SoVo

status check - Happy
background ambiance - Rilo Kiley, "Portions For Foxes" live (10.5.04)

I like to beat my parents home during trips to SoVo. They work most weekends and we make plans to meet up at the house around the time they get home, but I'll generally schedule things so I'm home about an hour before they are. It gives me a chance to look around and smile without having to explain the grin. They always tell me over the phone that they're mixing things up at the house, that it'll look different next time I make the trip - they then get playfully indignant when I reply that things there never wind up looking too mixed up. It's always the same.

In their defense, the place is starting to look different. They'll soon begin bringing some things down to Massachusetts - part of the slow move back to the North Shore that'll probably be completed within a year, two at the most. Things aren't in the same places anymore, as more space (read: less stuff) provides my mother opportunity to get creative in her design. I can tell she's checking off items on her ideal design checklist and making headway - even some of the photos she's been saying she needs to frame for years now have the pewtwer-styled borders she hadn't been able to find.

The things that make me smile - the things that remind me of home - are still the same. A small stack of newspapers are still on the coffeetable - I know my mother has saved them for me because some stories have stood out for her, whether written by myself or someone else. The fleece blanket she always tries to send me home with is folded in the rocking chair - she and I both know that I'll conveniently forget it again because I know she likes it. The game balls and trophies my brother and I earned during high school are still on display on the hutch, right next to the photo of my brother, father and I at the Red Sox victory parade in October. An envelope with tickets to Spring Training games are placed there, too, right in the spot for upcoming trips.

Dad has his golf schedule posted on the refrigerator, placed so he can see it each time he passes through the kitchen. He also has his box of Mike and Ike on hand (and he knows there will be a few missing when he arrives home), and Mom has a bag of Hersey's Kisses in the refrigerator because chocolate always tastes better cold.

He's still clearly trying to convince me that he's going to read the copy of "The Rule of Four" I let him borrow - it's right on the hallway table. Surprising to no one, more progress has been made in the copy of "One Day at Fenway" I gave him for Christmas.

Mom's found more of my college keepsakes and has them in a box for me in my room, in case I want to bring them with me on the return trip.

The bed's made with two pillows and an extra comforter, just the way I like it.

Back downstairs, the piano's positioned where the computer table used to be, and vice versa. A copy of the program for "Midsummer" is on the piano - I don't know if its intentional, the way there's always a theater program casually placed in that area when I come home. I like to think it's their way of reminding me not to give up on the criticism gig.

For now, I'm going to curl up in a blanket and watch TV until they come home and I hear my mother say, "HellOOOOO..." She's going to good-naturedly tease me about my hair (she always prefers it long), Dad's going to try to get me to fix whatever quirky thing the computer's been doing.

So yeah, the place may look a little different, but nothing's really changed. Still home.