Sunday Mornings at the Henne house

at around 9am you would hear power tools of some sort going off, most likely an air compressor if my brother Kevin is up working on cars or the radial saw if Dad is up making cabinets. Mom will take Nina to agility training and obedience classes around this time....

let me start over.

My alarm wails at 9am to get up. Through the open windows above my bed I can hear Dad's new table saw cutting through oak plywood in long sections to make a book shelf. It makes me want to get up and watch. I say watch but what I really mean is smell. The smell of the oak sawdust makes me feel comfortable and safe. Probably because Dad has been making things out of wood forever and I would watch and play with the dust and smell it. He is a craftsman specializing in Greene and Greene style wood working. As a result he has created beautiful wooden things like lamps, tables, shelves, cabinets and etc. Pretty much all of the wooden things in our house were made by him. I like the smell of ebony and teak especially, an ancient quality to the smell. The smell. It reminds me to crawl out of bed to smell the fresh cut oak. I step out of bed, slide my glasses on. Than I look outside to see the blue sky without a hint of clouds and dress warmly, an orange Hawaiian shirt and thin beige shorts. It will be another hot one today. I walk across the work clothes I dropped on the floor last night and step on my cellphone, which I pull out of my work pants and slip into my shorts pocket.

On my way down the hallway Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner, diligently cleans the carpet under the watchful eyes of our little cat Murrs. Her original name was Jasmine, which was shortened to Jazz, which was shortened to lil miss murrs because of the incomplete meow sound she makes: Mmmmm.....rrr. Lil miss murrs was shorted to Murrs and when called she makes the same sound.

Stepping over Roomba and then Murrs I walk passed the brick hearth where our most unique pictures are gathered, including me as a kid with blue pool-stick chalk all over my face hugging my dad.

Past the hearth the front door is open and I see a row of pvc pipes set up with Mom directing Nina,our Rottweiler, through them and than clearing a hurdle-like jump at the end. After a success Mom says, "Great Job Nina. What a good girl. Good girl," in obvious happiness. Nina reflects this happiness by wagging her whole body and licking Mom's hand.

Straight ahead I hear the garage door close as my brother Kevin walks inside. He has his red Hilti drill in his hand. I greet him on my way to the coffe maker in the kitchen. When I walk around the corner to the tiled kitchen I see Scooba, the floor mopping robot, mopping the dining room floor. Kevin has a plastic bowl of unmixed pancake batter in front of him.

"Morning, Kev," I say as I pull a mug I made from the cabinet.

"Morning," he says spinning the Hilti drill to its widest size and sticking a whisk in the chuck before tightening it down.

"What are you doing?" I ask, gesturing with the mug in my hand at his drill with a whisk sticking out of it.

"Mixing," he says as he places the drill-whisk in the batter and pulls the trigger. As I turn on the coffee maker I am surprised by how quick and easy the Hilti mixes the batter. Not only can the red drill bore holes in reinforced concrete and chromoly steel, it can thoroughly mix pancake batter, and better than any mixer I have seen at that.

"You ready to help with breakfast," he says in a nonquestioning way.

"You are asking me BC, Kev. Gimme a second."

"Before Coffee, yeah, you're right, my bad," he says. He laughs.

I open the top of the Keurig coffee maker and remove the old k-cup and throw it away. I look at the coffee carosel and the variety of flavors. Towards the end of the month there are only two: Rainforest Espresso Extra Bold Trés Intense and Doughnut Shop Coffee with a chocolate sprinkle doughnut on the foil seal. I feel like doughnut coffee today so I snap that plastic cup in there, close the lid, check my mug to make sure it is right side up (after poking fun at Loo for making that mistake a couple times I can't make the mistake myself) and push the button. As the coffee stream trickles into the mug I hear Kevin greet Buddy, our chocolate lab, Rhodesian Ridge back, rescue-mutt cross. I bend down and rub Buddy's face and neck while Kevin pounds Buddy's chest like a kettledrum. Buddy wags his whole body in response.

After Coffee, or AC, I started cooking the bacon and sausage for breakfast as well as setting the table for everyone. Once breakfast is ready I round everyone up. I walk out the front door to see Mom walking around the yard looking for something while Nina sits perfectly still. I walk passed Nina, pat her head as I walk by, and walk behind Mom. I place my hand on her shoulder and say, "Breakfast," using my diaphragm and speaking clearly because she lost her hearing suddenly about a year ago. She thanked me and than told Nina she was a good girl. Nina came running towards her and slammed into my leg at half speed. It didn't faze her in the slightest. I limped to the table saw to find dad.

He had his ear muffs on and was ready to cut long sheets of oak into three inch by seventy four inch sections. He turned the saw on before I reached him. When i did I put my hand on his shoulder and he turned to face me with the saw spinning. I pantomimed eating with a fork, more like shoveling food into my mouth. He nodded. I walked back inside the fresh cut sawdust smell following me inside to be greeted by the smell of breakfast. I pulled the milk out of the fridge while everyone showed up around the table. Kevin brought the pancakes, I brought the bacon and sausage and jam and butter and syrup.

Then we all sat down and talked about what we had planned for the day. This lead to a discussion of the preview I saw last night for District 9, which lead to a discussion about apartheid, which lead to a discussion of the similarities between South African apartheid and Palestine, which was compared and contrasted to Darfur by Kevin. Then we talked about how funny the show Firefly was, and how Mal was going to a very special Hell.

Only at the Henne house.