Reflections on the First Week of Winter – Noisy Night

Guest Blog by Emma and Her Ghost Writer

    “Emma.”

    Janet can wait. I chomp another mouthful.

    Her bedsprings creak. “Emma!”

    She can't wait.

    I patter down the hall and jump on the bed. She's on her side. Tempting target. I head butt her posterior. Bullseye.

    She reaches back to fondle my ears.

    I purr.

    She sighs and snuggles under the covers.

    Almost time. If I lull her to sleep, I can frolic without a camera pointing at me. I settle behind her back and cross my front legs.

    Fifteen minutes later, Janet's rhythmic breathing makes me yawn. I shake off drowsiness. Time to empty the toy basket. I ease to the edge of the bed and jump onto her fuzzy red slippers to muffle my landing.

    Bang, boom, crash.

    Why is George exercising on the metal steps now?

    I glance from the camera bag on the dresser to Janet under the covers. She's calm. I creep out of the bedroom. My chubby brother dashes from the basement to the loft.

    Clang, clank, thunk.

    Perhaps he's trying to wake the birds roosting in the white pines.

    Janet snorts and takes a long sleep breath.

    Silence in the loft. Fine. George's probably squatting in the litter box. I tiptoe toward the toy basket next to the wood stove.

    Thump, thung, thud.

    No litter box squatting. George beats me to the basket and knocks it over.

    Dragons, fish, and feathered pineapples fly. Jingling bells roll on the floor. Aroma of catnip floats my way.

    George chases a squishy, green tinsel ball. His claws scratch the hardwood floor. He bumps into the ash bucket and clambers over the fire place poker. Is he trying to wake the whole planet?

    On his third pass around the room, I whack him on the head.

    He stops and gives me his what-was-that-for look. Forgetting the tinsel ball, he licks my forehead.

    As if.

    But licking me calms him down. He finishes grooming me and waddles to the kitchen for a snack.

    Janet's quiet in the bedroom. I'm safe. No camera.

    I rub a catnip fish over my whiskers. Aaah. I juggle it with my paws then roll to my side for some meditation. Maybe I'll sharpen my claws on the log wall next.

    Mer-aaaaaw.

    He wouldn't.

    Mer-aaaaw.

    He would. George bites his hairy toy snake and paces.

    Mer-aaaaa in the great room.

    He thinks he's a shaman ridding the house of evil spirits.

    Mer-aaaaw in the bathroom.

    Forget the camera.

    Mer-aaaaw in the bedroom.

    Waking Janet will make her grouchier than any evil spirit. I scamper to the bedroom.

    The bed springs creek.

    She thrashes her legs.

    I jump on the bed and head butt her posterior.

    Her legs stop moving.

    George drops his hairy, toy snake and pads away.

    Yawn. I need a long winter's nap.

 

Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Fall – Christmas Stranger 

    Wednesday evening, I opened the passenger door to Peggie's new Buick SUV and slid onto the seat. “Ooooh! Toasty,” I said before saying hi or thanks for driving me to the quilt guild Christmas party.

    She laughed. “I turned the passenger seat heater on when I left home.”

    Sirius XM Radio played Christmas music from the fifties and sixties.

    Spence, who'd followed me out of the log house, stood by Peggie's window.

    She opened it for him.

    “You girls be careful and have fun.”

    “We will,” we said in unison.

    “You'll never get her out of the car with the Christmas music on,” he whispered to Peggie. “She loves Christmas music.”

    Spence walked to the house, and Peggie backed out of the driveway.

     “You look nice in your red coat,” I said.

    “Thanks. I brought my down coat in case it gets too cold for this one.” She turned the steering wheel and headed up West Creek Road. “I want to stop at the store on the way home. I have to buy lettuce to make a salad for a party Friday, and I don't want to go out tomorrow. The weather's supposed to be horrible.”

    Horrible weather had kept me from a Jane Austen birthday celebration in Cleveland last Sunday. Tuesday evening, horrible weather had slowed Spence's drive home from Cleveland meetings to a thirty-five miles per hour pace on Pennsylvania state roads.

    Weather forecasts predicted the snow Peggie wanted to avoid would start tonight.

    “Why don't we stop on the way to the restaurant in case the weather is bad later?”

    “I don't want the lettuce to freeze in the car.”

    “We could take it in with us.”

    “That's an idea.”

    We oohed and aahed at Christmas lights in Cochranton then drove on to Meadville.

    At the Meadville Giant Eagle, Peggie parked by the cart return near the entrance. “I'll leave the motor on. I won't be long.” She disappeared into the store.

    I hummed along with “Silent Night.”

    Folks walked past the SUV. Two young men carried bundles of plastic bags to the recycle bin, a couple checked a paper list, and single shoppers hustled out of the cold.

    What if a teenager heard the car engine running and decided to go for a joy ride?

    No teen would want to drive a Buick SUV.

    If a car thief came, could I get the keys out of the steering column?

    Not wearing that seatbelt.

    “I'm being silly,” I told the radio. “Lots of folks leave their car running for passengers in the winter.”

    I tapped my foot to “Santa Baby” and checked colors of coats on people leaving the store. Gray, brown, black. No red.

    Several women walked close to the SUV to return shopping carts. A man, in a tan coat and without a shopping coat, approached the driver's door then veered around the back.

Perhaps he was looking for his car.

    He returned to the driver's door.

    Okay, he wasn't looking for his car. What did he want?

    He spoke at least a sentence outside the window.

    With “O, Come All Ye Faithful” on the radio, I couldn't hear him. I said, “What?” with no hope he'd hear me either. But, Spence says, my face could win a Pulitzer Prize.

    The man must have read the question in my expression. He opened the driver's door. “Is this Peggie Moorhead's car?”

    “Yes,” I forced myself to answer.

    “Good. I met her in the store. I'd left my green jacket at her house. She said the jacket was in her car.”

    “I don't know where it is, but you can look.”

    He opened the door to the backseat and picked up Peggie's powder blue down coat. His green jacket was underneath. “This is great. It saves me a trip all the way back to Milledgeville.” He closed both doors and walked away.

    I turned the temperature dial down and wiggled my over-toasted fanny to “Jingle Bell Rock.”

    When the song ended, Peggie in her red coat walked to the SUV carrying a bag which presumably held lettuce. She settled behind the driving wheel. “Did you see John?”

    “Yes. He got his jacket. Who is he?”

    “He's my cousin who lives here in Meadville. He'd left his jacket at my house after a guest preaching job at our church last Sunday. Funny meeting him at the store.” She backed out of the parking place. “I told him not to scare you. He didn't, did he?”

    “No, but I was surprised.”

    “Silver Bells” played on the radio.

Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Fall – Snow Brings Birds to the Window

    Friday, I measured six inches of snow on the ground. With a forecast of high temperatures ranging from thirteen to thirty-five for the next ten days, we figured bears were finally hibernating. We could feed birds without attracting a bear to the deck.

    Spence fetched the plastic bird feeder, poured sunflower seeds into a half gallon bucket, and stepped outside without putting on winter gear. Snow crunched under his shoes, and suction cups squeaked against the sliding glass door. He filled the feeder with seeds and waved to me through the window.

    Maybe we'd waited too long to feed the birds.

    I sat in the Adirondack chair near the wood stove, wrote notes in holiday cards, and waited for birds to find the seeds.

    Two hours later, a thud drew my attention to the window. A titmouse gazed back at me from the feeder. The titmouse speared a seed with its beak and flew away. A chickadee zoomed in.

    Within an hour, a winter-mix flock of about two dozen titmice, chickadees, and juncos cued on wisteria vines and tomato cage wires to take turns snatching seeds.

    We hadn't waited too long to hang the feeder.

    With effort, I ignored the winged ballets outside and wrote more notes.

    Thud.

    Imagining a chickadee with broken neck, I put my pen on the table and forced myself to check the snow on the deck. No dead bird. Instead a pair of titmice pecked seeds from both sides of the feeder. I admired snow capped flower pots and watched for where birds hit the glass so that I could tape a Christmas card in that spot.

    As if walking on a tightrope, a chickadee on a tomato cage wire stepped to the right, stepped to the left, then flew towards the feeder. The chickadee banged into the plastic perch, dropped to the deck, and shook its whole body. After staring at the feeder, the chickadee made a second attempt, landed on the perch, and snatched a seed.

    Thud.

    A male cardinal bumped into the roof of the feeder. Attempting to squeeze between the roof and perch, he crashed into the roof again. On his third try, he slipped in soundlessly.

    Birds weren't bashing their brains on the window. They were adjusting flight patterns to land on the perch.

    I could relax.

    But my cat George crept to the sliding glass door and crouched.

    Perhaps he'd scare this year's flock.

    With ears twitching and tail swishing, George followed incoming and outgoing flights with his head. When two juncos hopped on the deck to gather fallen seeds, George pounced on the window.

    The juncos didn't flinch at George's thud. They pecked seeds and played tag in the snow.

    George, inside the window, hadn't scared birds.

    I sighed, and Spence said, “Just relax. They'll all live happily ever after.”

Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Fall – Swimming Irritations

    Forget the apple. Swimming three times a week keeps arthritis away.

    To swim at the Meadville YMCA, I established a smooth, two hour and forty-five minute routine. Pack, drive, change, swim, shower, dress, drive, and deal with wet gear.

    Then, two weeks ago, Monday came.

    A sign that said, “Pool Closed Today,” greeted me at the check-in desk. My face must have registered disappointment because Tess's welcoming smile turned to a frown. “I'm sorry. The regulator went crazy over the weekend and dumped extra chlorine into the pool. The malfunction should be fixed tomorrow.”

    I sighed, stuffed my gear in a locker, and walked to exercise room behind the check-in desk. Mounting a stationary bike, I peddled through Paris via a video of crowded streets and views of Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower, and Arc de Triomphe. My knees gave out before the video ended.

    Tuesday, Tess kept her welcoming smile. “The pool's fixed. You can swim today.”

    Three regulars, Leeann, Mike, and Eva, were already exercising when I toed off my pool shoes and walked down the steps into the water. Odor of chlorine assaulted my nostrils. Yuck.

   I had sixty lengths or two thirds of a mile to swim.

    I dove under and came up pulling my arms into a breast stroke. I pulled, breathed, thrust and kicked.

    My lips numbed.

    Weird.

    Fifty-two lengths to go.

   I switched to a side stroke. With my right hand, I cupped water, swished it back to my left hand, then scissor kicked. I glimpsed Jackie, another regular swimmer, standing in street clothes on the deck and talking to the life guard.

   Why wasn't Jackie in her suit?

   Forty-two lengths to go. 

    Staring at the ceiling tiles and tucking my feet toward my butt, I drew my hands up my torso then flung my arms to the side. Kicking and forcing my arms to my thighs, I splashed my face and zipped through the water. The insides of my mouth and nose were as parched as desert sand. Thank goodness I hadn't forgotten my goggles.

    Thirty lengths to go.

    I pulled, breathed, and thrust forward. The others weren't putting their heads under the water. Leeann, who marches and swishes Styrofoam barbells, and Mike, who only swims side stroke since his back operation, never do, but Eva usually varies freestyle and backstroke. Today she doggy paddled. Maybe they knew something I didn't.

    Eighteen lengths to go.

    The room quieted letting splashes from my elementary backstroke echo off the walls. I stopped at the shallow end and surveyed the pool. Everyone had left. Forget the last sixteen lengths. I'd settle for a half mile today.

    I grabbed the edge of the pool, moved my left leg back and set my heel on the bottom. While I stretched, I stared at the gurgling fountain.

    Was it circulating the maximum amount of chlorine, or had the regulator malfunctioned again?

   When I returned home, I dumped my gear into the wash tub. Suit, shoes, bathing cap, and goggles reeked as if I'd poured a gallon of bleach over them. Sheesh.

    On Thursday, Tess greeted me with an even wider, welcoming smile. “The pool's fixed. You'll have a lovely swim.”

    But she'd said the pool was fixed Tuesday.

    “Great,” I said exchanging my car keys for a lock to secure a locker. “The last swim was bleachy.”

    Her smile switched to a pursed lip pout.

    I changed and zoomed through the smooth, odorless water as if it were liquid silk. But when I swam between Eva and Jackie, snippets of their conversation bothered me. “. . . such a headache . . . my fillings felt like they were coming out . . .”

    In the locker room, I fastened the hooks of my bra and asked Jackie. “Were you talking to Eva about the chlorine Tuesday? Is that why you didn't swim?”

    “Yes. It was too high. They closed the pool Tuesday afternoon.”

    Yikes. Right after I'd left. “How high was it?”

    “You don't want to know.”

    “Yes, I do.”

    “No. You don't.”

    Pulling my turtleneck over my head I said, “Tell me.”

    “They read the indicator wrong. They thought it was six, but it was really twelve.”

    What did the numbers mean?

    I drove home and searched Google for pool chlorine levels.  Two to three parts per million is recommended. More than three will emit an odor and cause irritation.

    Swimming on that fated Tuesday kept more than arthritis away. I bet I'm still germ free from my swim in bleach.

 

Reflections on the Tenth Week of Fall – Thanksgiving Calm

    Friday, our daughter Ellen walked in the door, accepted my hug, and dropped her suitcase by the kitchen table. She scrunched her eyebrows and, with her right index finger extended, pivoted left then right. “Are we having Thanksgiving dinner tonight?”

    “Yes,” I said feeling guilty.

    “But there's no chaos in the kitchen.” Ellen looked from her husband Chris lugging in another suitcase to her dad, her brother Spencer Charles, and back at me. “Everyone's calm.”

    Spencer Charles chuckled. “The chaos happened yesterday.”

    Her dad nodded.

    Actually the injure-myself hustle had started Wednesday. Between games of Ticket to Ride with Spencer Charles, I roasted a homegrown pumpkin and mashed it through the food mill. Not till evening, when I cut celery, onions, and bread cubes to assemble into stuffing Thursday morning, did I slice a quarter inch chunk of skin off my thumb. A bandage kept blood out of the pumpkin pie I baked before bed.

    Thursday, I jumped up from the breakfast table and fetched apples from the fridge. With an apple pie and stuffing baking in the oven, I set the timer and played backgammon with Spencer Charles at the kitchen table. Periodically I pulled the stuffing out of the oven and called both Spencers over to look. “Is it done yet?”

    Spencer Charles shrugged.

    Spence said, “It's done when you think its done.”

    Sigh.

    I stuck the stuffing back into the oven and waited for the bing of the pie timer to pull out both pie and stuffing. Next I roasted the turkey along with an experiment–two Jack-Be-Little pumpkins filled with applesauce made from Wells Wood apples.

    Avoiding my hustle, Spence waited till I flopped in the Adirondack chair to catch my breath before making his mashed potatoes and gravy.

    At a cozy three person dinner, I pronounced the experiment a successful failure. The Jack Be Littles' rich, nutty-squash flavor blended perfectly with the applesauce, but scraping the squash from the inside of the shell was too much mess and work for guests.

    Thursday's food tasted great but didn't invoke a celebrating Thanksgiving feeling. 

   Friday I'd only baked a double batch of pumpkin cookies to keep calm for Ellen and Chris' arrival.

    Giving Chris a welcoming hug when he set his suitcase beside Ellen's, I said, “I cooked ahead so I could enjoy your company. I hope you don't mind warmed up leftovers.”

    “Fine with me,” said Chris.

    Ellen pursed her lips.

    I gave Ellen another hug before pulling two containers and a covered platter from the refrigerator. With a minimum of hustle, I heated leftovers one by one in the microwave then put it in the oven to stay warm.

    While Spence cooked fresh gravy and heated frozen Wells Wood asparagus and purple green beans on the stove top, aromas of poultry seasoning, mashed potatoes then turkey floated from the closed oven. I set the table with the new log cabin place mats I'd sewed with a yellow center symbolizing welcome.

    All five of us sitting together and sharing stories over the meal filled my stomach and nourished my soul.

    It doesn't have to be chaotic to be Thanksgiving.

 

Reflections on the Ninth Week of Fall – With a Vengeance

 

Annette’s fourth Zoe Chambers mystery engaged me. Like her three preceding 

novels, Annette switches POV between Zoe. a paramedic plus assistant coroner, 

and Pete, a police chief. The murders targets first responders—firemen, police 

officers, and paramedics. Zoe and Pete are in the crosshairs.

The time span would have been appropriate for a short story, but Annette applies

maximum tension, reveals in depth personalities, and weave subplots. Her red 

herrings worked well. I didn’t guess the villain until he caught Zoe. Amazingly, in

the tense, morbid scenes, she adds humor. A master writer.

I’m looking forward to the fifth Zoe Chambers mystery, though if her publisher 

would let her, she could dub them the Zoe and Pete mysteries.

Reflections on the Eighth Week of Fall – Whack-Crack 

    With morning temperatures in the twenties twice this week, garden work slowed giving Spence time to cut firewood for the winter of 2017-2018. “I need to keep my baby Janet warm,” he said. Saturday afternoon, in yellow waders, a tattered red sweatshirt, and a red baseball cap, he loaded his tools in the tractor bucket and rode to the maple with three trunks that had fallen across Deer Creek.

    The rumble of the tractor motor diminished, and I bit my fingernails. Would he blow up his shoulder again?

    Last November, pains had shot through his left shoulder, arm, and wrist. He applied Ben Gay, slept with a blanket bunched under the shoulder, and swallowed my arthritis-acetaminophen pills. Like a knucklehead, he endured the pain for two months before checking with Dr. Moore, his general practitioner.

    She diagnosed a muscle strain or bruise and prescribed a muscle relaxer. That didn't help. The pain was worst at night making it hard for Spence to sleep. On a second visit, Dr. Moore said the symptoms sounded like a torn rotator cup and ordered an MRI.

    In March Spence checked with Dr. Anderson, an orthopedist. After studying the MRI results, he said Spence definitely had a torn rotator cup. Surgery was possible but not recommended.

    Recalling the pain and agony stories of a friend who'd undergone that surgery, Spence agreed.

The orthopedist gave Spence a cortisone shot and told him to come back any time he needed another shot.

    Spence had one question. “Can I still split wood?”

    “If you don't want to be in pain,” Dr. Anderson said, “buy a wood splitter.”

    He probably wasn't recommending a hand tool.

    This September, Spence ordered a light weight Fiskars X27 Super SplittingAxe. When the Amazon shipping carton arrived, he pulled the axe out, reverently unsnapped the blade cover, and held the axe toward me. “Look, it has wings.”

    I didn't see any wings. “Where?”

    He fingered the axe head where it flared into a slight wedge. “Wings turn an axe into a splitting axe. Wood splits with one stroke.”

    Saturday morning, he invited me to the end of the south field. Beside the wood pallet, maple logs lay scattered across the grass. He balanced a log on end, raised his axe, swung, and whack-crack, the log split in two. Amazing. He repeated the balance, whack-crack miracle again and again until his Tom-Sawyer act got me.

    “Let me try,” I said reaching for the axe.

    He stacked the cut logs on the pallet.

    I set a six inch diameter log on end, swung, and whack-crack–the log split. No jarring or shoulder pain. A miracle. I swung three times and split three logs. I should have stopped then.

    On successive tries, logs wobbled. I missed my target, and the blade dug into sod releasing a moist-soil fragrance. I also bounced the axe off some dense maple logs and jarred my shoulders. After no success with particularity hard maple log, I handed the axe to Spence.

    He swung at the stubborn log.

    The splitting axe stuck in the dense wood.

    He hammered in a wedge to free the axe. The wedge stuck too.

    I lost count somewhere around fifty of how many hammer strokes it took to free the axe then the wedge, and finally split the log. I wasn't disappointed I hadn't split that gnarled log with one stroke but wondered about the shoulder Spence had blown up.

    Later, after a lunch break, Spence drove the tractor with his tools in the bucket to the maple with three trunks that had fallen across Deer Creek.

    Fingernails bitten short, I scuffed dry leaves and followed with my camera.

    He splashed across the creek, revved his chain saw, and cut through maple branches. Saw dust flew, and aroma of maple reached me on the other bank.

    He tossed thin branches into a brush pile and threw cut logs to the island. When he had enough cut off, he climbed down the bank into the creek and pulled the ten foot maple branch onto the island. He cut more logs. Panting, he stacked the logs on a fallen maple trunk, ducked under, transferred the logs to the next trunk, stepped over, and carried the logs to the tractor bucket.

    “Why don't you stop for a water break?” I didn't want him to aggravate his rotator cup. “You could use a rest.”

    “I am resting,” he said. “Carrying logs is resting from the heavy work.”

    Had he blown up his shoulder again?

    “It aches,” he said Sunday morning. “But it always aches.”