doing dishes with zeus

In my office, I have a set of architectural plans which I've inherited. They are meticulously hand-drawn. I have traced the writing. I know the footprint by heart. I could draw the floor plan in my sleep.

My Grandfather was an architect. When he and my Grandmother returned from living in Germany, he built her a beautiful house right up next to the mountains. There is a cascading rock garden out back and a patio to sit on at twilight. Adjacent to the patio are rows and rows of lily of the valley, Grandma's favorite flower. In the late spring, the mountain breeze picks up their scent and carries it along the lawn and into the Chinese money bushes which rustle with summer excitement to the Evergreen trees, towering above the scrub oak.

In the kitchen, Grandpa designed pull-out stools for Grandma to stand on and reach the top shelves. Growing up, my sister and I thought these step stools were very low cutting boards and found them the perfect height for playing bank. Sitting on the kitchen floor, we'd set up shop, stools serving as desks. Grandma would let us use all the paper in the world to make lots of fake money. We would write ridiculously large checks to Aunt Judy or Uncle Robert that couldn't be cashed until Grandma had signed them. Just off the kitchen there is a Utility Room that smells of apricot fruit leather and dried pears. It still houses a freezer full of frozen ginger creams year-round. The ping pong table that Grandpa designed and built is downstairs. It's perfect for Round Robin tournaments on Sunday evenings. Sometimes we laugh until we fall over into the lush green carpet.

The front room window looms large and frames Mount Olympus (Rich likes to call it Grandma's Mountain) perfectly, the top of the window coming to a point, like the mountain does. When the house was built, it was the last thing before the trail-head. Dad used to lace up his shoes on the front porch and run up the mountain for cross-country practice. Grandma can see her mountain from the kitchen sink. Even now, even though she can no longer make out our faces, she waves to us from the window as we back out of her driveway. She stands at the sink and waves from left to right and back left again. She's done this for as long as I can remember. Even now, even though we know she can't tell, we still turn on the dome light of the car and wave back. As we turn down the street, Mount Olympus grows smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

When the architect was working on my parent's house, Mom made sure she would be able to see Mount Olympus from the kitchen window. Just now as I loaded the dishwasher here at my Yellow Brick House, I glanced up at Grandma's Mountain. It looks so beautiful this time of year when there sun lights up the rock and the snow still shimmers. Now I just need a west-facing patio to watch the light at twilight.