To a deck and falling autumn leaves. To pantry shelves in the basement awaiting my canned fruits and sauces.

It’s a place where I can finally play the piano again. Where we can snuggle up in front of a fire during the long cold Michigan winter. To a yard where we can run and play with the puppy and enjoy his excitement and freedom. To a kitchen with an east window where we will sit together and eat breakfast, sit together to pray.

This afternoon I feel like I am finally coming home. Finally coming to MY home. To the home I always wanted my boy to have.

It’s a blessing I do not deserve. But one I will forever be grateful for.

Home.

I have decided that packing is overrated. Much to my sister’s dismay, I just don’t see what the fuss is all about. I guess once you’ve moved halfway across the country on 10 days’ notice, packing to move across town just seems like overkill. We have a few things packed (Jules made me do it) and beyond that we figure we’ll throw some things in the car, drive over and take it out. The big stuff will all get moved by some very helpful people in a week or so. Beyond that, it just doesn’t seem to concern me.

Which is good, because my closing has been postphoned. We hope it’s just being pushed from tomorrow to Friday, but working with the government, I won’t hold my breath on that. While I was thrilled to work summer school and bring in some money over those months, FHA seems to have some questions about my position, my salary and my contract. Oiy. We hope we’ve given them the necessary documentation, but if I’ve learned anything, assuming anything is well, a bad idea.

Along with having no closing date, I have no voice. My annual favorite-season allergies have kicked in and while I tried to combat them with a duet of o-t-c solutions, I am still left with more snot than any one person should contain and no voice. A balance of less of one and more of the other would be welcome.

So while my sister hopes that I put more things into cardboard cubes, and the government partners with God in trying to teach me patience, and my son sulks because I won’t allow him to use his computer unless he sacrifices his ipod (a trade made necessary by routine abuses of my generous computer allowances for homework purposes – but a trade he deems entirely unfair and unwarranted) I think I shall take my sorry, tired, snot-infested, mean-mother self to bed.

And hope it’s one of the last times I do so in this particular location.

Oh to have such problems!