Bewildered…

I haven’t written for a couple of days; we had company for the weekend. Our first house guest since the pandemic. How wonderful to be able to see and entertain people again.

I prepped a lot of my food ahead, so I didn’t have to take up that time; all I had to do was actual cooking. On Saturday night, I made baked stuffed clams, creamy Tuscan shrimp, Caesar salad with homemade croutons, and mini tiramisu for dessert.

Yesterday morning we went to the last day of an estate sale. Marty stopped there on Friday afternoon on his way back from making a delivery in Manchester. He said it was a weird estate sale. The people who lived in this gorgeous, huge house lived there the day before, packed suitcases and left everything behind. Weird, sad and confusing.

We tried to put together who the family was just by looking at their things, and when I mean things, I mean ALL of their things. Clothing in closets & dressers. Toys, games, electronics, everything in the kitchen, garage, basement, soap, and shampoo still in all the bathrooms. So fucking weird!

We knew the family was Jewish since they had a seder platter and a ceramic dish with Hebrew writing. The mother was tiny, a size 0. She had blonde hair because she had shampoo for blondes in the master bath. Their last name started with a W since we saw it monogrammed on a few items.

They had at least 4 children, 2 boys, and 2 girls. Their rooms were exactly how they woke up the morning before. I can’t imagine teenage girls leaving behind EVERYTHING. The boys’ rooms were filled with trophies, yearbooks, Star Wars collectibles. There were stuffed animals, dolls, and more legos than toy stores had in their inventory. One boy was into science and had microscopes, telegraphs, and books galore. The other one seemed to love sports.

The family definitely were skiers, snowboarders, and outdoorsy. We know where they went to elementary school, high school, and someone had lots of Penn State sweatshirts and t-shirts. They had a gym, an entertainment area, and an arcade in the basement. The maid’s room was the only room with no belongings, except for a flat-screen tv and a bed. She had to have advanced notice and packed up her shit before she left. Marty bought the maid’s tv on Friday.

The kitchen was gorgeous! How I would have loved to cook and entertain in there. From the looks of the kitchen and cookware, they didn’t cook much. I can tell stuff like that, spending so much time in kitchens.

As we walked around, I kept trying to make sense of how a family could walk away and leave everything they owned behind. I kept shaking my head and was bewildered. I felt sad because what if they left in a hurry and why?

As other people walked around this family’s home all weekend, I am certain that they felt the same way that we did.

We ended up buying some blankets, small kitchen wares, and a Yoda robe Marty couldn’t leave behind.

After we got home, I started making Sunday dinner. Again, I prepped everything ahead, so I didn’t have too much to do. I made jerk pork tenderloins with tropical salsa and sweet potato, and regular fries. I planned on making everything in the outdoor kitchen, but the rain delayed that plan a bit.

We had Noah and his friend Zach and Sam since he got home from college Friday night. With our guest that made six people for dinner!

The meal took a little longer than I planned because we waited until the rain stopped to fry the potatoes outside. Rain + hot fry oil = a trip to the burn center, and that we didn’t want. LOL.

I made four pork tenderloins and thought, wow, that’s a lot of pork, but we can always have leftovers. There were no leftovers! I can’t tell you the joy a cook feels when making a meal that people really enjoy and keep going back for seconds and thirds. ☺️

Over dinner, we talked about the estate sale and found out that Noah and Zach were there when the sale opened that morning. They saw the same things we did and were kicking themselves for a couple of things they didn’t purchase, like a free piano and a real arcade game that was under $50 bucks. We also discussed what everyone thought happened to the family. That’s how weird the situation was to be a Sunday dinner topic.

While we were contemplating what happened, Sam, who was the only one who didn’t go to the estate sale, asked why we didn’t look at the names on the trophies. Leave it to Sam to think of that brilliant idea! None of us did, of course.

The empath in me keeps hoping that it was a good situation why they left the way they did, but sadly we all could come up with more bad situations, like an original series on Netflix.

After Sunday dinner, we finished up the weekend heading over to our friend Martin’s place across the street and had some cocktails, wine, and a million laughs.

The weekend with family and friends felt normal again. It was the first time our family of four had broken bread together since Christmas dinner. Everyone was relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company after such a fucked up year of fear and isolation.

I’ve written about hope before; the pandemic, warm weather, and normalcy, but now everything was finally real! Thank goodness!