( The Father calls during half- time-)

Mummy Dearest : Uh, well, I think Portugal is the stronger team.

The Father: Look at the bright side – I’m the only one in the pool that said that Portugal would win.

Mummy Dearest: And -of course- then I won’t have to watch anymore football.

( The Baby is sitting on the floor of my little room of my own, hunched over a piece of paper. She tells me that she is writing a love letter to Hugo )

The Baby : Actually ( her word of the month), I can’t write very well.

Mummy Dearest : That’s ok. I don’t think that Hugo can read very well.

Tomorrow, for the very first time, I shall be overtly bribing the children. I have been quite open with them about it- after all, it is an overt action, isn’t it – sat them down upon my knees and said : on Thursday I am going to the Big City. I need to get out of the house. I know that you hate staying at school for lunch, but if you do this for me, I shall bring you each a small surprise from the Big City.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when The Baby started school, I imagined a long line of Thursdays in the Big City stretching out ahead of me. It worked, for a while. Then The Baby had the lunch- from- hell at school and I knew that it would take a very long time before she could face another attempt to stay over.

Months have passed and our stock is low. The Boy needs new sandals for this summer, The Girl a newer and larger sized array of clothing to fling across her bedroom floor. The Baby needs some purple clothing, so that she dresses herself in a somewhat color co-ordinated fashion. I have a serious case of cabin fever and find myself coveting a small key ring holder that I spied in the City a few weeks ago.

I have all of the lunch makings on hand- fresh buns, small sized bottles of everyone’s favorite drink, a miniature bag of wine gums to slip into each lunch.

I bought a bus ticket today.

Tomorrow, I’m blowing this joint, leaving mummy-hood behind me for a few hours.

Plus, I always bring something home for the kids when I venture out to the Big City anyways. I’ve just never told them about it beforehand.

As I sit here. a little past 7.30 pm, I can hear the sounds of heavy things being tossed into a metal container. Sticking my head out of the door a few moments ago, attempting to catch a glimpse of The Boy ( who is now officially late, as his school evening curfew is 7.30), I saw that the noise was coming from B.V. They are busy tossing large things into a metal container. After all, the end of the month is coming up and the B.V. buildings are being sold.

B.V. building was originally three large houses that were bought up about 10 years ago , converted into a lovely group of offices, showrooms and storage rooms and was rezoned for business. That is in itself rather odd, as not any old place in our town can suddenly be zoned for business, and especially not on our street : we only have about 12- 15 buildings on our street. Not a big street at all.

The owners were originally trying to rent the complex, but after about a year, I suppose that they realized that no one was willing to pay 100,000 euro rent per year. And so a week or two ago, we noticed they had changed the signs: from for rent to for sell.

And The Father just covets these buildings. When I caught his drift, I was like, what is this, Monopoly and you want to own everything on this street ? But he just loves these buildings. Maybe if he sells the company and starts a new one ? A new building ?

Whatever. He asked me to find out the price.

There was nothing on their website ( yes, they have a website just for this building). Last week I walked over to the agency handling the building : if you have to ask- implied the blank space where the price should have been , next to the photo- you can’t afford it. It seems that in order to find out the asking price, one would actually have to call the agency.

This afternoon, before we set out the bucket, plugged in the weed-eater, The Baby and I ran over to the pharmacy to pick up some more I- sneeze- a- lot pills for me. As we walked down the street, she climbed up on the high stoop by B.V. and then jumped off of it and into my arms, as she does every time that we pass the building.

I had just caught her in my arms when a man biking by stopped and commented to me upon what a lovely complex B.V. was. I agreed with him, enthusiastically . He remarked that the interior needed a lot of work, but it certainly was big enough.

And he then told me the asking price.

Bingo.

All The Father needs is 2.5 million euro. Although I think it could be gotten for 2.1, maybe even a bit less.

Har !

( A picture of the three building complex- taken from it’s site-)

This afternoon, I tossed the dogs in the shed and mowed the lawn. When The Baby came home from school, I gave her a bucket of water and she stripped down to her undies and played with the water while I did- as she called them – shores, pulling weeds, trimming the edges of the lawn.

I guess I’ve always taken care of the yard- to whatever extent it is cared for. Even mowing the lawn. I can recall being 9 months pregnant with each child and pushing my rickety lawn mower up and down the yard, my arms fully extended. I liked that lawn mower. It was about 60 years old and had migrated up here from my Dad’s place in Italy. It was old when he got it.

And then one day, about two years ago, The Father came home from the handy-man store with a new lawn mower. One of those things that you plug in , that roars , that sends bits of grass flying around your ears. Of course, that thing wasn’t for me, no, I was happy with my old mower. It was for The Father. After 11 years of having a lawn, he bought himself a boy-toy and mowing the lawn became his job.

He threw my little lawn mower away.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time to him. But as time has passed, the charms of his new lawn mower have faded, his enthusiasm for cutting the grass, gone. Before he left , he said to me a number of times ‘Shit ! Let me cut that grass for you before I go’. But he didn’t. It slipped his mind and I’m not the nagging type of wife. After all, it’s just grass, nothing that I’ve been sheltered from all of my life, kept in ignorance about.

The weather has been iffy today- will it rain, won’t it. I decided today would be a good day to do phase one of cutting the grass. You see, the grass is almost knee- high and I didn’t think any lawn mower could handle that and so pulled out that weed-eater thing and trimmed the grass down somewhat, to about 4- 6 inches high.

The Boy has agreed to show me how to use Papa’s lawn mower ( having had many father-son afternoons) on Sunday.

Guess that mowing the lawn has just become my job once more.

Listening to The Girl trying to explain a recent incident is rather like downloading a torrent. A thousand tiny pieces come shooting out, in no logical order at all. One simply has faith that all of the pieces will eventually come in and then form a tidy little tale.

The children have had to remove their streamers and pennants. I’m not quite sure why. I’m still downloading the story.

(The Father- of course- being the cat)

He’ll never know.

At times, I can be very thoughtless. Not intentionally so, but still, thoughtless to an almost callous degree.

Many, many years ago, after I had been living here for a short while, for some reason, The Father and my Dad asked me what they should do with me if I died, suddenly. Oddly enough, it didn’t take me more than a few seconds to realize exactly what I really wanted : I wanted to be buried in the family plot, next to Mom. Sortof a back to the womb kindof thing.

Over the years, my father has brought this topic up again- a number of times in fact. After Bucky died and was planted in the same plot, I made him swear upon all that he held holy that he wouldn’t put me next to her. ‘I want to be on the other side’, I told him , rather sternly. He looked me in the eye and promised me that he would respect my wishes. And then he gave me one of his smiles, one of those smiles that I can read so well : a smile that said to me ‘like you are going to know whether I put you on the right side or not’.

A week or so ago, The Father and I headed down to Belgium, to our favorite restaurant, for our annual asparagus menu. We made it just before the season officially ended, although in this day and age, I suppose that the asparagus season never really ends, does it ?

We invited The Father’s parents to go with us. As we sat there, chit chatting before the food came, The Father’s father asked us if we had plans for what should be done when we died. The Father told him that I would be planted in Concord and said that, for himself, cremate him and throw his ashes into the four winds. He had never said anything like that before. In fact, he told me- once- that he wanted all of the trimmings, at the church in Loon, a list of Pink Floyd and Genesis songs playing in the background.

His father was appalled. He said that our children would want to have a place to go to, to…commune with us. Which is- of course- just the reason that- all things being considered-I would rather be in Concord : I won’t be in whatever hole that I am placed in- I shall be gone. Would rather not be the source of some guilt trip ( “And, when’s the last time you went to see mom, huh. huh, huh ?”)

But I realized that the plans that I made, so long ago, should be changed, perhaps. The Father and I have been together for 23 years.

Perhaps, if we continue on together, we should end up in side by side holes in the earth.

But you know, in the Netherlands, you can’t buy a plot that lasts forever. If your descendants don’t pay the fees, they dig you up and…and…I don’t know what they do with your moldering bones, the poor mementos placed within your coffin.

Not that I would ever notice, I suppose.

The Boy and I watch the game together. I am a very poor replacement for some one who knows what they are talking about. For most of the game, The Boy assures me that everything is simply going fine. We do, however, have moments when both of us simply close our eyes, hug each other and wait to see what has happened.

We both think that Dr. Evil ( Stam) played a stunning game.

Suppose that I shall have to invite the Waltons over for the next match-

Have someone about who can say something sensible-

Sitting on the arm of the couch in the living room, talking to The Father on the telephone, I can hear a terrible racket outside, coming nearer to our house.

As I chat away, a group of about 50 bikers passes not 2 meters away from the window I am looking out of. They are all wearing orange clothing. Their faces are painted orange. They have silly ( read : stupid) orange hats on and their bikes are festooned with acid orange balloons.

Each biker also has a special horn or tooter of some sort, which when pushed, bellows like a cow.

I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a cattle stampede, something right out of Rawhide.