Monday...Monday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sN91ggtocc

So I have had many a blog post come and go in the past couple days, but little time to share. I'm passing on MckMamma's Not Me! Monday this week because I just am not in the mood for glib today.

First things first...the Yankees lost to the Angels, which means we are baseball-free until Thursday's all star game. I am surprisingly relieved, and in no need of an intervention. T. Bone has taken it all in stride and is revealing that his athletic abilities extend beyond his physical skills to his attitude and fortitude...a leader not only in hits and home runs, but also in leadership and sportsmanship.

I actually think he was also a little relieved to have a game-free day Sunday so he could spend all day and all night with his cousins swimming in Grandma and Grandpa's pool. My hubby's brother has 4 kids - his 2 youngest are about the ages of my kids and they get along fabulously, but they live a couple hours away. I live vicariously through them as all my cousins are so much younger than I am and lived many hours away. Now that difference in age is negligible, but growing up I missed having cousins sharing the same generation and time zone.

We made ourselves at home at my in-laws Saturday, which I know they would want us to do although I'm not sure that my mother-in-law would dance and sing along to the Led Zepplin blaring through the house (she's more into pop and country than rock), or that my father-in-law would appreciate the boys (young and old) taking over his big screen with video games (he's a sport's fanatic). They are enjoying an extended trip visiting family and 4 or 5 of the 100 places to see before you die. For a new bachelor, I was most impressed by the fixings my brother-in-law fixed for shish kabobs. They were good and tasty. So yummy that we never even made it to the smores.

Sunday...I woke up to a quiet house because the rest of my family stayed at my in-laws and didn't come home until dinnertime. Having the whole day and house to myself was an out of body experience. I took care of some projects, and spent lots of time in thought. I never turned on the radio or the t.v. All day long I was shored up by the sound of the chimes in my yard singing as the day's beautiful breeze played them. I went for a run in the late afternoon and really pushed myself to the point that I am sore today. I love sore muscles. I love aching muscles. I stepped out to pick up the new album by a once local artist we will be seeing Friday. I pretty much came of age listening to Willy Porter, yet I think we're close to the same age. I am going with some of my bestest people and already looking forward to the night because I know everything about it will be good...good company, good wine, good eats, good music, good times. And Willy he's such an old soul. When I learn to play my guitar, this is one of the songs I want to perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DLkwGMUEJ8&feature=related

I plopped his new cd in before I left the parking lot and it felt so comfortable like a pair of my favorite jeans...worn in and familiar. I am so one of those people who like to know the songs before I go to a concert. I take it on like a research project. When I went to see U2 the first time, I picked up their new album, Achtung Baby, just before I got on the rode in my brand new luxury Toyota Tercel to make the 90 mile trek to Mad-town the summer after I graduated. I listened to the tape (that is not a typo) for the hour and a half it took me to get there. I even got out the lyrics and was reading along as I drove, praying in between songs that I wouldn't run myself or someone else off the road. By the time I made it, I knew all the songs. Willy's music is different...it just resonates with me and I find that I feel like I already know the songs.

I digress...back to Sunday. Here's the thing...there was no one here except my cats and the fox napping in my neighbor's yard, but I didn't feel alone. I felt my Mom with me and my Grandma too. First of all it was the chimes...my Mom's chimes. But it was also her jewelry box. I was trying to wrap my mind around some difficult decisions with regard to some of her jewelry and out of the clear blue the music started playing. Now I have moved this jewelry box from her house to my house, I put pieces in and taken bobbles out many a time, but the jewelry box has never made one single solitary peep. In fact, I didn't even know it was a music box until yesterday. I almost didn't know that it was the first gift my father ever gave my mother until just before she died. How is it that she didn't tell me that in 38 years until days before she passed? It gives me goosebumps. It makes me feel robbed when I think of all the things that she never got the time to share with me. I talked not to her, but with her.

Later I was making my Grandma's coveted tuna salad for the potluck we had at work today. My Grandma was a confident cook (a caterer actually) and the kind of cook who never relied on an exact recipe. That's the kind of presence in the kitchen that I aspire to be. Over the years in kitchens beside her, I managed to take away some of her many tricks of the trade. The last time I attempted her tuna, I failed miserably though. Yesterday, she talked me through it. She reminded me that although there isn't a recipe, precision is key. The carrots must be finely shredded and then drained, substituting onions for the scallions is a "no-no," no-fat or low-fat mayo are the enemy and only Albacore tuna fits the bill. She reminded me that I have to make it in advance so that the flavors have plenty of time to "marry." Thanks to her tutelage, it was good enough that I came home with an empty bowl, much to my dismay.

It made me hope that my Mom and her erstwhile mother-in-law were in cahoots yesterday to lift me up...to be there for me enjoying their own big delicious bowl of Rosie's tuna. Before my Mom died, I told her to come to me often. To that she replied with a certainty that told me she already had information I was not privy to, "I will when I can?" I didn't exactly embrace that response, but I think I'm beginning to accept it and understand it now. I definitely know..I'll take what I can get.