Last
week I set up a small tea cupboard, with a little shelf and two
drawers, in our kitchen. The drawers hold boxes of Irish breakfast,
Darjeeling, English breakfast, cinnamon spice, rose hip, and jasmine
teas, and the shelf is just right for a china sugar bowl and
teacup-shaped spoon holder. As soon as the maple leaves began to fall
and I felt the first real chill at twilight, I knew that, along with
the coming holidays, tea-drinking season had arrived. The remains of
a nasty chest cold gave me a reason to rest in the middle of an
afternoon, reading and drinking hot tea from my favorite mug. (I have
a cherished collection of English bone china cups and saucers, a
legacy from my grandmother, but use stout pottery mugs for everyday
tea drinking. The delicate cups come out only for fancy tea parties,
when adult women can turn into little girls again.)
I
sat in my red chair that day, set down my book for awhile and watched
fat snowflakes falling in graceful swirls onto our lawn and gardens.
The first snowfall in Moscow always brings a moment of pure joy for
me. As a West Side transplant, I remember weeks of rain, gray and
soggy days, and the wish – rarely granted – that we would have
snow in Seattle for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Or maybe in January.
The falling flakes last week were the perfect transition from the
glorious colors and flaming sunsets of our Indian summer on the
Palouse, to the crisp air and gusty winds that blew us straight into
the heart of autumn. The weather's change seemed to happen overnight,
and I felt doubly thankful that I'd planted all the spring tulips and
daffodil bulbs weeks ago, under a sunny Idaho blue sky.
Before
I leaped fully into the year's busiest season, I spent another recent
afternoon turning our living room into Miss Sydney's House of
Sheepdog Shearing. Rags, our elderly Old English sheepdog, was
overdue for a grooming. His long, shaggy hair had grown tangled and
matted over the summer, as his health deteriorated. My husband and I
were not sure he would live into the autumn, and we didn't want to
cause the needless anxiety that any sort of grooming triggers for
him. Finally, though, I refilled the veterinarian's prescription for
the tranquilizers he needs before a beauty session, and waited until
the pills had calmed him. My husband grooms Rags with electric
clippers, but I use only hairdresser's scissors, because that tool
leaves more fur on the big guy – and winter is coming. Through more
than four hours, I followed my large, groggy dog , snipping away, as
he lay on his leather couch, then on the living room rug, and finally
wedged himself into his favorite meditation spot – under the
library table in our entryway. By twisting, contorting, kneeling,
stretching and groaning (a lot), I reached every inch of Rags' fur
while he lay, conked out, until he roused himself and sleepwalked to
his next spot.
Our
only problems arose when I accidentally nicked his ear – he yelped
once, and I cried – and when he made a request I could not, in good
conscience, agree to honor. He wanted me to leave the shaggy hair on
top of his head long enough for a man-bun. As tactfully as possible,
I convinced him that this unfortunate hair style is a fad (which
cannot fade away quickly enough for moi.) His style, I reminded him,
is classic (classic goofball, but no need to include the entire
description.) Man-buns will soon go the way of the mullet
(which I rather liked,)but floppy ears and shaggy hair falling
over brown eyes, above a fat black nose, will never go out of style
at our house.
Our
cats are settling in for the cold months, too. I've laid small fleece
rugs in front of the heat registers in the living room, so Benjamin
BadKitten and Abigail Grump can keep their tails warm while they
share family time with us. (Their rugs haven't gotten too much use,
though. Benjamin prefers the soft security of my lap while I pet him,
or the privacy of his flowered chair, while he plots his springtime
coup d'etat to overthrow my chief garden staffer and return to
power.)
Tessa the Vague, the current chief staffer, prefers to sleep
on a small wool rug that's tucked behind the TV cabinet. Tess remains
a loner by nature, although she's become social enough to track my
movements indoors and lumber up onto the arm of my red chair at
reading and tea-drinking time. A small calico cat, with vacant green
eyes and a twitchy nature, who stares, unblinking, is not an ideal
companion when I'm trying to enjoy my book and sip hot tea. But I pet
her gently, and hope this season of cold and indoor time will help
her deal with the transition that may be coming next spring out in
the garden. I'm getting the clear message, tweaked by the relentless
barrage of snark from my BadKitten, that Tessa the Vague is just
flat-out not management material.
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