September 2025
My hope is that with all the harrowing news, events, and everything else, you’re all doing okay.
We don’t live in “scary” times, we live in terrifying ones, where everywhere you look it feels as though the world is burning down.
My kids and I, along with everyone else we know, have been protesting here in Chicago, and the thing I kept thinking over and over was, let’s all stay safe.
All we can do is keep showing up for our families, friends, and communities, show support, compassion, and patience.
Let’s also not forget to stop and give a hug when needed, and laugh when we can.
For me, that last one is always so very appreciated.
Like on Tuesday night, Kola called and asked if there was any way that I could feed everyone, because Hannah had been so wrapped up in her “game” that she forgot to do the defrosting she’d promised.
Years ago, Hannah played a video game called Hollow Knight. This month, finally, after many years, six or seven I believe, the sequel came out. This one is called Hollow Knight: Silksong, and apparently… Hannah is a bit obsessed.
“It’s a game,” I told Kola.
“Tell her,” he grumbled at me.
Now, being Hannah, she still kept to her priorities, which are, in order, Jake, school, and work.
And apparently this is not all she’s done, but every moment that had nothing to do with either of those three things, she basically dumped from her mind.
Which meant no cooking, no cleaning, no chores.
All in all, no one cared that much, it wouldn’t last forever, but the food thing, as there had been some furious workout in the form of hockey—I had no idea—was a big deal.
Everyone was annoyed and loud about it. Hannah suggested they bother me instead.
“That was mean,” I assured her on the phone.
“Oh, they’re a bunch of whiners,” she replied.
“Did you promise?”
She huffed out a breath. “Yes. Fine,” she said irritably. “I apologized; told them pizza was on me, but no…they want to parade me through town in a burlap sack yelling shame. They can kiss my––”
“I get it.”
“If you feed them, I’ll take you for dim sum tomorrow in Chinatown for lunch.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I have a meeting in the morning for Sutter that will be done right before noon, so if you meet me there, I’ll feed you and drive you back to your office.”
“Only if we can walk around after.”
“Oh, that sounds nice,” she said with a sigh. “I’m keeping Jake, because he wants pizza, and he was up all last night studying, so he’s going to sleep while I play my game.”
I chuckled. “I like the sound of that.”
“And we’ll be over there Friday after school to stay with Chilly and Dobby over the weekend while you and Dad are gone for his birthday.”
“Thank you, love.”
“What are you going to make them for dinner?”
“Chicken katsu, a big salad, and kimchi fried rice.”
Seconds of time ticked by.
“What?” she whined.
“I got some kimchi from––”
“No,” she moaned.
“Enjoy the pizza.”
“You’re mean.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. “I love you.”
“I love you back,” she huffed and then hung up.
When Sam got home, later than usual, right after seven, he looked at the extra people at the dinner table and in the living room, and groaned.
“Stop that,” I warned him as I set the timer for the frying I was doing.
After you cut the fat off the chicken and pounded it flat and then breaded it with panko, there were precise times for how long it stayed in the pan before flipping.
After making it so many times over the years, I had it down to a science.
And mine wasn’t as good as in a Japanese restaurant, but it was pretty close.
I had the screen to put over the pan and had on my heavy-duty apron that went crisscross across my back.
When I was baking, I wore my half-apron to wipe my hands on. Sam had a thing for that one.
“I wanted it to be just us.”
I squinted at him.
“I like it when it’s just us.”
“You do,” I said, lifting for my kiss. “But you also love your son and his friends, and something is brewing because Wick seems really agitated for some reason.”
Once Sam gave me my kiss, greeted the children, boys…men, whatever, he went upstairs to change. As I had before, I noted that Harper and Kola were sitting at the dining room table and Wick and Finn were in the living room, on the couch, watching television.
Now, when I wrote the part about the oven last month, I made a glaring error that my brother corrected me on.
Due to this mistake, my memory on many, many things has now been called into question.
Have I ever told you all that my brother can be insufferable?
He can! But really, I have no one to blame but myself.
As Dane pointed out, he and Aja lived in our house up until right after Robert was born, before Gentry came along.
So when I said they never lived here, I forgot.
I feel like the house was always meant to be ours, never theirs, which is why, I suspect, I made the mistake.
But the fact is, they did, in fact, live in our house.
And Bertha was theirs before she was mine.
But…
Even though Aja did a lot of cooking, she did her baking in one, or both, of the double ovens that are now a microwave on top, oven below, and warming drawers under that.
She used the range/stove part of Bertha but never the oven.
Unlike me, she had no idea Bertha had a crappy handle and felt terrible when I related the story.
“We should have replaced the stove when we left,” she’d told me, looking a bit distraught.
“Uh no,” I replied, chuckling. “We should have replaced it at some point in twenty or whatever years.”
“Not my fault,” Sam had said as he walked through the kitchen.
“Yes, I know,” I snapped at him. He had offered to get me a new stove many, many times.
She gave me lots of compliments on Lucinda Darkly. “Oh, Jory, she’s lovely.”
Of course hers, in her penthouse in the sky, had one of those vents that rose from the back of the stove and then lowered.
The oven door also retracted underneath, and then with the push of a button came back out and closed.
Automatically. She had no business oohing and aahing over mine, but it was very kind. Hers belonged in The Jetsons’ kitchen.
This is just like the time I forgot Sam’s mother had cats while he was growing up. What can I tell you, I’m getting old.
“You’re not old,” Sam assured me when he kissed and hugged me. “Who can be counted on to remember everything?”
He wasn’t wrong.
But now, when Sam came downstairs, changed into shorts and a T-shirt, he went straight to Wick and Finn and asked them what was wrong.
“They lied to us, sir,” Finn answered.
Instant laughing from the table. More like cackling.
Finn swiveled around to look at Kola. “You’re a”––but stopped himself, looking up at Sam––“never mind.”
“No,” Sam told him. “Go ahead.”
“You’re a dick,” Finn growled, and then whirled around, back to watching some new alien show that he and Wick were catching up on.
Sam smiled and then walked over to the table. “What’d you guys do?”
Harper shrugged. “It’s not my fault that their own bias blinded them.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Sam said, taking a seat and accepting the beer I brought him, as well as the kimchi radishes I’d bought from Mrs. Kim just for him, with chopsticks and a napkin.
“They,” Harper said, indicating Finn and Wick, “didn’t think I could play hockey because I’m not a big jock like them.”
“But you played hockey all the way up through high school. You’ve always played.”
He snickered. “Yessir, I have.”
“Oh no,” I muttered and turned to Finn and Wick on the couch.
“He never told me he could play,” Wick called over. “And then last night when I got home from a game with some guys I know, Kola starts talking smack about––”
“I’ve never talked smack in my life!” Kola was aghast.
“Oh, you’re gonna turn to stone over that one,” Harper promised him.
“You wound me,” he gasped.
Harper scoffed.
“He was an ass, sir,” Finn apprised me. “And he gets Wick and me going, and pretty soon we agree to meet them, and some of their friends from school, right after class today, for a friendly game. I mean, I played in high school, so I offered to be on Kola’s team, but he was all, oh no, that’s okay. We’ll be all right.”
Kola put his head down in his arms, and I could hear him chuckling.
“Ass!” Finn yelled, which only made Kola laugh harder.
“Harper was all-state,” Sam told Finn as he ate his radishes. “Shouldn’t you know that?” he asked, directing that question to Wick. “I mean, aren’t you going to marry him someday?”
“I don’t know about that,” Wick nearly snarled. “There was me and my buddies from school, and Finn and the hooligans Kola and Harper knew from high school––”
“Our friends are not hooligans,” Harper retorted, trying to appear mad, trying even for a straight face, but having trouble pulling it off before he flat-out smiled. “And how old are you? Hooligans?”
Wick threw up his hands in defeat.
“By the way, your son is total crap on the ice,” Finn stated flatly.
“Hey now,” Kola said, scowling and grinning at the same time.
“But Harper,” Finn breathed out his name in absolute awe. “Holy crap. He could be a professional if he wanted.”
“Let’s not go that far,” Wick grumbled.
Harper chuckled. “You thought, I’m not strong enough or powerful enough to play hockey.”
“That’s not true,” Wick nearly yelled. “I just thought you couldn’t play at all!”
Turning to me, Harper said, “It’s because I’m not all muscle like he is.”
Wick groaned loudly.