Every summer it’s the same thing: I’m just delighted by my caladiums. I’m constantly admiring them and taking pictures of them and thinking about them, making lists of the ones I have and the ones I want to get: Candyland, White Queen, Rose Bud . …
This has been a great summer for eggplant. Rob and I have globe-shaped eggplant and cucumber-shaped eggplant in three colors: solid purple, solid white, and purple-and-white striped. The fruits are so bright and cheerful they look like balloons festooning the plants, and every day it …
Every summer I like to pretend that I enroll my cat Carl in vacation Bible school. You see, in my games and dreams he’s my precious little son, forever four years old. Well, I mean, he’s a cat, but he wears clothes and talks and walks on two legs like any human child. He’s a cat, but he’s fully accepted in human society. In fact, when I drop him off at vacation Bible school, all the teachers and the other mothers always tell me how cute he is.
“Oh, your son is so adorable,” they say.
“Thank you,” I say.
Once Carl’s week at vacation Bible school is over, our summer days are less structured. Sometimes I take him to the city pool and he wears his water wings.
On quiet afternoons, we head to the library. I ride my bike, with Carl tucked into a little seat behind me. On the way home he sits in his seat and reads one of the books we’ve checked out while I pedal. He likes Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.
Carl is so sweet–not just in my silly dreams but in real life. He’s always looking at me and “talking” to me and following me around with his tail held high. He’s my little sunshine.
Finally! We got some nice fresh clean awnings hung on the breezeway the other day. The old ones had gotten sooooo dirty. We need to take better care of our awnings this time around. Terry, of Terry’s Awnings & Canvas in Havana, the man who …
Our spring carrot crop has been stupendous to say the least. We’ve got carrots coming out of our ears. Rob feels a real obligation to our carrots and is always scheming about how we can put them to good use.
Yesterday he said, “So what should we make to eat tomorrow?”
“Hmm,” I said. “How about chili?”
“Okay,” Rob said, and I could see the wheels spinning. “Now I bet we could put some carrots in that and none would be the wiser.”
Leroy On Sunday afternoon after Rob and I finished eating some delicious vegan hot wings, we sat on the screen porch and talked about our cat Leroy. It was extremely pleasant. Leroy was asleep nearby on a little couch under the ceiling fan. Even though …
When I showed Rob this picture of himself and our neighbors’ cat Bubbles, he nodded and said, “Oh, yeah, I see. There’s Bubbles reading the newspaper.” I thought his remark captured just perfectly the charm of the photo. Bubbles looks like a tiny person as …
Two Saturdays ago, Rob and I repainted the dark green fence that runs along North Adams Street in front of our house. The old paint had really faded over the years. We installed the fence in 2007, and it hadn’t been painted since then.
Painting was fun because it was the first truly warm day of the year and for once I wasn’t cooped up in an office. I was out in the world, enjoying the spring. We were kneeling among the lyre-leaf sage and golden ragwort, and we could smell the festive aroma of our neighbors’ barbecues. Everybody was celebrating the season.
Bubbles, who is not actually our cat, was keeping us company, rolling around in the grass, looking cute. Rob and I were singing Gordon Lightfoot songs and cheerfully criticizing each other’s painting, blaming each other for drips and missed spots. Rob thought I was putting my paint on too thin. I thought he was putting his on too thick.
And so it went–a little arguing, a little singing. The air smelled of smoked pork and wisteria. It took us about four hours to finish the fence, and we admired it for the rest of the day.
