So what's special about Friday?

There are Chinese textbooks on the table in front of me, and christmas cards, and remnants of breakfast and my father’s work binder and a blender. I don’t know why there is a blender. My coffee sits beside me, growing cold, because there is no driving urge to gulp it down and run out the door. Yesterday, I made the long, difficult journey (read: two hours on pretty much the same highway) to my parents’. Or maybe home, I haven’t quite figured out the semantics. It’s not exactly home, and not exactly not home. 

The kids are in the living room watching Lord of the Rings. I think my return to the homestead was mostly anticipated because I promised that I would come with said trilogy. At least they had the decency to wait until I had been here for nearly half an hour before asking if I’d remembered. 

The kids. There are so many reasons to be glad I’m not with them every day. And there are so many reasons to be sad that I’m not with them everyday.

“I like it,” my 10 year old brother said, regarding my sweater which was long on the sides, short in the back. “But I don’t understand it.”  I told him that he didn’t really have to understand clothes, particularly not women’s clothes. Just tell them that they look nice, my sister and I explained.

***

“I don’t understand why people buy books,” my 14 year old brother said. I suggested he move, before I leaped across the seat between us and hurled him to the ground. He recanted. 

***

On the ride home from sledding, huddled under the toboggan, the 10 year old turned to me. “You know what I just realized? You’re only 13 years older than me. Isn’t that creepy?”

“Creepy? What’s creepy about that?”

“Well, 13 doesn’t seem like that much, and you are so much older than me.”

So much older. 23 is nearly ancient. I’ll be an antique when he’s 23.

***

“I can’t hear you, you talk too quietly,” my 9 year old sister said. 

“That’s because I don’t feel the need to shout all the time,” I said, “Unlike some people in my family.”

“I still love you,” she said, as though this was the obvious response to my statement, as though vocal levels led to love. 

***

“Did you do your Christmas shopping yet?” my 19 year old brother asked me. I replied in the negative. I haven’t even entirely registered that this is the week before Christmas. We stopped at our grandparents after sledding:

“Well, if I don’t see you before, I’ll see you Friday,” my grandmother said.

“Friday?” I looked at her blankly. “What’s Friday?”