and now for something completely different:

i love kitchens.

one of the great pleasures i take in life is the late-night snack. i'm sure this will come back to bite me in the ass (literally) someday, but for the moment i'm going to thoroughly enjoy my cold chicken straight out of the deli container.

maybe it's a hangover from my teenage years, but there's something strangely thrilling about swiping a snack this late at night. everything is so quiet, except here there's a huge racket from the frogs in the pond out back. every floorboard creaks at a volume that you're sure is going to wake the whole house, and when you finally make it up the stairs and to the kitchen you realize your bare feet make almost as much noise on the linoleum as they did on the creaky stairs. opening the fridge is a blinding experience, but once your eyes adjust, they behold a wonderland of previously unclaimed food items. half-eaten chicken, mostly empty take-out boxes, lunchmeat, pickles, and many other things that in daylight would be completely ignored suddenly seem like delicacies. why yes, i would love a single sweet pickle. three bites of chicken sounds delicious. and, wonder of wonders, a lone cream cheese wonton lays completely forgotten at the back of the fridge. (score!)

now, it should be noted that in this house no food is left alone for long. there are enough people, and one in particular who quietly grazes on anything in sight, that food almost never goes bad in our fridge. that delicious cream cheese wonton was only a few days old. i still cannot believe that it had gone unnoticed that long. and oh, was it delicious.

and then there's the odd pleasure of simply sitting at the counter. the kitchen is the center of any home, as many a pillow and apron proudly declares. here one feels close to the action. i can't possibly miss any important events from this perch. this is possibly because our house revolves around the preparation and consumption of food, but also because of its prominent location. tactically, i have a clear view of any activities the neighborhood kids are planning outside, including mysteriously moving around the firepit chairs (i believe they're secretly constructing a fort from which to bombard the enemy ducks and geese with our landscaping rocks). i can count how many times the little bro comes in to stare at the contents of the pantry, and of that number how many times he decides on cereal. i can tell the lady of the house where she put her keys in her frenzy to get out the door. and, more importantly, i can access the all-important internet while brewing coffee and watching tv AT THE SAME TIME.

truly, this kitchen is a magical, magical place.