Boys in the Basement...and Me

Officially, I've moved into my house in Cowley (southeast Oxford). Unofficially, I'm still quasi-in residence at the ACU houses. My office/bedroom is in the basement of House 9, a place that has always struck a little fear into me. When I lived here in 2004, it always smelled like not-so-clean boys, and the guys who lived down here were the slightly sketchy ones. Oh, except for Blake, who was in graduate school at Brookes and was definitely not sketchy. He was brilliant, in fact, and sweet, if absent-minded. But still...it was not a place I ventured very often.

I spent most of the last week in a sunny little top-floor room in House 10, destined to be a dining room after I moved. I'm going to make a practice of staying over Sunday nights on Canterbury Road, as we have 9-at-9 (House 9 at 9; our community worship time) until at least 10, and then I work on Monday mornings. I had planned to spend one more night in the little top-floor room last night.

Hence my surprise when I arrived from church (having hauled my bag all the way down the Cowley Road to St. Aldates, and then all the way through City Centre to north Oxford), and then learned that THE CEILING HAD FALLEN IN in my old kitchen, the first-floor one in House 10, due to some...ahem...intense JAZZERCISE going on above it. !!! This happened on Saturday, when I was gone (moving), so I knew nothing of it. My little room was transformed into a dining room rather quicker than I thought. The House 10 crowd is happily using it, or at least several of them are, and I don't begrudge it to them. But I was still rather wary of the basement.

Imagine my further surprise, then, to find it's actually quite cozy down here. The kitchen is amazingly full of light for having only one window, and I had a cup of tea this morning with two of the boys, Nathan and Nick. The five guys who live down here - those two plus Bryce, Jordan and Josh (we call him Moose), are amazingly sweet and funny and mellow. So easy to be around. And I was informed this evening at dinner that I'm "part of the dungeon family." The only female member, in fact. I feel quite privileged and special.

So I think I'm going to enjoy my times in the basement this semester. Granted, it'll just be once or twice a week, but still - it's nice to know that I am part of the dungeon family. Has a rather nice ring to it, actually.