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?