Can I get you anything?

As I sat and read the Harry Potter series, from at least Chamber of Secrets on, I wanted to be only one character.

I wanted to be Molly Weasley.

Oh hell NOES about the seven kids. I did, though, want her ability to provide for those she loves. Why am I bringing this up now, when the series is over, the next movie installment isn't released yet, and I've never even mentioned the Potterverse in this blog except to essentially say, "Got my hands on Deathly Hallows. Be back later. Go away?"

We're closing on a house today with four bedrooms.

Molly Weasley is kind and loving and nurturing and fierce... and Molly Weasley feeds and shelters. I didn't grow up in the kind of house where if someone walked in the door food was slapped down in front of them, and they were ordered to eat. I developed that mentality sometime in my mid-20s. I couldn't even tell you why it started, but at some point I started shoving food at people, at least with plenty of advance notice most of the time, and if I lived somewhere with a spare room I urged people to stay. If there was no spare room my sofa was always available. Quick stopover on your way up the East Coast? Here's my sofa. Really frigging drunk and lack of motor skills means you can't get home? Dumbass, you drove. But here's my sofa. Oh, and in the morning there will be coffee. Now hush. Here's a blanket and a pillow. Don't mind the cat on your head.

Our intent in purchasing this particular house with four bedrooms was to have a room for each kid, one for ourselves, and an office for Rich to work from home. When I opened the door to the master bedroom to have a look I discovered that you first enter a sitting room that is partially walled from the rest of the room. The sitting room is almost as large as our current bedroom. This suite (oh how ritzy*) is on one end of a 76 foot long house and the other three rooms are alllll the way at the other end. When Rich got a look at it he realized he could put his office right in there, and we could, oh my goodness, have a guest room. When the reality of having a spare bedroom with actual bedroom furniture in it dawned on me I simply went berserk. Almost anyone who mentioned the house to me got hit with an invitation. Or three. I think my poor friend in Seattle has been bugged even more than three times. Even local folks got invitations. Just in case episodes of really frigging drunk lack of motor skills arise.

As I scrolled through Craigslist searching for the cheap recliner for rocking Jonas that I mentioned in the previous entry, my eyes kept leaping to the listings for larger tables with seating for many. I'm particularly drawn to the simple wooden tables with plain chairs. Gigantic ones. Last night I saw one with seating for up to 10 people, and the fantasies began. Holiday dinners. Eventual friends of the kids eating breakfast after slumber parties. Gatherings for no other reason than to eat good food and relax in the kitchen. Molly Weasley's kitchen in her home, The Burrow, is a mismatched cluttered nightmare for someone with OCD. Whenever I see it in the films, though, it warms my cockles. Yes. I have cockles. No, there's no cream for that.

Last night while Rich and I were outside I said to him, "Can I go all lame and name our new doublewide?" and he said, "No. And if you do, I don't want to know about it." I said, "So I can't get someone to use one of those wood burning pens to make a small wooden sign with the house's name and hang it from the mailbox?" and he said, "Um, no."

Bummer dude.

In five and a half hours we will be handed the keys to The Burrow. It has an extra room, you know, just for future reference. If I have my way, fairly soon it'll also have a table large enough to feed an entire army. Of course, there won't be any other furniture for seating because we won't be able to afford it. Over my whole life, though, everyone always ended up in the kitchen anyway.

Stop on over. Sit down. Here's some pie. Bring your dog.

The more the merrier.


*It's a doublewide mobile home, folks. But it's the nicest house I'll have ever lived in in my life so far.