elsewhere

Today is sunny, the kind of crisp, clear, blue day at the tail end of winter that brings with it the promise spring will come. The kind of day that draws you outside to walk, to breathe in the cool air, and feel the warmth of the sun as it grazes your face.

I spent part of the morning walking with the dogs, bringing them in after lunch for kibble, yogurt, and a nap. Maddy, at five months, still needs that midday meal. Or so she thinks. Afterward, I went out to purchase some new dress shirts for hubby and pick up a few necessities. In between the 7-11 and Kohl's, I came across a thrift store I hadn't noticed before. While I generally hate to shop, I infrequently have moods conducive to wandering through unique little thrift stores and gift shops.

The thrift store had a name we've all seen before, something to the effect of "Second Time Around". I went in and began to wander about the store, picking up a piece of pottery that caught my eye and inspecting a Swedish Modern headboard in a lovely blonde wood tone. As I made my way to the back of the store, nearing the register, I heard a man and a woman talking. It was all business, talk of rent, transporting goods to the store, and collecting bounced checks. The man was older, perhaps the woman's father, and he peppered his sentences with various phrases meant to thank the Lord for their good fortune. I smiled to myself and thought about Brother Bill, the preacher at my childhood church. Something in the old man's manner and phrasing reminded me of him.

I finished my errands and came home. The dogs, fresh from their crates, were delighted to see me and ran immediately to the back door. The cats even slunk in to see who had come home. The house had grown too warm and stuffy while I was gone, so I opened the bank of windows on the kitchen wall, looking into the backyard. Suddenly the cats could hear, rather than just see those birds, and now, even though I closed the windows twenty minutes ago, they are still meowing at me, pleading for open windows again.

This time last year I wouldn't have given you a plug nickel for this town. I would most likely have wished to be elsewhere. Suddenly, undeniably, it is home.

• I believe this is heaven
  To no one else but me
  And I'll defend it long as
  I can be
  Left here to linger
  In silence
  If I choose to
  Would you try to understand?

from Elsewhere by Sarah MacLachlan

a very full day

Yesterday was an unusual day. It was hectic and full and required me to wear heels. I drove to our old hometown, leaving our house at 6:00am, for an appearance in court. I arrived in good time for the 8:30am appearance and promptly signed in, just to sit and wait until almost 11:00am. Much back and forth, negotiating, and red tape. I actually appeared before the judge at around 1:00pm, with no break for lunch. I was famished and the room was cold as an ice box. The judge, however, was lovely. I was sworn in and answered two questions in about four minutes. Hardly worth the drive.

The really harrowing part was sitting in the crowded and too warm waiting room for so long. Court rooms and their waiting areas, especially in larger cities, are not very pleasant places. No one who works there seems to know anything at all except for the judge. Some of the people I dealt with looked like they were half asleep. I do try never to generalize, but I think government workers get a bad rap for reasons based in reality. No food, no drink and I really think they would prefer that you don't talk or breathe as it's inconvenient for them. There was one bit of excitement. A woman of about thirty stormed into the room through one door, practially ran across the room to the exterior door and left in an obvious huff, cursing all the while. Some joker in the room made the comment that if she came back it would probably be with a gun. Those in the waiting room laughed. One of the ladies that worked in the office gave him a dirty look and got up to see if the woman drove away.

Afterward I drove to my favorite convenient store in the free world to fill the car with gas, buy a sandwich for lunch, and just breathe in the atmosphere. It's a silly thing to miss, but I do miss them, so much. They are clean, spacious, and well stocked. The gas pumps are covered generously, car port style, so that you can stay dry in the rain. The whole parking lot is lit up like day time at the first hint of darkness. The convenience stores here are mostly 7-11s and I just hate them. They are small and dirty and everything is crowded into a space that's far too small. I write the company back home and tell them how wonderful they are each time I visit, then beg them to build one here. In between visits, I get used to the stores here and forget just how great the ones I left really are.

By the time I arrived home, the boys were home from school. The dogs nearly knocked me down when I walked in the door, they were so happy that I actually came back to them. I love that about dogs. The cats casually glanced my way and several hours later, came to sit on my lap and demand attention. My elder son was somberly practicing skateboard tricks on the driveway, running in and asking me to watch about every ten seconds. The little one did his homework and went next door to play.

The rest of the day was a blur of chores, homework, and dinner. It is a rare evening that we are all home together. My family chatted and laughed while I fed them quiche for dinner because the chicken was still frozen solid. I went to bed tired, but happy. And wondered how I ever managed to work and maintain a home at the same time.

wild kingdom

Autumn has finally arrived here in The Sooner State. Night temperatures have dropped into the high thirties and during the day we're not quite reaching the seventies. I am in heaven. This is perfect weather for me, and we get it all too rarely.

At this time last year we had just settled into the old house in town. It was spacious with a big yard and a wonderful large living area upstairs with the bedrooms, complete with a little kitchenette. The house was dated but so livable that I didn't mind at all. We had two cats and two bettas, but hadn't yet gotten Jack. Life was much . . . quieter.

We got Jack last December, and we lost one of the bettas after the move. Instead of another one, we got a larger tank and got Nemo, the remaining fish, an African Dwarf Frog and a golden colored snail for tank mates. That frog is the cutest dang thing you've ever seen. I love feeding him. He pops up to the top and snatches food so quickly you miss it if you blink. It's almost like watching a cartoon frog catch a fly with his tongue.

The back yard is full of rabbits, squirrels, blue jays, cardinals, all manner of finches and a pair of red bellied woodpeckers. I love feeding the birds. Every few days we see deer walking through the field behind our yard. There are five of them, and three are small, probably born this past spring. As soon as the weather cooled, I put out suet and seed in feeders in our blackjack oak tree. The blackjack oak is native to Oklahoma and Texas in an area called Cross Timbers. It is a scruffy looking tree, especially when it's young. We have a large one in front, about 30 feet tall, and a small one in back, just about 10 feet tall, with a cedar tree next to it. The oaks can grow as high as 65 feet and live up to 400 years. Our trees are just babies.

All the wild life in the back yard gives Jack and the cats fits. Jack whines and yelps, racing from one window to another, keeping up with his latest sighting, usually a squirrel. The cats especially love watching the birds. They both make an odd little clicking or smacking noise when one of the birds gets close. It makes me laugh every time I hear them. There is a yellow cat that looks just like Streudel who wanders into our backyard every now and then. My heart always skips a beat until I find Streudel safe inside. Losing Lucy has made me paranoid.

On Sunday my husband and I were watching birds and squirrels in the back yard. I wanted him to look at a squirrel and a bluejay playing a game of chase. It was so funny to see the squirrel run for the bluejay, the bluejay take to the air, and the squirrel retreat back to the fence away from the tree. The bluejay would then swoop over the squirrel back onto the ground and they'd start all over again. They were fighting over seed that had fallen on the ground from my feeder. I was delighted. As I was watching and pointing this out, my husband started laughing. I wanted to know what was so funny. He said that he thinks it's hilarious that I am so interested in all the animals in our backyard. When I asked why, he told me it's pretty funny for a farm girl like me to be so easily amused. Hmph.

For those of you who were worried about it (or offered me alibis), I have not killed any of my children. It was touch and go there for a while, but I have managed to control myself. Just.

We have three children, two cats, one dog, one betta, one frog, one snail, and a back yard full of squirrels, rabbits, birds, and the occasional deer. No wonder my husband calls our new home Wild Kingdom.

sometimes . . .

it sucks to be me.

Yesterday was one of those times. The morning started nicely. Hubby was off work as it was his birthday (happy birthday sugar). We slept in and the children got themselves up and ready for school. Such good kids! Hubby and I had a leisurely breakfast and lingered over coffee (him) and tea (me). He had golfing to do and I had shopping to do. I left the table first to shower and dress. When I returned to tell him the shower was his, I got a terrible look.

"That was your daughter's principal." Why is she always MY daughter when he's unhappy? I politely ignored the incorrect pronoun and asked why. There was an accident. Our lovely daughter hit another car in the truck my father gave her. Well, not another car, exactly. A bus. A schoolbus. Full of children. With her brother in the front seat.

I got into my car and drove to the high school. The ladies in the office sent for her. She started crying when she rounded the corner and saw me looking her way. She wiped her eyes. I told her she looked pretty good for a girl who had an accident that morning. Her response, "Well, this is really good mascara, Mom. It's waterproof." We got into my car and drove over to her parking lot (it's a pretty big high school). My husband had been told it wasn't a bad accident. I was expecting a dented bumper.

What I saw: a passenger door that wouldn't open, a cracked headlight and annhilated turn signal cover, a crumpled hood and hanging bumper. That was when I started to cry. Not one, but two of my children were inside when it was hit. Or, more accurately, when it hit something.

We did some serious talking and I told her things would be ok, then sent her back into school. I started making the necessary phone calls. First, Daddy. I told him what happened, that I was sorry, that she was alright. My father, who almost literally hit the ceiling when I had my first accident, said, "Baby, it's just a truck. Drive it home to me and I'll get it fixed." And I started to cry again. Daddy then reminded me of his birthday the year I was sixteen. When I wrecked his truck. Caved in the back of the cab with an oil field motor. With two of my cousins inside. And he laughed. I can assure you he did not think it was funny at the time.

By now it's 11:00am and I haven't even started the shopping. I had a cake to make for the elementary's cake walk and cookies to make for the middle school's bake sale. (Does it never occur to the powers that be that a family might have children in more than one school? I actually have one child in each of those PLUS another at the high school.) At this point there is no way I can shop and bake and drop everything off by 3:30pm, so I do what any resourceful and harried mother would do: I fake it. I buy a frosted cake and two dozen cookies at my favorite local bakery, take them home, put the cake into the box the school provided, put the cookies on a paper plate, cover them with saran wrap, and proceed to deliver them to the schools as if I had made them myself. So sue me. I'd had a bad day.

And it wasn't over. I inadvertently locked poor little Streudel in the master suite with no food, no water, and no litter box. I have a lovely bathroom with a tile floor. He did not choose to urinate there. He did not even choose to urinate on the carpet. The damn cat peed on my bed. Twice.

I think that's about it. Oh, wait, I didn't even tell you about taking hubby to the after hours clinic. He played golf and pulled a muscle deep in his shoulder somewhere. On his birthday. He did get some really good muscle relaxers, though. I think I'm going to take one and go to bed.

little sacrifices

I woke up to rain and my father's huge shadow in my bedroom door. He told me to get out of bed, he had something for me. In the living room floor sat my mother, a short haired black and white cat in her lap, my baby brother on his knees beside her looking on with his robin's egg blue eyes.

My father worked midnights and it was early morning when he left his office in the pouring rain. He drove a 1972 Chevrolet pick up truck in those days. The back was loaded with farm paraphernalia: baling wire, feed sacks, a fence stretcher, his tool box. As he walked to the truck he heard pitiful meowing from the bed of the truck but could see nothing. Finally he found her hidden underneath feed sacks trying to stay dry.

Daddy is allergic to cats. I had been asking for one for months. The drive from his office to our little town took him right at an hour. The grateful little cat curled up in his lap on the drive home and purred. By the time Daddy woke me his eyes were red and swollen. But something made him bring her home to me.

We named her Katie and within a few months she had gotten pregnant. She lost that litter of eight and the next one of six. Mama talked about having her spayed then she popped up pregnant again. Four this time, and three of them lived. All black and white, one long haired. I remember crawling behind my mother's olive green wing back chair to watch the kittens, amazed at the new life. My brother had just begun to talk. The long haired little boy had a face of mostly white, with an inky spot decorating his nose. My brother dubbed him Blacknose. He lived until I was seventeen.

Daddy is still allergic to cats. When my children found a pair of kittens someone had dumped on my parents' farm, they ran for their Pa-pa to help them. Daddy loaded the children and the kittens into his truck and took them all up to Mama. When I arrived to pick them up my mother was sitting in the middle of the floor with kittens in her lap and my children gathered around her.

I had no choice but to bring them home.