I love my daughter’s home. I love its airy expanse, its creamy carpeting, and the wide glass windows that allow the light to filter through so the house is always filled with light. The house is surrounded by trees and flowering plants on three sides, with a wooden deck that wraps around the back from the master suite to the dining area. The French glass doors from the kitchen leading to the deck enhance the illusion of outside living indoors. At this time of the year, chez Peterson is our family Paradise.
The first to greet me at the door are Pudgy and Bear. Pudgy is my daughter’s pug puppy; his name suits him to perfection. He’s chunky and heavy (35 pounds) and round as a butter ball perched on four stubby legs. For some reason I cannot fathom, my daughter is crazy about him. Bear, my grandson’s frisky Chihuahua, is about a foot high, weighs all of five pounds, and the farthest thing from a bear that you can imagine. Except Bear doesn’t know that, judging by the way he bullies Pudgy relentlessly. No one gets through the Peterson door without running the gauntlet of Pudgy and Bear’s excited barks, frantically waving tails, and slovering tongues. The two of them together serve as a highly effective early warning, door alarm system.
My 13-year old grandson Cole hears the commotion and comes up from his room in the basement. He has lingering signs of the flu, but even sleepy eyed and slightly sallow from spending the last two days in bed, he is still a strikingly handsome boy. He has his father’s fair complexion and physique and his mother’s fine features and black glossy hair. With his dark slanted eyes, trendy hair (bangs nearly covering his eyes) and cool teen attire (obviously not my lingo), I’d be surprised if he’s not already creating quite a stir among the giggling population in his middle school. We’re growing another heartbreaker here for sure.
And here comes Jason, my son-in-law. He gives me his usual enigmatic smile and leads me upstairs straight into the kitchen where Shasha is performing magical things with pots and pans. I have had the pleasure of calling this young man son for close to 14 years now, but I have yet to break through his reserve. If there is one thing I will change about Jason, it’s that he would talk more. He will do things for me: prune the shrubs and tree in my yard, pull up the weeds and gather up all the detritus in his wake without prompting; climb up the ladder to put new batteries in my smoke alarm; figure out the strange noise coming from my car; carry things for me; put up with me and my strange ways and laugh good naturedly at my stumbling Filipino tongue that still gets tripped up in his language -- but I have yet to spend five solid minutes of conversation with him. I tell him the strong silent type isn’t necessarily always a good thing but he just smiles.
We have called my daughter Sharon “Shasha” or Sha for short, since the day she was one and her two-year old brother Dexter called her by that name. She gives me a smile and a warm hug, dishes up bacon and omelet and warms a pot of nilaga. “What is this?” I ask. “Are we having breakfast or lunch”? “Breakfast,” she says, “but I want you to have some of my nilaga.” She is beautiful, this daughter of mine, as well as an excellent cook. I hardly ever go to Maresol anymore, one of the few Filipino places (you can’t really call them restaurants) I infrequently visit to appease my craving for the food that nurtured me through adulthood. Shasha whips up sinigang, nilaga, tinola and bibingka with as much ease and panache as pot roast, baked salmon, frittatas, quiche, and French toast casserole. This is one trait she definitely inherited from her father whose love for cooking has become both an avocation and a career.
I came to visit that day to get help with my blog. I wanted to make it more appealing and easier on the eye and I knew from past experience that what would take me days to figure out would be merely minutes of creative fiddling for Shasha. Cole is soon helping out, too, and Pudgy and Bear are right on his heels. Jason pokes his head in and hands me a beautiful bouquet of roses and hydrangea from his garden.
On my way out, mission accomplished and feeling well fed, I take time to appreciate the inviting way the large living room opens up into the dining area, so perfect for entertaining and family get togethers. It’s a very welcoming home, one that invites you to curl up in a couch awhile or to linger by the tall windows and gaze at the spectacular view of the Narrows Bridge and Puget Sound. But today, I am struck by an unassailable truth. The Peterson home conjures up warmth and food and family and love because its occupants, both human and animal, have made it so.
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