one down, two to go

It’s true: one of our fos­ter kit­tens has been adopt­ed. The shel­ter in Dan­bury called us up and said they had poten­tial clients for “two black kit­tens,” so we packed up all three (sev­er­al sweaty for­ays under beds, backs of hands scratched) in the car­ri­er and head­ed off. I found it quite stress­ful, try­ing to sell kit­tens! Avery was a total star, enu­mer­at­ing their good qual­i­ties, try­ing to pre­tend they weren’t hid­ing under cages and sofas, calm­ing each one down so they could be held by the would-be new fam­i­lies. An hour lat­er, Amelia had been cho­sen by a love­ly cou­ple who in a slight­ly Too Much Infor­ma­tion moment con­fid­ed their infer­til­i­ty prob­lems and every oth­er inti­mate detail of their lives. “My first wife left me,” the fel­low con­fid­ed, rock­ing on his heels, “and she said we’d have to split up the cats, she’d take one, I’d keep one. Oh, NO, I said, you want to leave, you leave. But the cats stay. Then they died. So now my new wife [head ges­ture to very demure lady stand­ing next to him, hands fold­ed] is hav­ing female prob­lems, and I said, with every­thing that’s going on with maybe a baby, it’s no time for a kit­ten. But then the baby did­n’t work out. So I said, OK, let’s get a kit­ten. And now he’s dri­ving us crazy, just as we get home from work all tired out, he’s ready to play. ALL NIGHT. So he needs a friend.” Oh, sad. But sweet. So away went Amelia in their very posh car­ri­er. And Dor­rit and Nemo came back home with us. We can only hope we’ll find homes for them before we have to head back to London.

We’re in des­per­ate denial that our time here is dwin­dling. Avery’s read­ing straight through the South­bury library, I’m read­ing through my shelves here, and let me just share with you what’s got John’s lit­er­ary hear­beat pound­ing: “Deriv­a­tives and Equi­ty Port­fo­lio Man­age­ment.” I swear I am not mak­ing that up. And you know the best part? He says it’s a SEQUEL to a book he read in Lon­don. A SEQUEL.

Avery has made the most amaz­ing dis­cov­ery: Wil­low Creek Farms, a near­by eques­tri­an con­cern with quite a mag­i­cal horse and train­er in The Red Baron, and Amie. It’s the famil­iar sta­ble world filled with shy girls lead­ing ponies, fork­ing hay, set­ting up jumps. The Red Baron is enor­mous! The jumps even more so! I try to be calm as she races around the sta­ble in a com­pli­cat­ed series of over­com­ing obsta­cles. She will not get hurt! I’m sure of it. And Amie seems to love her, which is mutu­al, so every­one’s hap­py. The set­ting is idyl­lic: typ­i­cal rolling Con­necti­cut hills, blue blue skies, all har­mo­ny and peace.

I have a philo­soph­i­cal ques­tion for you: do you ever suc­cess­ful­ly real­ly enjoy things, or do you just do them fran­ti­cal­ly to save them to enjoy lat­er when life calms down? Like the philoso­pher (I for­get who) who says that hap­pi­ness isn’t some­thing we expe­ri­ence, it’s some­thing we remem­ber. I do feel I spend each sum­mer pack­ing the hours full of peo­ple and things and food and events that serve more than any­thing else as mem­o­ries, not the actu­al expe­ri­ence. Maybe it’s inevitable, when we are here for such a short time.

Even more sig­nif­i­cant than these mus­ings is the fol­low­ing: I admit it: I real­ly miss Eng­lish sausage. There. I’ve said it.

So the days are wind­ing them­selves down, kit­tens find a place to sleep in the least com­fort­able spot in the entire house: on a win­dowsill perched above my stair­case. Both kit­tens sleep there now at night, since Avery has reluc­tant­ly closed her door to them, find­ing it impos­si­ble to sleep with them bit­ing her nose, bury­ing their faces in her ears, tuck­ing them­selves under the cov­ers to find her alpaca ted­dy bear to snug­gle with. For some rea­son they don’t try it on with John and me. Nemo made an appear­ance this after­noon to sit on the tram­po­line while Kate bounced and tried on my shoes (I am not exag­ger­at­ing, she is sim­ply obsessed with shoes), and he was com­plete­ly adorable, limp and sweaty in the late after­noon sun, fold­ing his paws, show­ing off the white chin that’s so sym­met­ri­cal­ly and per­fect­ly placed under his mouth!

I look around my house and see burned-out light­bulbs that I can’t reach, spi­der webs dit­to, a place in the show­er that should be bleached, dried out and caulked, and I think: next sum­mer? I’d rather relax and gaze at the pink and green rose-pat­terned vin­tage lamp­shade on my bed­side table (a rick­ety affair of four chipped legs with a vanil­la-col­ored paint­ed top), look­ing across the room at the brass-han­dled four-draw­er wood­en affair with scat­tered fad­ed flow­ers paint­ed across it, and the three-draw­er Indi­ana piece from my grad­u­ate stu­dent shop­ping trip in Vin­cennes, Indi­ana… if I squint gen­er­ous­ly all I see are the mem­o­ries these objects evoke, and not the dust bun­nies that blow forth when a kit­ten crawls under them and dis­turbs the years of fluff.

Excite­ment is build­ing for my moth­er’s birth­day par­ty on Sun­day: odd pack­ages are being wrapped, and for obvi­ous rea­sons I can­not tell you what is in them, but the fun­ny assort­ment of things rep­re­sent who she is! I can­not wait to see them tomor­row when they arrive some­time in the mid after­noon. Avery and I will spend the day bak­ing desserts for her par­ty, and my dad will pull up in the dri­ve­way with a car filled with his pre­cious toma­toes for Jill (per­haps she’ll share), with sto­ries of their two-day cross-coun­try jour­ney. Jill and her fam­i­ly will arrive for din­ner, with Jane no doubt bounc­ing off the walls with excite­ment, Mol­ly gaz­ing at all the hilar­i­ty with her usu­al brow-fur­rowed concentration.

I’ll leave you with a spec­tac­u­lar and spec­tac­u­lar­ly sim­ple lob­ster recipe. You can afford it this sum­mer, with lob­ster prices the low­est in more than 20 years (but spare a thought for the poor lob­ster­men). It’s sum­mer on a plate.

Grilled Lob­ster with Pesto Butter
(serves 4, one lob­ster per person)

4 lob­sters, 1 1/2 pounds each
1/2 cup pesto
1/2 cup but­ter, melted

Drop lob­sters head­first into a pot with 2 inch­es of boil­ing water. Clap lid on pot and steam the lob­sters for 12 min­utes. Cool lob­sters until they can be han­dled, then cut them in half length­wise and remove claws. Lib­er­ate meat from claws and set aside.

Mix the pesto and melt­ed but­ter. Brush each lob­ster half, flesh side, with the pesto mix­ture and grill over a high heat for 4 min­utes. Serve with fresh pesto mix­ture brushed on, and with claw meat on the side.

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This dish is rich, but­tery, mas­sive­ly fla­vor­ful and redo­lent of August. You’ll love it. And if you come for din­ner, I’ll throw in a kit­ten. Or two.