Yesterday morning I got up early and made a batch of Vegan Cherry Almond Cookies before dawn. It was very cozy. As I worked, Buntin sat nearby on the counter, tenderly licking the butter wrapper. The dough was so pretty, rose-petal pink. “Buntin, can you …
Saturday was the most beautiful and glorious day of all the year so far. It was dazzling. Everything was so green and seemed to shimmer with life, to tremble with it. Spring had truly arrived. Finally! Rob and I began the day with a trip …
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On Friday night it rained over 4 inches. It was a spectacular storm that started in the late afternoon and continued until just before dawn. Rob and I popped popcorn and watched Justified as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, and I was so glad that Bernie, the old stray tomcat I take care of, had recently decided to take up residence in our garage. (It’s like he decided to go into assisted living.) I knew he was safe and dry, and that gave me peace of mind. I could picture him relaxing on the old couch near Rob’s worktable as the rain made a racket on the tin roof.
I think Bernie is the cutest thing, though Rob disagrees. Bernie’s got a big head, a tiny body, and one eye—and he’s filthy dirty. Though I’ve been taking care of him for years, he has remained steadfastly feral all this time. He still hisses at me every time I present him with his Fancy Feast.
By Saturday morning the rain was done and the birds were singing. I sat at the kitchen table and worked on a craft until it got light outside. I was drinking a Coke and stitching up a little felt Halloween ornament, a friendly bat with pearl beads for eyes and a little smile showing vampire teeth. Softee was sitting next to me on one of the benches at the table, and as I petted her she got so overstimulated that she stood up on her hind legs and started playfully biting my head as she hugged me around the shoulders with her front legs. She kept biting and wrestling me and getting her claws stuck in my pajamas, and I was laughing and laughing and saying, “Softee, you’re making my stitches come out all crooked!”
About 10, Rob and I went to Tallahassee to run some errands. We got a new battery-powered push mower at Lowe’s, and we also bought a beautiful painting at Memory Lane Antiques, near Lake Ella. It’s a swamp scene by Florida artist Donald Gibbs, full of intricate detail—Spanish moss and reeds and a feathery egret. The owner of the store told us that Gibbs painted the delicate strands of moss using a pin instead of a brush.
We spent Saturday afternoon mowing and edging the lawn for the first time this year. I did hours of weeding too, which was the most fun I’ve had in ages. With the rain, the yard had turned bright green—spring had finally come. When we took a break to have some limeade on the breezeway, Rob reported that he’d seen a hummingbird, and I told him I’d seen a chickadee with an inchworm in its beak. “I saw a little box turtle, too,” I said, “under a Shi Shi Gashira sasanqua.”
It was such a beautiful day that when Buntin, our temperamental tortie, sneaked out of the house (all our cats, except Bernie, are indoor cats), I didn’t bring her inside right away. Instead, I carried her around in the sun for a while and let her smell things, which is what cats like to do, mainly, when they’re outside. Rob was walking with us and making suggestions about where to stop. “Let her smell the lemon blossoms,” he said. “And don’t forget the glorious roses.”
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| The north side of the yard after mowing |
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| Winged pig on the breezeway |
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| Birdhouse and plum branches |
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| Lemon blossoms |
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| Rob admiring the lemon tree |
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| Rob and Buntin |
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| Leroy rejoicing for spring |
February was another busy month for home-improvement projects around here. Rob and I were hard at work every weekend. We started fixing up the bathroom in the main house, planted lots of plants, and even did a little Easter decorating. We spent the beginning of …
I wanted to tell you about a favorite place of mine, Tallahassee’s most famous tourist attraction, Wakulla Springs State Park. The park is home to one of the world’s biggest freshwater springs, thousands of acres of woods, and an elegant Spanish-style lodge built in 1937 …
Last weekend Rob and I painted the trim in the back bedroom. The trim in there had always bothered me because half of it was painted and the other half was bare wood. Plus, the bare wood part wasn’t even stained or varnished and wasn’t even completely bare; bits of old white paint were stuck around all the nails. Obviously somebody, years before, had tried to strip the wood, but they hadn’t quite succeeded. I wanted all the trim to match, so Rob and I gave everything a few good coats of a nice neutral color called Mannequin Cream.
We had fun painting, and the cats got into the spirit too. The house was in complete disarray, and Buntin, June, and Frankie were making the most of it. All the bedroom furniture and decorations were piled up in the hallway, and the cats were climbing precarious towers of books and leaping from one wobbly end table to another. As we painted we kept hearing crashing sounds.
We took a break for lunch on Saturday at the Laredo Grill, one of Quincy’s few restaurants. It’s a cheerful place near the Piggly Wiggly and a great asset to our little town. The waiter at the Laredo Grill likes to tease me about my vegan-ness. I always order the Double A Combination Platter with “no cheese and no sour cream,” and whenever he presents me with my plate, he says, “For you, señorita. Extra cheese!” He says it in the most deadpan manner; he never cracks a smile.
On Sunday Rob and I touched up the trim with our artist brushes. Then, after the last coat had dried, we cleaned the cat fur off each piece of furniture and moved it back into place. We cleaned cat fur off the walls, too, with a dust mop.
The room was transformed; it looked so much better.
“I don’t know what made more of a difference,” Rob said, “the painting or the de-cat-ifying.”
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| Carl supervising the painting process |
Last Saturday my sister Bunny, Dad, and I went to the Tallahassee Camellia Society’s annual show. It was held in Eyster Auditorium at the Doyle Conner Agricultural Complex. The auditorium was full of tables covered with row after row of red, pink, and white blooms …
Last week we got our sunroom and kitchen floors refinished. Both really needed it. The sunroom floor had water damage and most of the old finish had peeled off, and the kitchen floor was painted dark green. Both floors are wood (pine), and we had …
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| Mansion in the Garden District |
Over Thanksgiving weekend, my mom, sisters, niece, nephew, and I went on a little trip to New Orleans. We had so much fun. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Canal Street, toured the Garden District, shopped on Royal Street, and ate tons of beignets and pralines and other New Orleans specialties.
We saw so many neat things. At night in Jackson Square, fortune tellers read tarot cards by candlelight. There was a girl dressed up in faded 19th-century clothes, including high-button shoes and a hoop skirt. Holding a tattered parasol, she posed by the iron gates of Jackson Square Park, her face painted like a skull. A white horse pulled a carriage past her, but when we looked closer we saw that it was no ordinary horse; it had glittering hoofs, a single white horn, and white feathered wings.
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| Urn in Jackson Square Park |
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| Cocoally is a really cute shop in the French Quarter. |
I’m tempted to write about everything we saw and everything we did, but I know that would be boring. Instead, I’ll just tell you about two funny little incidents involving Sophie and Jake, my niece and nephew:
On Thanksgiving Day we ate at Chartres House. It took a while to get seated. As we waited around on the sunny, warm sidewalk, Jake kept dancing next to Sophie and playing an invisible saxophone. He seemed to be playing some smooth jazz. Sophie was so embarrassed. She kept coming up to Kris and saying (she was just teasing), “Mommy, if you don’t take control of your child, I’m going to throw him in the street!”
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| Sophie, Kris, and Jake at Cafe Du Monde |
One of our favorite shops in New Orleans was a little place called Adorn that sold surreal (but cute) cat portraits by the artist Cary Chun Lee. There was a whole wall of these bold, bright, funny, cool cat paintings. We were mesmerized. Some cats held voodoo dolls. Others held cigarettes or flowers or pizza.
“I like the little guy eating a piece of toast,” I said, pointing.
“It’s a beignet,” Sophie said, teasing again, rolling her eyes at me. “You’re uncultured, Leslie.”
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| Sophie! |
