I have "people rugs" today.  Every pillow in the house is being slept on except mine, and every room except the bathroom has a body in it.   Our British house guest is tucked into Son Number One's room for the week, while SNO and his two friends sleep on the floor and the couch in the den A.K.A. "The Pirate Room".   On the floor in front of the fireplace on an inflated mattress is the girlfriend of Son Number One who arrived last night.  Son Number Two is still asleep in his room, but about to be awakened to get to the airport in time for a flight back to school.  We even remembered to take the Christmas picture yesterday.  Both leaves are still in the table in the kitchen from Thanksgiving, and the dishwasher is getting a medal for work above and beyond the call of duty.  We had five loads yesterday and still aren't done.

They all leave today except for the Englishman, and the house will be quiet and haunted for a bit.  In three weeks my boys come back for more flight traumas and adventures and Christmas will be upon us.  I can't wait.

I have had no desire to go anywhere these last few days.  The mall holds no lure for me.  I am not panicking about buying stuff for Christmas.  I (and pretty much everyone else I know) have enough stuff and more.  The treasure of food, a warm house, healthy kids who feel free to invite their friends for holidays, knowing there will be chaos and mismatched plates and a warm welcome has already filled my heart to bursting.  There was an insane game of Pictionary for eight last night and laughter that shook the walls.  The idea of board games came from Son Number One, which surprised me.  For once there were no noses in computers or audio cords streaming down necks.  And when I gave up in exhaustion the game of "Lord of the Rings Risk" began and was going strong in the wee hours of the morning when I texted from upstairs to "keep it down, please".  Who needs an X-Box when you've got this?

I will start Christmas caroling tonight, which is probably a good thing since I'll need a bit of cheering up with my echoing house.  But what a privilege to be surrounded with all this wonderful noise for a few days.  My dear friend Flanagan was describing my home years ago to a mutual friend who now lives in California and hasn't met my clan except through letters and photos and e-mails.  He told her "If you scratch the walls in this house, the love oozes out."   Martha Stewart, eat your heart out!

I've been up since 4:30 this morning listening to the wind howl.  Son Number Two is flying home for Thanksgiving this morning in the middle of rain, wind, and thunder.  I've come to expect this.  There is never a trip to or from Ohio that is not fraught with peril.  If it isn't weather it's a missed connection.  If it isn't either of those it's the flu.  One way or another, that poor kid never catches a break.

He is a charmer, really.  He has a great smile, and a kind heart.  What he has done to annoy the Powers That Be is a complete mystery to me, but somewhere along the way he must have set them off.  I have a few days off from both jobs and will spend the weekend doing singing "gigs", four Masses, two funerals, and a Christmas tree lighting between now and Tuesday.  This is fun, and my preferred way to make money, although it won't pay the mortgage yet.  The best part is that it puts me (except for the tree lighting) in a place where I can dump my problem in God's lap and hope S/He doesn't stand up.  On second thought, I can (and do) do just that no matter where I am, but you know what I mean.

I once read, and I believe, that once you have a child it's like wearing your heart on the outside of your body for the rest of your life.  The vulnerability is painful.  There isn't a blessed thing I can do to protect them anymore except pray, and I do that, but I hold my breath until they are tucked into their beds, even if it's only while passing through from one place to another.  A dear friend from Wales has arrived bringing photos and gifts and memories of my other dear friend who passed away in February and after whom we named Son Number Two.  There is a picture of SNT at the age of about four, sitting on a high stool at the counter in the kitchen in Wales and laughing hysterically at something outrageous.  I'm sure it was a fart joke.  They usually were if they got that big a laugh.  He's a physics major now and doing very well, but he still hasn't lost that sense of joy and abandon. 

So, United Airlines, you'd better take care of the Joy Boy and get him home in time for turkey because Mom needs one more thing for which to be grateful, and that will be a beaut.

OK.  I'll admit it.  I'm beginning to panic just the tiniest bit.  Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away.  A week from Monday a friend arrives from Wales for a ten day visit.  On top of the two jobs I already have, I am starting to get some caroling "gigs".  And, as usual, I am less than a step ahead of the Board of Health when it comes to the house.
Now the good news is that our town has just instituted those huge trash bins for each home, one for trash, one for recycles.  They sit in the garage for most of the week, and we fill them with the odd little bag here and there, then roll them out to the street where the massive trucks load and dump them mechanically.  Our bins are almost empty, though, and for some reason this is bugging me.

It is becoming a challenge to try to fill those babies more every week.  Somehow, if I make this into a game it becomes easier to tidy up.  My Saturday morning will be split between piles of leaves (they pick them up anytime after 7:00AM, so the game there is  "How many bags can I fill before I hear the truck?") and how much can I fit into the new bins so it doesn't feel like a total waste of time for the poor sanitary engineers to lift them onto the truck.

It's amazing what you find you can live without.  What I used to consider treasures I now look at, shrug, and pitch in total confusion.  "Huh?"  I say to myself, "Why did I hang onto THIS?"  My hopes are high for the weekend.  My only current problem is that buried somewhere in the landfill which is my home is the head of the vacuum cleaner, and that's going to slow me down until it floats to the top.

The older I get the less I want around me, although you would certainly never guess that if you saw the house.  Himself says if we ever move, we are each allowed "one prayer mat, one saffron robe, and one rice bowl" and it sounds tempting.  To each piece of memorabilia (a polite word for "junk") there is a memory attached with a steel cable.  The monologue in my head goes like this:  "God, that's ugly.  But Mom gave it to me, so I can't throw it away."  Every so often I manage to grapple with the idea that the "present" is not "Mom" so I actually CAN throw it away, although I might take a picture of it before I do.  You get the idea.  Multiplied by three hundred items at a conservative estimate, and I've got some work to do.  The fun part is once in a while I unearth something I haven't seen or thought about in years, and it's like going shopping without spending any money (which is also how I viewed my bridal registry).  So now it's off to work at both jobs before plunging head first into the piles tomorrow.  I may not be seen again until spring.

The frenzy of baseball is over for another year.  The Halloween candy (thank God) is gone.  I have gone back to Weight Watchers to face the music (the song was not pretty) and it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and another New England winter.  Oh, and the first anniversary of my mother's death, which appears to be a bigger and crankier bear than I was expecting to disturb in what looked like a quiet cave.

November is not my favorite month around here and it never has been.  December has Christmas, January has the freshness of a new year, as yet unspoiled by news headlines and personal tragedies.  February ...well there's not much you can say about February in New England except it's short.  But from March through May is gorgeous with flowers and longer days and hope, and the summers are the target of vacationers from all over the world, and our autumn displays are breathtaking.  But November....November sits there with its piles of leaves gathered around its feet and it reminds me of a few "mornings after the party" which I'd rather forget.  And now there has been a whole year of being a superannuated orphan and here it is again.  I'm not ready.

I am endlessly grateful that both my sons will be home for the holiday.  Son Number One has invited two friends for the feast, and his girlfriend will arrive the day after for a visit.  We have a priest friend flying in from England for the week, which will be a treat, and although I haven't yet counted the number that will be gathered around my table, it will certainly be well over a dozen.  We have a "cozy" (real estate code for "tiny") house with one bathroom.  I'm preparing an artistic sign for the bathroom door which will read "No Printed Material Allowed Beyond This Point" since we'll have eight people and one loo for several days.  I have told my son to warn his friends that we are much closer to the Weasly home from the Harry Potter series than we are to Downton Abbey.

Amid all this cheerful chaos are the memories of missing friends and families.  There were other Thanksgivings when the "other" English priest was here, the one after whom we named Son Number Two.  And while my father-in-law will bring the world's best pies (seriously), my mother-in-law will be in her own world in the nursing home where we will visit her, but not really.  There will be too many seats at the table which will feel empty, even though every chair will have an occupant.

Still, this is part of the lessons of aging.  Learning how to let go and keep present those we love is a delicate balancing act.  I'm getting fairly good at it, what with all the practice I've had, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  

I am as thrilled as every other Bostonian that the Red Sox won the World Series, but I will not be at the "Rolling Rally" today as it snakes its way through town making traffic even less reasonable than usual.  Crowds have never been my thing.  The bombing in April at the Marathon didn't do anything to change that feeling, but it didn't make it any worse either.  I just don't like crowds and never have.  Sports crowds in particular make me nervous.  The euphoria over "WE WON!" turns some people into total idiots.  And by the way, "WE" did not win.  "We" sat at a bar, or on our couches or, if we were really lucky, in a seat at Fenway Park, and cheered the Sox.  The Sox won.

If Son Number One wasn't away at school I'm sure he would be there.  His girlfriend sent me a video of him at the very moment of the last out when the Common Room erupted in shouts and my son lost his mind.  It was a wonderful video, and I have never seen a happier face.  But this is the third time in his lifetime that he has seen this.  He doesn't get it.  My father (and many, many other people) went to their graves never having seen one win.  But we have always loved the Sox anyway.  Even (and maybe especially) when they were at the bottom of the barrel.  Opening Day at Fenway there were two jokes every year.  One: "There'll be no beer at Fenway this year because the Sox lost the Opener" and two, to be said as you were getting off the train to walk the block to the park before the game: "Wait 'til next year!"  We were fans, and as loving as the mother of the ugliest baby ever born.

But hooray for the Red Sox, whom I always love (is there a "Koji" doll available somewhere?) and for Big Papi, who could run for mayor of Boston and win, although he is not allowed to run for President.  It has been a wonderful season and a lot of fun.  And we are all looking forward to an extra hour's sleep this weekend because after last week, boy, do we need it!