{"id":1059,"date":"2015-11-16T07:48:17","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T12:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1059"},"modified":"2015-11-16T19:09:54","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T00:09:54","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/home\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes at Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robin<\/a>In my home, where I sing and dance, and talk out loud to the life-size portrait of my dead daughter when I\u2019m not talking to my inherited dog, I nervously picked crumbs off the floors. My friend Hussein was on his way over to see the guest room. I\u2019d never rented it to a guy before. And I was afraid Hussein didn\u2019t like dogs. So when he pulled up in his car, I scooped Suki into my arms before she could erupt into her ferocious greeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome in,\u201d I said, squeezing Suki. She squirmed and emitted small choking sounds through the hand I\u2019d clamped over her snout. Hussein\u2019s eyes ricocheted off every surface of the house, and I wondered if he spotted spider webs in the corners or the mezuzah with the tiny Hebrew prayer scroll that my uncle Max had given me as a housewarming gift fifteen years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is home<\/a>,\u201d I said, surveying the walls covered with photos of my daughter, the cracked concrete countertops, the stacks of papers, the view of the pond. Suki growled in my arms. \u201cThis is the bathroom,\u201d I said, grateful the kitty litter from my old cat no longer monopolized the space. \u201cHere\u2019s the laundry room.\u201d I remembered bottomless piles of clothes from a long gone husband and young children. \u201cThe dog chews holes in your underwear if you leave it on the floor,\u201d I said. Hussein looked at Suki. She grunted.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t like men,\u201d I stated, bouncing her. \u201cThis is the work table.\u201d Visions of children doing homework flashed in my head. Suki writhed. \u201cIs it okay to let her down?\u201d Hussein assured me he had no problems with dogs. I put Suki on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the upstairs where my son lives when he\u2019s in town. He comes and goes at weird hours. You get used to it.\u201d I thought of the mess upstairs, except for the quiet room that was my daughter\u2019s. \u201cWe\u2019re not going there,\u201d I said. \u201cHere\u2019s your room (if you take it). Oh, we get an occasional mouse in the house,\u201d I added, needing to divulge all the shortcomings. In my mind, I saw the last girl who lived in the guest room. She didn\u2019t mind mice. She would sit, reading on the bed amid perfumed pillows. Suki used to invite herself up on the bed to sit by her. Suki loved that last girl.
\n\u201cYour dog loves me,\u201d Hussein said. His head was bent at a strange angle. \u201cWhat is she doing?\u201d he asked. I looked down and saw Suki was wrapped firmly around his leg. Horrified, I stood speechless.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s humping you,\u201d I finally spit out the only words I could come up with.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks later Hussein called to say he would not need the room. By then, I had told myself there\u2019d be no more prancing around in pajamas with a guy in the house. So it was a relief to know home would not have to change in that regard. I felt sorry though, for Suki.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are the differences between your house and your home?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my home, where I sing and dance, and talk out loud to the life-size portrait of my dead daughter when I’m not talking to my inherited dog, I nervously picked crumbs off the floors. My friend Hussein was on his way over to see the guest room. I’d never rented it to a guy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[374],"tags":[671,668,247,388,669,670],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-374","tag-changes-at-home","tag-coming-home","tag-grief","tag-loss","tag-memories-of-home","tag-renting-a-room-in-your-home"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}