Melville at Night

Points of interest:

The second window from the top left is slightly ajar. It is now, as it often has been, propped open by a small blue plastic elephant that appeared in my room one day. The first two windows on the left are mine.

The next two windows are Michelle's room, where she is, right now, peeling and cutting five green apples and talking on the phone with a boy. When her phone rang, we both guessed who it would be. As she flipped open her phone and walked from the kitchen, I heard her say, "I'm taking my apples with me."

The bottom two left windows are the kitchen, where I was (until I went outside to get a blanket from my car and ended up taking this picture) cutting watermelon into heart-shaped chunks, with a cookie cutter that disintegrated just as the job was done. Michelle (in her room) and I (in the kitchen) are both preparing our contributions for a Tea and Testimony party two ward friends are having after church tomorrow. We'll drink herbal tea and eat mini-apple turnovers and heart-shaped watermelon chunks and talk about how the Lord has blessed our lives recently. It will be a good Sabbath.

The bottom two right windows are the windows to our eating room, what I began to call the Cupcake Room after Reija's birthday cupcake extravaganza. (You can see the curtains Reija bought and hung for our first Christmas at Melville.) Michelle and I ate beef stroganoff there two hours ago (at 9 pm)--she made it with mustard, as per the infallible instructions of Rachael Ray. Also, two hours ago, there I demonstrated for Michelle what my moving this Wednesday will be like. She was a large slice of nectarine (bruised, significantly); I was a small one. The beef pieces came (my movers) and packed my stuff off to the right side of the table (DC). My nectarine slice flew from the plate it shared with Michelle over the table and through the air, landing (just north of the beef pieces) on my plate, which happened to be covered with stroganoff gravy. "The gravy of my family's love," I explained to her.

She said the move is now, finally, clear to her.

Actually, no, she didn't. I totally just made that up. I think she's in denial.

And the dark windows (which you can't see) to the right of Michelle's windows are the glass that protects a sleeping KT from a Palo Alto night. Karren has been working hard for work and hard for Prop 8 (it's newly her assignment to rally ward members to support California's initiative to state constitutionalize marriage as between only a man and a woman), but she is, gratefully, asleep now in her wide, white bed.

Beneath palm leaves and moonlight, Melville wants Reija.