He Said, he said, Volume 7

January 2025

January came in cold and a bit snowy, but mostly just freezing. Before I catch us up, though, I have to rewind to Christmas and tell you about the excitement.

I should rephrase.

Not excitement. Horror. At least for my offspring and their friends.

The house the kids were supposed to move into, it turned out that the very nice man who leased it to them had issues with the renters who were supposed to move out at the first of the year.

As in, they didn’t want to leave. When he insisted, they trashed the place.

And by trashed, I mean—he’s taking them to court.

From what Kola told me, there were issues with a sledgehammer being taken to the walls.

It was horrible. I believe the owner documented everything, but what that meant was that the house was no longer available.

The boys—and I need to stop calling them that because all of them are in their early twenties now—basically broke down.

Both Wick and Finn had given up their apartments already, and things looked a bit dire.

The only one who didn’t anticipate the worst was Jake.

The reason, of course, being simple. Jake always assumes everything will work out.

I suspect that this is because he’s in love with my daughter.

Hannah makes sure, if it’s within her power to do so, that the road in front of him is always clear.

After making phone calls herself, not asking either her father or I, nor her uncle Aaron or uncle Dane to intercede, Hannah found a place that worked for everyone.

She got them all down there on Christmas Eve to look at the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom condo in the Central Hyde Park area.

The floors were all hardwood, there was central heat and air, which was amazing, and the parking was not completely horrible.

Still a bit of a schlep, and everyone needed a sticker for where they were allowed to put their cars, but that was all right.

Hannah had a tarp for her baby that apparently locked and was heated.

I didn’t ask. The best news was that it was only a fifteen-minute walk to campus, and as Hannah said, she had supercute white boots and a new puffer coat to make the trip in.

So disaster was averted, and even better, each of the rooms was soundproofed, so nobody had to hear what anyone else was doing once the door was closed.

I thought that was a bonus. The only bad part about the apartment was, there was no outside to decorate.

They had a very small balcony that they wrapped lights on, around the wood railing, but that was about it.

This meant that my children were available to do the yearly decorating of the backyard.

No one did the roof, we had guys that came over yearly, the wonderful team from Delano Landscaping headed still by Ray Delano, now junior, the owner.

It used to be his father back in 2017, but the elder Delano has since retired.

They put Santa and Rudolph and the rest of the gang on the roof, as well as the lights that are all on a switch so all of the illumination happens every night on a timer.

The lights not on the house are a whole other story.

“I’m sorry, what’s happening?” Finn asked me while poor Wick bent over, trying really hard not to hyperventilate.

“They’re checking the lights in the oak trees,” I explained.

“It’s fine,” Hannah assured him, munching on a bag of Flamin’ Hot Funyons.

I was not a fan, probably because I could only eat maybe ten before I needed a glass of milk.

I used to be much better with spice but find, lately, that those days have passed.

“They’re using the harnesses from when they were wilderness leaders or something like that. It’s what the logging guys use.”

Finn looked at her, not at all, if his horrified expression was any indication, comforted and then back at Kola, thirty feet up in the air. Harper was in the next one over, and Jake was up the highest, in our ancient oak that had been big when we moved in, a good fifty feet off the ground.

“If you guys find any of the Halloween stuff up there,” Hannah called out, “bring it down. You know how scared the neighbors get when the spiders just fall out on their cars and stuff.”

“Why don’t you come up and do it yourself,” Kola yelled down to her.

“Ohmygod, will you let me?” she asked excitedly, passing me the Funyons.

“Sure, why not?”

“No!” Jake and Harper both bellowed back.

“Have you lost your mind?” Harper snapped at my son.

“She thinks it’s a bungee and starts hopping all over the place,” Jake snarled at him. “Do you want her to fall because she’s messing around?”

Hannah grunted and turned to me. “I totally want to do the climbing.”

“Absolutely not, Danger Girl,” I scolded her.

She glanced at Finn. “No one will let me express myself.”

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Wick announced.

“How long will this take?” Finn yelled up to Kola.

“We just got up here,” he answered, and then we all heard him gasp at the same time.

“Jesus, what?” Finn thundered, running to the base of the oak that Kola was in.

“There’s a racoon family up here,” he said, sounding pretty happy. “B, send me up some fruit and peanuts.”

She was on it and filled the basket and had Finn use the pulley system to get it up there to his boyfriend. It helped to give him something to do.

“Aww, Finn, they’re so cute,” we all heard Kola’s voice get all soft and sweet.

And I saw Kola’s boyfriend take a breath and realize that everything was going to be all right.

I had to comfort Wick a bit more, especially when Harper had to rappel over and help Kola create a temporary nest for the racoons.

Jake would have to make them a real shelter like we had for the squirrels.

Last year, we had a live tree that was planted, by Delano’s as well, after Christmas, so this year, after years of only having real trees, Hannah finally talked her father into a pre-lit fake tree.

This way no trees were murdered over the holiday and he didn’t have to see it lying in the driveway before the guys picked it up to be turned into mulch.

No one but his family would suspect that Sam Kage was a giant softie watching his Christmas tree taken away.

I will say that the sixteen-foot tree Hannah got was impressive.

It was done with colored lights, not white ones because Sam didn’t believe in all white, and was very full.

She made sure to make me simmer pots to keep the house smelling like Christmas, and once it was decorated, it was really beautiful.

Plus, bonus, there was one switch, on a timer, and there was no looking for which strand was not plugged in or which light bulb had died, creating unlit patches in the middle of the tree.

“It’s just not the same,” my husband lamented.

And I understood. He used to take me and the kids to different lots in our search for the perfect one.

It had been our tradition for years. But now the tree would simply be pulled from a box.

He looked miserable, even after putting the star on the top of the tree as he did every year.

But again, normally he was the light man.

He did that first, then I did the garland, and the kids and I put on the ornaments.

Now as he sat and watched us, I was thinking about what I could do when my son, who was far more observant than I gave him credit for, told his father they had to go.

“Where are you going?”

“Not me, you and me,” he clarified. “We gotta go get the boxwood wreaths for outside and all the windows. Plus the stupid mistletoe.”

“Mistletoe is not stupid,” Sam corrected his son. “Do you have any idea how many kisses I’ve gotten from your father just for standing under some?”

He glanced at Finn then, who huffed out a breath and flushed a lovely shade of pink. Turning back to his father, he said, “Okay, let’s go get some.”

Finn bumped into the refrigerator. I mean really, how adorable could they be?

The Christmas parties were crazy this year. Everyone we knew was having one, and we were invited.

“Why?” my husband asked, holding up an invitation to Aaron and Duncan’s that was beautifully embossed, gold-foiled, and seriously a lot because the envelope had glittery stars in it that were now on my kitchen counter.

“To make it festive,” I replied and smiled big.

Turning it back around to him, his eyes then returned to me. “How about no?”

I shook my head at him.

The invitation to Michael’s party, interestingly enough, looked much the same. There was even more glitter stars in red, green, and gold.

“Big no,” Sam told me.

I crossed my arms.

“Our Christmas better be low-key,” he demanded.

“Of course it will be,” I promised, crossing my fingers behind my back.

Aaron’s party was a gorgeous elegant affair in his penthouse, full of captains of industry, Chicago politicians, local celebrities, and us.

Sam did not enjoy being in a suit, and neither, as far as I could tell, did Duncan.

Both of them did a lot of squirming, fidgeting, and, for Sam’s part, looking uncomfortable.

I appreciated the fact that Duncan played magnanimous host, which meant mostly telling people to eat more, drink more, and standing next to his husband.

Aaron appreciated that as well. His social battery was not what it used to be, and he wore out much faster these days.

Leaning on Duncan, both figuratively and literally, was a good thing.