We celebrated the birthday of my youngest son and middle child yesterday. I gave him a set of swivel sockets and custom seat covers, then we grilled steaks and ate that with parmesan encrusted green beans courtesy of HEB, and fresh cucumbers. He had a good idea about how to shade our pool deck and we’ll probably do that, and I’ll save the details until it’s done. Then, when it got dark, we went outside to look at the new light bulbs he got for the sconces on the porch.

Now at this point you’re probably wondering why anyone would want to look at new light bulbs in sconces, so here’s why. They’re LED bulbs that look like flames, and I swear it makes the porch look like a medieval castle, at least as I’ve seen them in the movies because although I’m old, I’m not that old. I also thought they looked like a nice gas flame that you might have seen at the turn of the century. But again, it’s just a guess, although gas does burn orange.  Anyway, they give the porch a soft, homey feel, as if you’re sitting around a fire, and we both think they’re cool.

The most likely thing to happen next is that we’ll get the deck shaded, then someone will come over to take a dip and when we’re all done, we’ll sit on the porch, sip a drink, turn on the lights and exclaim at how they look. And people will say they look nice even if they think we’re crazy, because that’s just how people are. They like things you like about your house because you like them, and it makes your home fun to visit and they’re polite company. So, it all works out. And they know you’ll do the same when you go to visit their place.  

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale