and away they go…

Well, it was a won­der­ful thing to have hap­pen, and all that we had wished for, but let me tell you, it’s very heart-wrench­ing to say good­bye, sud­den­ly, unex­pect­ed­ly, in the final silent moments before a mas­sive thun­der­storm, to two dar­ling kittens.

But say good­bye we did.

How did it hap­pen? I will explain.

Yes­ter­day began par­tic­u­lar­ly pun­gent­ly, as in with a car full of garbage cans and recy­cling bags and piles of flat­tened card­board box­es to take to the dump. Ick! I hate the dump. But I felt a spe­cial pride in doing it, since in the­o­ry I could have wait­ed till John got here tomor­row (yippee!), but I want­ed the cans and the garbage room to be EMP­TY when he got here, to show that I had tak­en good care of every­thing while we were here with­out him. So I went, and strug­gled with my cans and bags and what­not, bel­liger­ent­ly dressed in a white ruf­fled t‑shirt and lit­tle den­im skirt: I will not be defeat­ed by the dump! Home singing loud­ly to the radio, win­dows open, gor­geous blue sky overhead.

I roast­ed a chick­en breast, whole and on the bone, with noth­ing but a smear of but­ter and a sprin­kle of salt and pep­per, for my Ladies Who Were Com­ing To Lun­cheon: two great fans of the won­der­ful life and cook­ery author who lived across the road in days gone by (grand­moth­er to my great friend Anne), and the morn­ing was pro­ceed­ing fair­ly nor­mal­ly, Avery read­ing qui­et­ly, the kit­tens play­ing like crazy nuts. Then… the cable guy came. Which I was expect­ing, albeit at the far end (as always!) of his two-hour win­dow… I explained to Avery that if one is 15 min­utes late for an 11–1 appoint­ment, the guy will arrive SPOT ON the begin­ning of the win­dow and you’ll miss him. BUT, on the oth­er hand, if you find your­self need­ing to leave a half hour after the END of the two-hour win­dow, he will come at the exact end of that win­dow and leave you bit­ing your nails till he fin­ish­es and you can LEAVE.

Well, this guy, and his col­league, arrived spot at the moment of 1 p.m., when my lun­cheon guests were expect­ed at 1:15. Two real­ly nice guys, one short, one tall, one plump, one thin, just like Jack and Mrs. Sprat. I led them upstairs in the steamy after­noon air to the bed­room tele­vi­sion, left them there to labor, and as Aman­da bound­ed into the room, asked rhetor­i­cal­ly (I thought), “Do you guys want a kit­ten?” and the tall skin­ny guy turned to me, and in the unmis­tak­able tones of my adopt­ed home­land, said, “Yes! Do you have more than one?”

WHOA.

Before we knew it, he (Phil, as he intro­duced him­self, “from Bris­tol”) had Lizzie in one hand, fast asleep, and Aman­da climb­ing his trouser leg. “It’s my girl­friend’s birth­day today, and…” and the short plump guy sat back on his heels and said, “You cheap bas­tard. You did­n’t get her any­thing? And now you’re going to give her a FREE KIT­TEN?” We all laughed. “You got it,” Phil said, “and my daugh­ter wants one too.” He was excused from any fur­ther cable-guy duty (lead­ing one to won­der why they send two guys, if one can be excused to acquire a kit­ten or two at a momen­t’s notice), and came down­stairs to call his ex-wife. “Hey, sweet­heart, is it OK if I give her a kit­ten? I know it’ll live at your house, so I want­ed to check…” We all wait­ed with bait­ed breath… while Avery clung unob­tru­sive­ly to Hast­ings. “Well, great. I’ll bring her home, then, and we’ll do the exchange over the week­end. Thanks, love.” And it was done. Avery found her new rid­ing hel­met box, took the hel­met out, put a t‑shirt and the Christ­mas rib­bon the kit­tens had made their toy into it, and in went the girls. That was THAT. Quick exchange of email address­es, and off they went.

I can tell you, it was hard for Avery. And she was SO gra­cious. She need­ed some time to her­self, and with Hast­ings, when the van had pulled away, car­ry­ing those two souls that had become such a part of our lives in the last ten days or so.

Good­ness.

Well, as luck would have it, thank good­ness my friend Shel­ley and her friend Anne pulled up just then in the dri­ve­way, to keep us from wal­low­ing in our sad­ness. What fun to meet them in real life! Shel­ley and I have been fast friends for the last year or so, in a vir­tu­al way, exchang­ing lots of emails and com­ments on the blog. She is a rare per­son of innate gen­eros­i­ty and wealth of empa­thy, which is eas­i­ly felt even through emails and such, but her aura of kind­ness and giv­ing in PER­SON is some­thing else again. You want to lock the door behind her and keep her with you! And Anne, her friend, felt like an old friend right away: a life­long ele­men­tary school teacher, hav­ing found her bliss in teach­ing kinder­garten, you sense an amaz­ing com­bi­na­tion of expe­ri­ence and WON­DER in her: she has seen it all and yet faces each new sit­u­a­tion with fresh­ness and appre­ci­a­tion. What a joy to have them here!

We sat down at the table I’d set out­side, and pre­tend­ed not to see the rum­bling grey clouds over­head and as far as the eye could see. We unfold­ed our nap­kins, Shel­ley admir­ing the love­ly nap­kin rings giv­en to Avery by Farmer Rol­lie and his wife Judy… and still we did not acknowl­edge the rustling of maple leaves over­head, and sense of a great atmos­pher­ic change com­ing. We helped our­selves to roast-chick­en sal­ad with sweet­corn, pine nuts and sliv­ered toast­ed almonds, cel­ery and lemo­ny may­on­naise, and the yum­my arti­choke dip made for me each sum­mer by my dear broth­er in law, and Brie and baguettes. And then… splash. “I just felt a rain­drop,” I said reluc­tant­ly, in the way that one acknowl­edges the first spots of small­pox. “Oh, that’ll be just a sprin­kle,” Anne said breezi­ly. “It’ll def­i­nite­ly be PASS­ING OVER.”

We kept repeat­ing this as we scooped up our lunch, chat­ting about Gladys Taber, the his­to­ry of the house across the road, my plans to help re-invig­o­rate some of her recipes into a kind of mem­oir-cook­book… until the most ENOR­MOUS crack of thun­der hap­pened RIGHT over our shoul­ders. Avery tensed. Then she said, “I can con­tribute noth­ing, real­ly, to this con­ver­sa­tion, and I’m real­ly afraid of thun­der and light­ning, so… would any­one mind if I went inside??” We all followed!

Lunch con­tin­ued in the din­ing room, con­ver­sa­tion trip­ping over itself… Shel­ley brought out gifts of books, knit­ted cat­nip toys, gor­geous milk glass, you would­n’t BELIEVE what she had brought… and the rain crashed and thun­dered and the sky dark­ened till it was like a late Novem­ber after­noon in Lon­don. Which means, about as dark as you can get with­out actu­al­ly need­ing to light a lamp. Hast­ings made his appear­ance and charmed every­one, climb­ing up every­one’s legs, beg­ging for water­mel­on and blueberries…

Final­ly it was time for Shel­ley and Anne to brave the rain which, it was clear, was not stop­ping ANY time soon. Off they went, leav­ing behind that feel­ing I love of girl­friends. Just ladies you real­ly love, and the feel­ing that you could have talked for about sev­en more hours and eat­en anoth­er meal, and not made a dent in what you want­ed to say. Thank you, Shel­ley, for your friend­ship, and wel­come, Anne, to what I hope will be a long and hap­py shared time togeth­er. We made plans for every sum­mer from now on, at Red Gate Farm.

I had bare­ly had time to clear away when there was a tor­na­do warn­ing in our coun­ty, so I felt it was my mater­nal duty to… take every­one down to the base­ment. “EEWW!” Avery shrieked. “Spi­ders, spi­ders!” It could not be denied. My house seems to gen­er­ate dad­dy lon­glegs and what­ev­er oth­er spi­ders like sug­ar water gath­ers ants. But we sat in our pun­ish­ing straight­back chairs, star­ing at each oth­er, try­ing to keep Hast­ings from escap­ing to the floor which we are fair­ly cer­tain con­tains traces of mouse poi­son. Ick. “One minute to go,” Avery intoned. “Fifty five, fifty four…” Final­ly we came up and NOTH­ING was hap­pen­ing out­side. “OK, maybe I over­re­act­ed a lit­tle,” I admit­ted. But my Indi­ana tor­na­do-rid­den upbring­ing has deep roots!

Well, need­less to say, Avery’s fever went away. It last­ed about twice as long as it usu­al­ly does, and there­fore pre­cise­ly twice as long as I was com­fort­able with. I had just looked up a pedi­a­tri­cian in town and vowed to take her as soon as she woke up, but in fact she slept incred­i­bly late, and woke up feel­ing FINE. What a relief. A lit­tle stuffy nose, and the next day a lit­tle cough, but no fever. Whew. So to cel­e­brate we ran a thou­sand errands: to KMart for votive can­dles (an absolute sta­ple in my house), bird seed, kit­ty lit­ter, all the basics, then the library, then Judy’s broth­er’s farm: Painter Ridge Farm: the best view of a sun­set in Con­necti­cut, with­out a doubt, in Wash­ing­ton. Only Judy was­n’t there! But a love­ly lady called Mary helped us, and lis­tened to Avery’s impas­sioned account of the then-three kit­tens we need­ed to find homes for. Her hus­band, Judy’s broth­er, came in on the tail end of this expo­si­tion, and Mary said, “Would­n’t you like a kit­ten?” And he stopped in his tracks, swiped a sweaty, dusty hand across his face and said firm­ly, “There’s only room for ONE ani­mal on this farm, and that’s ME.” Avery loved that!

On the way home we near­ly ran into a moth­er wild turkey, help­ing her baby across the road. “Stop, stop!” Avery screeched, so I did, and then there was anoth­er baby turkey, and anoth­er, and five more, and six more… there must have been 14 babies, head­ed by one adult and round­ed up at the end by anoth­er adult! Avery said, “I think that must not be a moth­er and father and fam­i­ly: that must be turkey DAY CARE.”

We’ve been host­ing a love­ly and very friend­ly skunk late­ly, who seems hap­py to clean up any and all din­ner left­overs for us: eat­ing our noo­dles and pep­pers, shred­ded moz­zarel­la and deli roast beef, corn cobs and stale Saltine crack­ers. It seems to mind not at all see­ing us about! Avery’s inspired to read, yet again, the book writ­ten by Anne-Across-the-Road­’s moth­er Con­stance Col­by, “A Skunk in the House,” which she reads every sum­mer. So love­ly. And such a relief, total relief to have Avery well. Although I must report a very enter­tain­ing late-night vis­it by her to my bed­room. Clear­ly half asleep and also hal­lu­ci­nat­ing slight­ly with her fever, she approached my bed and said, “Hi Mom­my. I just reached out my arms and every­thing was… total­ly fluffy.” Was it indeed, my dear!?

Well, today I drove her to Anna’s house for one more sleep­over, took a tour of the near­ly-unpacked and set­tled house, and drove home, which took bloody for­ev­er. Between a lash­ing thun­der­storm AGAIN, and ter­ri­ble Fri­day-evening traf­fic, I was on the road for­ev­er. But you know what: when the rain cleared but the traf­fic did­n’t, the best thing to do was, turn off the AC, roll the win­dows ALL the way down, find a cheesey radio sta­tion play­ing a song I liked, and just SING! I had a ball, hon­est­ly! I am almost nev­er tru­ly alone (which is fine, most of the time!), but to be alone and not chat­ting with any­one, lis­ten­ing to a book on tape, any­thing at all to keep me from singing… it was glorious!

I was starv­ing when I pulled into South­bury, so I stopped at the gro­cery and shopped for the, pos­si­bly, BEST din­ner of the sum­mer. Why do I cre­ate these things when there’s no one but me to enjoy them? I think there’s some­thing to total impro­vi­sa­tion, total spon­tane­ity, and cook­ing for just ONE that makes a great thing pos­si­ble, now and then. And you must­n’t ever be hin­dered by any of the fol­low­ing thoughts: “It’s not worth it just for me,” or “It’ll be eas­i­er just to pick up some Chi­nese take­out, which Avery does­n’t like any­way,” or “It’ll be cheap­er to…” NO! You are worth it, all on your own! And there is noth­ing in the world wrong with spend­ing $15 on a din­ner you cook JUST FOR YOU.

Carmelized Shrimp and Scal­lops with Sauteed Pret­ty Vegetables
(serves ONE!)

4 large raw shrimp, tails on
4 large scallops
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
sprin­kle Pen­zeys “Fox Point Seasoning”
2 tbsps olive oil (hot pep­per fla­vored if you like! I did)
juice of 1 lemon
sev­er­al grinds fresh black pepper
1 red pepper
8 stalks asparagus
2 green onions, sliced on the bias
1 tsp butter
splash white wine
2 ears corn on the cob

Seri­ous­ly: you can pre­pare this din­ner in about 20 min­utes, at least 10 of which is spent with you cradling a tiny kit­ten while swing­ing on a rope swing, let­ting the mari­nade do all the work.

So lay the shrimp and scal­lops in a sin­gle lay­er in a shal­low dish. Cut up red pep­per and break aspara­gus stalks in half. Lay them in anoth­er shal­low dish with green onions. Sprin­kle each dish with an equal amount of gar­lic, sea­son­ing, olive oil, lemon juice and black pep­per. Just leave it all! Play with that kit­ten. He needs you.

Shuck the corn and boil water in a pot for it.

Heat a non-stick skil­let real­ly high. Throw in the veg­eta­bles and cook over high-ish heat till to the done­ness you like. Remove to their orig­i­nal dish. Heat the skil­let again, add the but­ter and care­ful­ly slide the shrimp and scal­lops in, in a sin­gle lay­er. Cook high for 2 min­utes, then turn each shrimp and scal­lop and cook anoth­er minute or to (depend­ing on how large they are). By now, the seafood should be nice­ly cooked. Throw in the wine and swish the seafood around. This will cre­ate a dark caramel­ly sauce that is DELI­CIOUS. At the last minute, throw the corn in the boil­ing water. Put the veg­eta­bles back in the skil­let and toss with the seafood, then remove to a warm dish. Enjoy with the corn on the side!

*******************

I found that the scal­lops had to be eat­en ALL ON THEIR OWN. Fol­lowed by a red pep­per or aspara­gus bite maybe, but… the del­i­ca­cy of the scal­lops deserves its own atten­tion! So much fun to peel the shrimp, mak­ing a mess, but­ter the corn, mak­ing a mess. By this time, let me tell you, your fork has been aban­doned and you’re eat­ing the aspara­gus and pep­pers with your fin­gers, too!

It was a love­ly din­ner. I’m try­ing to enjoy my evening alone and NOT obsess over how much I want to be with my hus­band and child! Tomor­row evening. What fun that will be.

In the mean­time, I’d bet­ter go find that Hast­ings, asleep on Avery’s bed, miss­ing her no doubt. Two down, one to go! Want a lit­tle tab­by kitten?