When Gary and I were first married, among the many firsts for both of us was the "first" of having our three grandchildren for holidays and summer vacations. They were nine, five, and one. We didn't take Sami, the one year old, til she was three, but Jake and Cassie were packed and ready to go to our house in Madison, WI, every Christmas vacation, spring vacation, and two weeks every summer.
All the way to Madison they played rocket ship in the back seat, constructing an elaborate system of communication between each other using Jake's K'Nex. When we stopped to eat along the way, they had to carefully slide out from underneath the rocket ship paraphernalia before they exited. The same happened getting back into the car.
"Captain! Captain! The aliens are coming!" Cassie would say.
"I see them. They won't get away," Jake would respond sounding like William Shatner. "Take that!" and the gun spluttering sound that only boys can make would commence.
Over the years, the three of them learned to hoe a garden and pick vegetables, make quilts and pillows, make homemade egg noodles for chicken and noodles, roast marshmallows over the gas burners on the kitchen stove, construct tents over the clothesline, take nature walks (with a detour to Dairy Queen,) and eat out a lot. They were good times, funny time, times of just being glad we were all together.
One year Sami was old enough to come along. She woke us up late at night to kill the 'pider on the ceiling of her room. She made Godzilla faces. She did everything the big kids did and that was something. And so we all went to the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum on campus, we went underground to explore the Cave of the Mounds, we explored The House On The Rock and Ronald Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon, IL. We toured the Veteran's Museum in Madison, the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL, and a host of other places. In between we went to lots of movies and parks.
And then, they grew up. And we moved closer. The same town, in fact. At first we saw them all the time. We drove them to museums around here, we ate out, we maintained some of the traditions we had created in Madison. But over the seven years we have been in Valparaiso, they have grown beyond most if not all of what we used to do together. Cassie and Jake are in college. Sami is halfway through high school. And we are feeling old in so many ways.
Today, Jake and his friend Andrew are installing new kitchen sink faucets for us. The old ones were installed in 1962. That about says it. Last fall they tore out a basement window frame that was rotting away, and completely constructed a new one. As I am writing this, they are under the kitchen sink, yanking out the old fittings, asking do I have this or that, and otherwise chatting back and forth the way men on the job do. It is also the way Jake and his sisters used to chat while their hands were busy sewing, painting, cooking and baking, and making gifts and crafts, and it occurs to me that all of that play when they were little, the making things, the working with us on new projects and learning new skills, all of it is like so many tiles in a beautiful mosaic that is our family's life together, that is their own individual lives.
There are many other tiles, from times and experiences with their other grandma and grandpa and relatives, from school and friends, from gains and losses, from pets, from jobs, from school, from sports. But my heart is full today as once again Jake (this time Jake, the plumber) is back at Grandma's house and for this short time, I feel like the years have not passed, that I am not old, that he is that cute little guy who posed in a photo holding a huge zucchini squash because he thought his mom would like it, that time has stood still by virtue of all of the similar memories.
I took pictures today. From under the sink Jake asked why I always take pictures. It's so that when I am too old to remember all of the wonderful times with the people I love, I will have pictures to remind me.
Thanks, Jake and Andrew, for giving me more pictures to remember and for a job well done!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Why Gary Is My Valentine
I was in second grade when I first heard about Valentine's day. I'm not sure why it didn't resonate with me in first grade, but Mrs. Steffey, my second grade teacher was very big on holidays and explained the origins, customs, and related hoopla to us. Mind you, we were seven or eight years old and not everything got through to us on a permanent basis, but enough did that I always thought it was a neat celebration, if only for the fact that we pretended to have mailboxes on our desks, and on Valentine's Day, those were filled with colorful Valentines Day, mail which was something I never got at home being the age I was.
The second reason I loved Valentine's Day was candy. I have loved those little hearts with the mushy words on them for more than fifty years. The fact that no one at our house ever talked that way even in jest made reading such things, especially on candy, all the more exciting. I would read things like "Sweetie Pie" and "Oh, You Kid" and "Darling" on a little heart and then pop it into my mouth trying to understand it all. Such drama! Such luxury!
As I grew older, I realized that some people really went all out for Valentine's Day. Men took their wives out to dinner. People sent each other bouquets of flowers and entire boxes of chocolates. Knowing this made me long for more, for bigger, for flashier, and for the kind of love that thought of others that way.
In fourth grade, I raised my hand high when Mrs. Picard our teacher asked who would like to help plan the Valentine's Day party for the class. Who wouldn't? This was the rooster of my holiday obsessions coming home to roost. Our little committee met and decided on the games to play, decorations, which mothers to ask for to bring treats (by then we knew the ones that went all out for school parties) and how we were going to pass out our valentines.
Another girl and I were in charge of making a giant decorated mailbox. We used a large cardboard box which we covered with elegant heart and cupid gift wrap leaving a slit for the valentines to be deposited anytime the week leading up to Valentine's Day. I also was charged with making a decoration for the table that held the Valentines Mailbox. I was thrilled that I was chosen even though I hadn't a clue what I would make.
Stopping off at the public library after school, I dug my way through books about holidays in the children's section of the library. Most of what I found there was pretty sappy but by the time I went home that night, I had an idea of what I wanted to do.
Of course, when I told my mother, she told me it was a stupid idea. My dad just looked at me when I explained it to him, but I didn't hold that against him because his mind was always a light year or two away, and he rarely heard anything I said. My little sisters were so little as to be insignificant. My older sister said I was childish. I was on my own.
My centerpiece was based upon an idea I had seen in a magazine once in the doctor's office. It was also based on the many cakes I had seen my mother decorate for birthdays and other special occaisions. My mother knew her way around a pastry bag. Give her some frosting and she was the Picasso of cake decorating. The Campbell Street "Cake Boss," if you will.
I wanted to make a cake that would be the flowing skirt of a beautiful woman, highly decorated with frosting flowers and ribbons of various shades of pink and red, and, of course, hearts. Her hat would be frosting. The bodice of her dress would be frosting. Everything she wore would be completely edible. I salivated at the thought.
Once my mother saw the drawn plans I had made, the recipes I had pulled from her Woman's Home Companion cookbook, and the naked doll I had purchased from Harvey's Dimestore for ninety-nine cents to stick into my cake, she could no longer say that my idea was stupid. I had laid it all out in careful detail. What I needed was help with the oven and some skilled hands at baking and decorating to assist me. All week I discussed with my mother how to make the flowers and lace on the doll and her flowing skirt.
When the day to make the cake arrived I was almost giddy with anticipation. Now I would see my drawing take shape. No no one could say it was stupid. It would be fantastic. I knew it.
We used a large stainless steel bowl to bake the cake in. Inverted, it was as elegant a shape for a flowing ball gown as one could ask for. When it cooled, we stuck the ten inch fashion doll into the center, and then we went to town frosting and decorating. It was a wonder to behold. It was a doll. It was a cake. It was a centerpiece. I was so proud of it, and when I carried it to school for the Valentine's day party, I prayed I wouldn't trip and fall face down into it the way the Three Stooges would have done.
The cake and I arrived in one piece. The party was a great success. For a fourth grader, I achieved a momentary amount of fame and adulation, and the cake was mine to take home that afternoon to then share with my family.
So what does all this have to do with Gary being my valentine? Gary is and will always be my valentine, my heart's true love, the joy of my life, and the only man I will ever adore because he makes every day become for me just like the time I made that cake.
He allows me to dream big. He never laughs at me or ridicules me. He offers assistance whenever I ask for it. He takes as much pleasure in my successes as I do. If we run into a snag, he researches it to find an answer and then rolls up his sleeves to help in any way he can.
Last year I published my first book. I dedicated it to Gary. He made it possible in a million ways. He is the biggest fan of my writing in general, my blog and my novels in the making. I read everything out loud to him. His reactions and criticisms inspire me to keep on writing. A lot of what I write is meant to be humorous. When Gary laughs til he cries and almost falls out of his chair, I know I have hit the mark.
I have many beautiful, well-planned gardens in our yard on Campbell Street. Gary never questions when I have an idea to dig up this or that, or try something exotic or new. He looks at my garden designs on paper and believes I know what I am doing. When I fill the car with annuals or buy a pound of seeds online, his support makes me all the more certain the new garden will be beautiful.
Two summers ago I gave our granddaughters Cassie and Sami one hundred dollars for paint and supplies at Ace Hardware and carte blanche to paint an original mural on the back of our two car garage. Gary watched with pride as an enchanted garden appeared to the delight and wonder of our family and friends. He never doubted the idea or their ability. Their mural is a thing of beauty and a memory for all of us as we look back on those days when they were perched on ladders and creating sky and trees and flowers and a few surprises for the visually alert.
We have eight grandchildren. Even though money is tight because we now have just one income, Gary cheerfully plans with me for birthday gifts, for our children's anniversary gifts, for Christmas and Easter and Valentine's day, for extended family birthday and anniversary gifts and for what-have-you gifts to let our family know we are thinking about them. Never once has Gary chided me for spending our money on others.
I send a check to the food pantry every month. We have provided as many as eight hundred forty meals in one month. Gary embraces my need to help others because he has a giving and generous heart.
Nearly three years ago when my elderly mother fell and it became apparant to all of the family that she would need full time personal care, Gary supported me as I reorganized her home to make her a two room suite with a new bathroom and to turn her back room into a piano studio so I could work from home and be with her all the time. It seemed an impossible task, but Gary believed in my ability to conceptualize and organize the transformation of these old rooms into something bright and functional.
And when it became obvious that I couldn't handle teaching piano at home and caring alone for the ever expanding needs of my mother, Gary quit his job and stayed home to at first help me care for her, and then later to take over as her personal caregiver, doing things for my mother that no one else in our family could or would do.
Today he works fourteen to sixteen hour days, seven days a week caring for my ninety-two year old mother who, several strokes and one broken leg later, cannot walk or stand or rise from a chair, who requires someone to dress her, to help her use the bathroom, and who literally needs help with everything except feeding herself and using her TV remote and telephone. He hasn't had a day off in ten months.
He never complains. He does yard work in the summer and removes snow in the winter. He is available to fill in as extra driver for our daughter's family when needed. If someone calls and asks for his help, if it is humanly possible, he will.
At the end of what always is an exhausting and sometimes thankless day of work, he enjoys the hour or two we have together reading or watching a video or talking with our children or grandchildren on the phone or via the internet. He always is cheerful. He always is kind. He always is thoughtful. He always chooses to think positively and to think the best of people
And every single night, when the lights finally go out and our weary heads hit the pillow, he reaches for my hand and says, "Good-nite, Beautiful" to me. That's why Gary is my Valentine.
The second reason I loved Valentine's Day was candy. I have loved those little hearts with the mushy words on them for more than fifty years. The fact that no one at our house ever talked that way even in jest made reading such things, especially on candy, all the more exciting. I would read things like "Sweetie Pie" and "Oh, You Kid" and "Darling" on a little heart and then pop it into my mouth trying to understand it all. Such drama! Such luxury!
As I grew older, I realized that some people really went all out for Valentine's Day. Men took their wives out to dinner. People sent each other bouquets of flowers and entire boxes of chocolates. Knowing this made me long for more, for bigger, for flashier, and for the kind of love that thought of others that way.
In fourth grade, I raised my hand high when Mrs. Picard our teacher asked who would like to help plan the Valentine's Day party for the class. Who wouldn't? This was the rooster of my holiday obsessions coming home to roost. Our little committee met and decided on the games to play, decorations, which mothers to ask for to bring treats (by then we knew the ones that went all out for school parties) and how we were going to pass out our valentines.
Another girl and I were in charge of making a giant decorated mailbox. We used a large cardboard box which we covered with elegant heart and cupid gift wrap leaving a slit for the valentines to be deposited anytime the week leading up to Valentine's Day. I also was charged with making a decoration for the table that held the Valentines Mailbox. I was thrilled that I was chosen even though I hadn't a clue what I would make.
Stopping off at the public library after school, I dug my way through books about holidays in the children's section of the library. Most of what I found there was pretty sappy but by the time I went home that night, I had an idea of what I wanted to do.
Of course, when I told my mother, she told me it was a stupid idea. My dad just looked at me when I explained it to him, but I didn't hold that against him because his mind was always a light year or two away, and he rarely heard anything I said. My little sisters were so little as to be insignificant. My older sister said I was childish. I was on my own.
My centerpiece was based upon an idea I had seen in a magazine once in the doctor's office. It was also based on the many cakes I had seen my mother decorate for birthdays and other special occaisions. My mother knew her way around a pastry bag. Give her some frosting and she was the Picasso of cake decorating. The Campbell Street "Cake Boss," if you will.
I wanted to make a cake that would be the flowing skirt of a beautiful woman, highly decorated with frosting flowers and ribbons of various shades of pink and red, and, of course, hearts. Her hat would be frosting. The bodice of her dress would be frosting. Everything she wore would be completely edible. I salivated at the thought.
Once my mother saw the drawn plans I had made, the recipes I had pulled from her Woman's Home Companion cookbook, and the naked doll I had purchased from Harvey's Dimestore for ninety-nine cents to stick into my cake, she could no longer say that my idea was stupid. I had laid it all out in careful detail. What I needed was help with the oven and some skilled hands at baking and decorating to assist me. All week I discussed with my mother how to make the flowers and lace on the doll and her flowing skirt.
When the day to make the cake arrived I was almost giddy with anticipation. Now I would see my drawing take shape. No no one could say it was stupid. It would be fantastic. I knew it.
We used a large stainless steel bowl to bake the cake in. Inverted, it was as elegant a shape for a flowing ball gown as one could ask for. When it cooled, we stuck the ten inch fashion doll into the center, and then we went to town frosting and decorating. It was a wonder to behold. It was a doll. It was a cake. It was a centerpiece. I was so proud of it, and when I carried it to school for the Valentine's day party, I prayed I wouldn't trip and fall face down into it the way the Three Stooges would have done.
The cake and I arrived in one piece. The party was a great success. For a fourth grader, I achieved a momentary amount of fame and adulation, and the cake was mine to take home that afternoon to then share with my family.
So what does all this have to do with Gary being my valentine? Gary is and will always be my valentine, my heart's true love, the joy of my life, and the only man I will ever adore because he makes every day become for me just like the time I made that cake.
He allows me to dream big. He never laughs at me or ridicules me. He offers assistance whenever I ask for it. He takes as much pleasure in my successes as I do. If we run into a snag, he researches it to find an answer and then rolls up his sleeves to help in any way he can.
Last year I published my first book. I dedicated it to Gary. He made it possible in a million ways. He is the biggest fan of my writing in general, my blog and my novels in the making. I read everything out loud to him. His reactions and criticisms inspire me to keep on writing. A lot of what I write is meant to be humorous. When Gary laughs til he cries and almost falls out of his chair, I know I have hit the mark.
I have many beautiful, well-planned gardens in our yard on Campbell Street. Gary never questions when I have an idea to dig up this or that, or try something exotic or new. He looks at my garden designs on paper and believes I know what I am doing. When I fill the car with annuals or buy a pound of seeds online, his support makes me all the more certain the new garden will be beautiful.
Two summers ago I gave our granddaughters Cassie and Sami one hundred dollars for paint and supplies at Ace Hardware and carte blanche to paint an original mural on the back of our two car garage. Gary watched with pride as an enchanted garden appeared to the delight and wonder of our family and friends. He never doubted the idea or their ability. Their mural is a thing of beauty and a memory for all of us as we look back on those days when they were perched on ladders and creating sky and trees and flowers and a few surprises for the visually alert.
We have eight grandchildren. Even though money is tight because we now have just one income, Gary cheerfully plans with me for birthday gifts, for our children's anniversary gifts, for Christmas and Easter and Valentine's day, for extended family birthday and anniversary gifts and for what-have-you gifts to let our family know we are thinking about them. Never once has Gary chided me for spending our money on others.
I send a check to the food pantry every month. We have provided as many as eight hundred forty meals in one month. Gary embraces my need to help others because he has a giving and generous heart.
Nearly three years ago when my elderly mother fell and it became apparant to all of the family that she would need full time personal care, Gary supported me as I reorganized her home to make her a two room suite with a new bathroom and to turn her back room into a piano studio so I could work from home and be with her all the time. It seemed an impossible task, but Gary believed in my ability to conceptualize and organize the transformation of these old rooms into something bright and functional.
And when it became obvious that I couldn't handle teaching piano at home and caring alone for the ever expanding needs of my mother, Gary quit his job and stayed home to at first help me care for her, and then later to take over as her personal caregiver, doing things for my mother that no one else in our family could or would do.
Today he works fourteen to sixteen hour days, seven days a week caring for my ninety-two year old mother who, several strokes and one broken leg later, cannot walk or stand or rise from a chair, who requires someone to dress her, to help her use the bathroom, and who literally needs help with everything except feeding herself and using her TV remote and telephone. He hasn't had a day off in ten months.
He never complains. He does yard work in the summer and removes snow in the winter. He is available to fill in as extra driver for our daughter's family when needed. If someone calls and asks for his help, if it is humanly possible, he will.
At the end of what always is an exhausting and sometimes thankless day of work, he enjoys the hour or two we have together reading or watching a video or talking with our children or grandchildren on the phone or via the internet. He always is cheerful. He always is kind. He always is thoughtful. He always chooses to think positively and to think the best of people
And every single night, when the lights finally go out and our weary heads hit the pillow, he reaches for my hand and says, "Good-nite, Beautiful" to me. That's why Gary is my Valentine.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Make the Possum Go Away
My name is Gloria, and I'm a cat. I live in a big white house on Campbell Street. I came here a year ago as a very lost kitten. I don't know what happened to my first family. I do remember being very hungry and dirty.
The Campbell Street family fed me, and even though I wouldn't let them touch me or even get near me, they smiled a lot and left me food and water every day out on the big porch. One day, they left a wooden box with a blanket inside for me to sleep in. I felt safe in the wooden box, and the lazy days of summer passed slowly in a haze of contentment.
I loved all the gardens. The flower gardens had several rabbit holes, and if I sat very still and watched and waited, sometimes a rabbit would come out, and then we would have a merry chase across the neighborhood. The vegetable garden with its raspberry patch was my own private jungle.
In the afternoons the tall okra and tomato plants cast cool shadows on the hot dusty earth below, a perfect hideaway to watch the many different kinds of butterflies that flitted here and there among the red and yellow and orange and pink zinnias that grew along the edge of the squash patch.
I'm a cat. I don't know a lot about the months of the year or the seasons, but at some point even I could tell things were changing in my world. The leaves started falling out of the big walnut tree in the side yard. Walnuts fell, too, and it was great fun to watch the fat grey squirrels retrieve and bury the walnuts, which I thought was a lot of senseless work since my family feeds the squirrels every day.
My family feeds a lot of animals. They have bird feeders for the birds, pans of seeds and nuts for the squirrels and chipmunks. They even leave pans of cereal and bread and peanut butter for the raccoons who creep up onto the porch after dark. That's how I first met the possum.
I was sitting in my crate enjoying the sweet summer night air when I noticed a creature slowly walking across the porch in front of me. It was large and had a long, rat-like tail and beady red eyes on either side of a long nose. He used his funny fingers to pick up food and put it into his mouth. Just like a human, I thought at the time. After a drink of water, he crawled down the porch steps into the darkness. It wasn't long before the possum returned, and then he was on the porch every night. He didn't seem to mind me watching him, and I enjoyed his company.
One day, rather suddenly from my point of view, it began to snow. Snow is cold, I learned quickly. A little snow falling out of the sky is kind of pretty, but a lot of snow makes you feel wet and miserable even if you have a fur coat like I do. My family had a heated cat house made for me, so no matter how cold it is outside, I can stay warm. That's a good thing for an outdoors cat to count on.
The funny thing is, that by this time, I had become a part outdoor, part indoor cat, having discovered the wonders of rugs and chairs and toilet and bathtub, not to mention the wondrous maze of closet floors and nether regions under the bed and dressers upstairs. Just climbing the steep stairs to the rooms above where my family lives is an exciting experience for a cat. Sort of like a vertical jungle.
Winter became an indoors summer for me. I went outside when I wanted to go outside. I stayed inside when I wanted to stay inside. I truly was the queen of my castle. I slept on the bed with the electric blanket that someone always left turned on for me. Such luxury I could not have imagined. The heated cat house paled by comparison.
Still there remain days when I feel the need for brisk cold air, to be one with the elements and to wander through my now snowy garden places, knowing I can always return to my little heated cat house until the kitchen door opens wide for me again. That is, until recently.
On a particularly cold morning, I did my usual pacing and whining at the kitchen door, and they let me out. It was snowing very hard and after a brief detour to the garage and the wilder regions beyond, I cut my adventure short and made a hasty retreat to the porch and my little house to warm up and watch the snowflakes fall in warm comfort. Imagine my surprise, then, as I entered my house to see staring back at me those same red, beady eyes of none other than the possum.
As I said before, the possum is a friendly, non-confrontational creature, so he didn't snarl or state in any way that my house was now his territory. But he did seem to be saying that it was now his house, too. This he said by not moving an inch or blinking an eye. I discovered then, that I am selfish and I do not like to share.
It's been weeks now, and the possum is still in my house. He is still eating every day out of my outside food bowl. He still rolls around and makes himself comfortable on my pink butterfly print fleecy blanket. You know the old adage: "While the cat's away, the possum moves in," and it bothers me.
And so I sit on my electric blanket on the big bed upstairs. I eat as much as I want and even beg for special treats which I always get. I amuse myself from my box of cat toys. I drink out of the faucets and sleep in the bathroom sink.
But it's just not enough. I am counting the days til the snow melts, the grass grows, another glorious garden appears out of no where for me to wander through on lazy afternoons, and life returns to another magical summertime so I can once again be queen of the jungle on Campbell Street, and, just maybe, convince that possum to go away.
The Campbell Street family fed me, and even though I wouldn't let them touch me or even get near me, they smiled a lot and left me food and water every day out on the big porch. One day, they left a wooden box with a blanket inside for me to sleep in. I felt safe in the wooden box, and the lazy days of summer passed slowly in a haze of contentment.
I loved all the gardens. The flower gardens had several rabbit holes, and if I sat very still and watched and waited, sometimes a rabbit would come out, and then we would have a merry chase across the neighborhood. The vegetable garden with its raspberry patch was my own private jungle.
In the afternoons the tall okra and tomato plants cast cool shadows on the hot dusty earth below, a perfect hideaway to watch the many different kinds of butterflies that flitted here and there among the red and yellow and orange and pink zinnias that grew along the edge of the squash patch.
I'm a cat. I don't know a lot about the months of the year or the seasons, but at some point even I could tell things were changing in my world. The leaves started falling out of the big walnut tree in the side yard. Walnuts fell, too, and it was great fun to watch the fat grey squirrels retrieve and bury the walnuts, which I thought was a lot of senseless work since my family feeds the squirrels every day.
My family feeds a lot of animals. They have bird feeders for the birds, pans of seeds and nuts for the squirrels and chipmunks. They even leave pans of cereal and bread and peanut butter for the raccoons who creep up onto the porch after dark. That's how I first met the possum.
I was sitting in my crate enjoying the sweet summer night air when I noticed a creature slowly walking across the porch in front of me. It was large and had a long, rat-like tail and beady red eyes on either side of a long nose. He used his funny fingers to pick up food and put it into his mouth. Just like a human, I thought at the time. After a drink of water, he crawled down the porch steps into the darkness. It wasn't long before the possum returned, and then he was on the porch every night. He didn't seem to mind me watching him, and I enjoyed his company.
One day, rather suddenly from my point of view, it began to snow. Snow is cold, I learned quickly. A little snow falling out of the sky is kind of pretty, but a lot of snow makes you feel wet and miserable even if you have a fur coat like I do. My family had a heated cat house made for me, so no matter how cold it is outside, I can stay warm. That's a good thing for an outdoors cat to count on.
The funny thing is, that by this time, I had become a part outdoor, part indoor cat, having discovered the wonders of rugs and chairs and toilet and bathtub, not to mention the wondrous maze of closet floors and nether regions under the bed and dressers upstairs. Just climbing the steep stairs to the rooms above where my family lives is an exciting experience for a cat. Sort of like a vertical jungle.
Winter became an indoors summer for me. I went outside when I wanted to go outside. I stayed inside when I wanted to stay inside. I truly was the queen of my castle. I slept on the bed with the electric blanket that someone always left turned on for me. Such luxury I could not have imagined. The heated cat house paled by comparison.
Still there remain days when I feel the need for brisk cold air, to be one with the elements and to wander through my now snowy garden places, knowing I can always return to my little heated cat house until the kitchen door opens wide for me again. That is, until recently.
On a particularly cold morning, I did my usual pacing and whining at the kitchen door, and they let me out. It was snowing very hard and after a brief detour to the garage and the wilder regions beyond, I cut my adventure short and made a hasty retreat to the porch and my little house to warm up and watch the snowflakes fall in warm comfort. Imagine my surprise, then, as I entered my house to see staring back at me those same red, beady eyes of none other than the possum.
As I said before, the possum is a friendly, non-confrontational creature, so he didn't snarl or state in any way that my house was now his territory. But he did seem to be saying that it was now his house, too. This he said by not moving an inch or blinking an eye. I discovered then, that I am selfish and I do not like to share.
It's been weeks now, and the possum is still in my house. He is still eating every day out of my outside food bowl. He still rolls around and makes himself comfortable on my pink butterfly print fleecy blanket. You know the old adage: "While the cat's away, the possum moves in," and it bothers me.
And so I sit on my electric blanket on the big bed upstairs. I eat as much as I want and even beg for special treats which I always get. I amuse myself from my box of cat toys. I drink out of the faucets and sleep in the bathroom sink.
But it's just not enough. I am counting the days til the snow melts, the grass grows, another glorious garden appears out of no where for me to wander through on lazy afternoons, and life returns to another magical summertime so I can once again be queen of the jungle on Campbell Street, and, just maybe, convince that possum to go away.
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