I’m on day 4 of a pretty long visit to my mom’s house with the kids. I haven’t posted anything since I got here. Today my brother Ted mentioned that he was surprised not to be reading some stuff about my visit.

I’m surprised too. After all, I’m home. I’ve descended into the maelstrom of grumpy. Grumpy winds whine through this house when we all get together, a perfect storm of grumpy waiting to happen if we all vibrate the right way at the wrong time, like a choir of Tibetan monks droning on just the right frequencies.

Is that enough inane metaphors and analogies for now? (I sometimes have to think to assure myself of the difference, and right now I don’t have time to do that, so I’ll assume I have both just to be sure.)

Anyway, I’m hypothetically right where the best material resides when it comes to my inner grumpy. But grumpy isn’t the same as mean, and I’m not sure I could muse about my family in close quarters without just being mean or hurting feelings, however unintentionally. We’re all ridiculous — I mean all human beings, not just my family — but most of us don’t want our noses rubbed in this fact.

My family has had some doozies of collective grumpy meltdowns over the years, and we’ve also had individual hissy-fits. As a result there have been long periods of absence for various reasons, for one or another of us. Traditionally, we have at it with each other – a gift of battle-ready gab bequeathed to us by our parents. But we don’t do that so much anymore, and I really don’t want anyone to bug out ever again. There aren’t enough years in a life for it. Some years ago my mom and I talked a lot about how we could all get along better. Love is pretty constant. Mom liked to tell me that breaking a family is like cutting blood with a knife. But sometimes, we concluded together, love asks more of us than just love. It requires diplomacy, and of course respect. Love is the easy part.

So here goes: I’ve really enjoyed seeing my brothers and sisters-in-law and nieces and my mom and her husband and all the blessed shedding dogs. Awesome visit. I dearly love my mildly insane, mildly grumpy family. My kids are a good fit here. Diplomacy demands that I leave it at that.