Home Again

Before I fill you in on the details of the rager that was Steve's grandma's 90th, let me tell you about my dreamy return home after 10 weeks.

You know how you walk in the door after a long vacation and your house is sorta clean but not really?   And how you have no food in it?  And how it is the day before school but you have no snacks for them?  And how you have ants *because you live in family housing?  And how it is Sunday so you want to keep the sabbath but also eat so you have to eat rice and refried beans assuming you have some in the pantry?  Maybe some cereal with powdered milk (okay gross I would never do that but I hear some people do.)

Well my friends, let me tell you about my neighbor Clarice.  Her husband is from New Zealand and since we were out of town for the summer, his parents came and stayed in our apartment for a couple of weeks.  As "repayment" to us (since it had absolutely no negative affect on us whatsoever considering the apartment was just sitting here unused) we came home to the following:

1) A brand new refrigerator.  The sealing strip has been busted for four years but we just shut it twice every time, never bothering to report it--Clarice called right away and next thing you know, boom, new fridge.  And someone cleaned behind it which is even more magical and tragic.  Tragical.

2)  A clean house.  I know that I have an amazing husband and I mean this in no way to be offensive to him, but he was here without me when they left.   He packed and took the circus on the road with four kids by himself.  I KNOW that the house was not this clean when he left.  I just know.  All towels were folded and put under the bathroom sink, the floors were vacuumed and swept, and all sheets were clean.  Additionally, she cleaned off the bottom bunkbed and organized all items into a grocery bag.  The kids room was especially marvelous.

3)  This one is going to blow you away.  Ready?  A house full of food.  Picture walking in the door and seeing your kitchen table stocked with enough snacks for kids' lunches for two weeks.  Snacks galore.  Imagine opening your fridge and seeing it full to the brim with fresh fruits, cheese, eggs, milk, yogurt (organic!) and a variety of other goodies.  In the freezer?  Salmon and chicken.  Frozen gogurts for the kids--four boxes.  No lie people.

4)  A new vase and an envelope full of cash.  It is probably tacky to list the amount here but let's just say it is the equivalent of a week's worth of groceries for our family of 6 people.  Since they already provided us with two weeks worth of food, the extra cash seems, well, frankly amazing.

I have never done anything this generous for anyone and you can be sure that I am going to add this to the list of tricks that I would like to pull off at least once in my lifetime.  Isn't it awesome?  I just really am amazed that a woman with five kids of her own, a full blown time consuming job working for housing, and a husband working on a Ph.D took the time to do all of this for us.  If you know Clarice I supposed you are probably not surprised, but wow, awesome, no?

This is on the same day as I received some pretty special hospitality from a friend of mine, Vegas style.  I will share that story next but first I would like to collect a few stories from others--what is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

*Seriously, even if you don't live in FSH, I find that ants are a major pain but if you go with the Terro, you won't regret it.