OUR MAKESHIFT HOME
‘Thank you for an amazing new apartment’, I heard my son tell me as I awoke on this Saturday morning. Despite the lack of furniture at this new place, to include not having a place to eat, all three children have been really grateful and good about everything.
The morning had an early start with my first driving to the post office with my son so that I can fill out my change of address forms and next to Trader Joe’s where we stocked up on food for the week. I realised it had been at least two weeks or more since I last went to this shop and was surprised to notice that this time there was no line to stand in outside as before. We still wear our masks when we go out shopping though it is not the most pleasant experience albeit necessary as Texas has had an increase in COVID cases in the past two weeks. It seems to me that people are not taking this pandemic as seriously as we should be taking it.
After we arrived home, I left my son home with my oldest to take care of putting the groceries away and took my middle daughter with me to HEB for some more food that we needed, or rather that they wanted. More ice cream and even the whipped cream in a can which my oldest had asked for on Friday but I refused. So I decided to get it and then realised I had the iSi bottle with chargers somewhere in the garage that we could use to make our own whipped cream, other than simply whipping it with a whisk. The girls were excited about this and I was happy to see them happy.
We finally sat down to our breakfast picnic on the balcony around 12,30h. I laid out a duvet cover on the balcony floor and Cinnamon put plates and food in the middle of it. We ate ciabatta rolls with avocado and English cheddar whilst we drank either orange juice or raspberry lemonade. It was a simple but nice breakfast together.
Afterwards, I had about an hour’s time before the internet guy was supposed to arrive to install WiFi. Or so I thought. After that hour passed, I decided to go over to the old place to pack up a few things and take them to the garage and upstairs to our place. The amount of work that goes into disassembling a home is tremendous and will take more time than I realised due to a combination of being incredibly tired of having to pack up everything yet again and walking up all those stairs with as much as I can carry to the new place, having to work, and wanting to spend time at our makeshift home with the kids.
When I returned to the new place well after the internet guy was supposed to be there, I scrolled through my emails and realised that nobody would be coming to install services. I simply had to plug in the old box to the wall connections and wait ten minutes. My son checked that he had access online but the girls did not notice for at least half an hour later. They were ecstatic about finally having WiFi after an entire week without it. So they took advantage of it whilst my son and I went to Home Depot for potting soil and three more herb plants. A sweet mint, peppermint, and oregano. This is in addition to the thyme we bought at Trader Joe’s this morning and the basil I bought a week ago.
As we passed the guest apartment on our way up the stairs to our apartment, we noticed that nobody had moved in as we were told by management. ‘So they lied to us’ I said as we ascended the stairs. We hurried for nothing and it appears that nobody was ever going to move in. Management just wanted us out of that place in order to rush us to make a decision about an apartment and to move out of the old place. Well, our move will take a while longer. At least another two weeks as I have yet to coordinate movers.
We continued up the stairs with only the three herbs. The soil would have to wait until tomorrow when my energy levels were replenished. At that point, I would also have to go find the plant pots in the garage in order to transplant the little plants.
The children were getting hungry so Cinnamon helped prepare dinner. Actually she did most of the work of making Mexican chili as I instructed her how to make it. When I realised that we did not have the special enchilada sauce and the tomato sauce needed, we decided to drive all the way to Central Market to get it. Luckily, there was one bottle of enchilada sauce left. We grabbed a few other items as this was to be the last shopping trip of the week. I couldn’t help looking in the ice cream freezer to see if there was another flavour that we didn’t already have. There was. The chocolate chip cookie dough Haagen-Dasz was a rare find, so I asked my daughter to get it.
‘You know you’ve become a really cool mama as the years passed’, Cinnamon said to me as we drove back home. She also thanked me for taking her to the store and said that most kids wouldn’t be grateful for those little things. She explained that now I let them buy more things they want, such as all the snacks we’ve had lately. I let her know this is more of an exception but that we can get such items from time to time. Though the amount of driving I did today was more than I’ve driven in the past month, it was worth it.
As we once again passed the guest apartment, we noticed the cleaners we had seen earlier in the apartment were now gone, but nobody had moved in. It still bothers me that we were forced out of a place where we could have had beds to sleep in and a dining table and chairs for our meals.
We continued making the Mexican chili with my having to leave once again to go back to the old place for a glass baking dish. We ate on the floor by the kitchen island and had grapes for dessert.
As I was getting ready for the day’s end, before I went to wish the girls goodnight, I heard the now familiar sound of Kamil Habib Habob under my door. This was introduced to me by Saffron a few weeks ago with her great impression of Mr. Camel, especially the ‘hoof’ part. Cinnamon played the SML clip that she knew would make me laugh. The one where the camel pushes the tree log onto Jeffy’s leg. I then went to their room and we watched it again and laughed some more. I wished them a good night, grateful for our time together today.
