Women in Every Room

Last Wednesday Clare pulled into our driveway with a carload of Manyu’s family. There was Shau-yu, Manyu’s oldest sister. She is visiting from Bangkok. There were also thirteen-year twins who are the daughters of one of Manyu’s nieces. Shau-yu is here for a week and a half. The two girls, Chien-chien and Ing-ing, will be spending the rest of the summer with us before returning to Taipei just before school starts. With Manyu included in the mix, that is five women staying in my house at the same time.

I like my in-laws and, of course, Manyu and Clare are my life, but five people constantly around me is more than I am accustomed to. At bedtime, the twins go into Clare’s room, and Shau-yu sleeps on a couch in the living room. Clare was here only for a short time before returning to Madison, but during her visit, she camped out in the tv room. With Manyu in the master bedroom, that left only the kitchen and the front porch as places of refuge, and the gnats on the front porch this summer have been bad.

Since the twin’s arrival, I have taken them bicycling, hiking, and paddling. The highlight of their stay, however, hasn’t been any of those things. It was discovering the long wall of ice cream freezers at the supermarket. Both Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs were on sale last week, so Manyu and I gave them carte blanche, and we came home with chocolate chocolate chip, Cherry Garcia, rum raisin, butter pecan, and matcha green tea. I don’t know what matcha is.

In spite of the gnats, I write this blog from the front porch. In addition to my usual coffee and computer, I also brought out a portable fan. If I point the airflow directly at my head, the breeze keeps the bugs out of my hair, my eyes, and my ears. My other option would have been a mesh head net, but since I don’t like wearing a head net in the backcountry I probably wouldn’t like wearing one on the porch.

As I sit here this morning I can gaze up at what might be a Simpson sky. Until a week ago, I’d never heard of the term, but have since learned that a Simpson sky is a smattering of puffy white clouds in an otherwise blue sky. It refers to the cartoon image that appears in the opening credits of The Simpsons tv show. The clouds this morning might be a little too scattered to be a true Simpson sky, but they come close.