I met up with my adult kid yesterday for lunch, one of those impulse things we both do because we like one another, and I realized part way through that I save up things to tell them so that those things will stop taking up space in my brain. For instance:

• I bought a shop-vac and now all that disgusting red dirt falling out of the walls in the basement is off the floors.
• The shingles vaccine apparently protects against Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease as well.
• I would be willing to sign my house over to them if they thought it was useful for tax purposes. (They didn’t think it was necessary, but I thought I would ask).
• The cough I have now is just my normal asthma, and not the acute asthma that took me to Urgent Care last week. At least I’m pretty sure.
• Dinner Thursday is chicken sausage and penne, is that all right?
• I can’t get used to the idea that I’m not poor any more.

The things my kid saved to tell me included:

• The grandchild and his father are engaged in a skirmish over boundaries. There are signs taped all over the kid’s door saying, “Keep out! Please.”
• My own child is applying for a temporary part-time city job for which they are already hired because the job was created for them, but now they have to go through all the bureaucratic hoops. This involves fingerprints, doctor’s notes, and an hours-long interview by people who aren’t involved in the job at all.
• My kid has been named to the advisory board of a non-profit organization, which strikes them as slightly odd.
• They live in a neighborhood which, like mine, has gentrified, and they know far too many people who are traveling abroad over spring break despite the situation in Iran.

In the order of significance, however, I have to tell you that the shop-vac is the most important thing out of all the items, and everyone should agree.

The basement of my house occupies an unpleasant space in my brain. I have been working hard to clear it out for years, and it’s pretty much where I want it to be. Someone imperfectly water-proofed it decades ago, and the walls are peeling and dribbling red dirt, but it’s dry down there (I live on a hill) and there aren’t any vermin. I only want to use it for (a) tools (b) the cat litter box and (c) the clothesline. It is okay for all these purposes, but if I could, I wouldn’t use it at all.

But basements are tombs. They are holes in the ground. They are caves, full of darkness and dead air. And, until this week, my basement was also full of little piles of red dirt.

As I write this, I realize I should probably hang my laundry in my third floor, which is completely empty and which I don’t use for anything. Now that would create a truly peculiar space.

Can’t do much about the cat litter pan, though. That absolutely belongs in the catacombs.