Reflections on the First Week of Spring

    Spence frowned. “I'm worried about George.”

    George step-limped-step-limped to his food bowl.

    “Maybe his arthritis is acting up,” I said.

    Spence raised his right hand. “I think he lost a claw.”
    Since George wasn't complaining or bleeding, I called neighbor Kathy, who owns more than seventy animals

    “Don't call the vet,” Kathy said. “My cats lose their claws all the time.”

    “Not just the sheath, the whole claw.”

    “Oh. I'd better come look at George, but I can't right now. Things have been hectic since Hairy's baby came yesterday.”

    “Whoa! Hairy the bull had a calf?”

    Kathy chuckled. “Hairy's the daddy. I'll run my errands and stop on my way home to look at George.”

    When Kathy arrived, I held George around the middle to make his feet stretch forward.

    Kathy separated the fur from each claw on George's right paw. She lifted a curled-back claw. It's tip had scraped George's foot pad. “He hasn't lost the claw.”

    He squirmed and mer-owed.

    Kathy let George's paw go and patted his head. “He needs his nails clipped.”

    George jerked, and I set him on the floor. He limped-dashed-limped-dashed to the bedroom.

    When Spence and I searched the junk drawer in vain for a cat nail clipper, Kathy said, “I have an orange pair in the cupboard over my sink. I'll get them and come back.”

I grabbed my camera. “I'm going with you.”

    Kathy reached for the door. “Sure. Come see the new calf.”

    When her car bounced down the rutted pasture lane, she said, “The cows are here, but I don't see the baby yet.”

    I scanned the field. Black, white, and brown cows sun bathed. Hairy the gray Brahman bull lay next to a white cow. No one day old calf.

    “There he is.” Kathy pointed to what looked like a stone. “That brown pile in the grass.”

    The tan and white lump uncurled, and the calf stood on long legs. Except for his bovine face, he resembled an Easter lamb. Without a limp, the calf trotted to his mom. She focused her eyes on Kathy and me. The calf left his mom to sniff the back of a black cow. Not curious as to how that smelled, I clicked photos till, one by one, the herd circled the calf.

    We returned to Wells Wood with the clippers. George, sleeping in my chair, was easy to find. I grabbed him around the middle again.

    Kathy held his right front paw, positioned the blade around a claw, and clipped.

    George tired of the repetitive snips, squirmed, and pulled his paw away.

    I squeezed his middle.

    Kathy took his paw again, and repositioned the clippers.

    “If you'd hold still, this would be over sooner,” I told George.

    His mer-ow-er-ow probably meant we didn't need to finish.

    Two days after the claw clipping, Kathy called. “How's George doing?”

    George pounded down the spiral stairs, front paws-back paws–front paws-back paws, and ran to the food bowl.

    “He's better,” I said.

    Before Kathy and I finished chatting, George step-limped-step-limped to the sofa.

    Spence frowned. “I'm worried about George.”

 

Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Winter

    This week, when I arrived at the Learning Center for my regular Thursday morning volunteer work, I stepped into a sea of green. Children wore green top hats, headbands with plastic shamrocks bobbing on springs, lucky Irish T-shirts, and green striped socks. Not paying any attention to my blue jeans and purple shirt, they busied themselves checking the leprechaun traps they'd designed and built earlier in the week. Gold glitter, broken traps, and half-inch, green poster paint footprints messed up classroom floors. Children grinned, chattered, and cleaned.

    I left the Learning Center to run errands and pick up my friend Cindy for an afternoon Deep Water Fitness class at the YMCA. No one wore green in the pool. We flutter kicked, crunched abs, and pressed flotation boards under the water. When I drove Cindy back to her house, though, she said, “You'd better hurry home and put on some green before someone pinches you.”

    “I'm wearing green underpants,” I said. “If anyone threatens to pinch me, I'll just pull down my jeans.”

    My daughter Ellen also celebrated St. Patrick's Day with students and no green–no green beer that is. She'd accompanied a group of thirty-one Purdue undergrads on a spring break tour of Great Britain and Ireland. They spent St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. From the back of a crowd, Ellen caught snippets of the parade and a St. Patrick character chasing away inflatable, floating snakes. She trusted the students to manage Dublin on their own in the evening while she stayed at the hotel for an Irish themed dinner, music, and step-dancing.

    In the evening, I wished Spence a St. Patrick's Day blessing which triggered his memories of him and his brother Bruce sliding down the stairs on their butts. Bump, bump, bump, bump. The noise and giggling upset their grandmother Mimi. She fussed. “You'll get cancer if you keep doing that!”

     However you celebrate, I offer you the same St. Patrick's Day blessing:

       As you slide down the banister of life,
       May the splinters never point in the wrong direction!

Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Winter   

    Make it shine looped through my mind while Spence and I worked extra days this week to prepare our Cleveland house for sale. Our handyman had said, “Think of an old house like a used car. If you want it to sell, make it shine.”

   To prepare the dining room for paint, I swept the ceiling with a soft nylon broom then a hard straw broom. Paint chips showered, but flakes still clung to the ceiling. I climbed the ladder, reached above my head, and hand sanded. Because I looked up, my Sherman Williams hat fell off, and paint chips lodged in my hair. Next I held a long pole and rolled bright white paint onto the ceiling. Pin-prick-size white dots speckled my glasses and face. When I scrubbed the chandelier, grime and dirty water streaked my shirt. White satin wall paint dripped onto my pants and shoes. Trim paint blotched my forearms with semi-gloss white.

   On hands and knees, Spence guided the buzzing hand sander over the bedroom floor, cleaned with the shop vac, then painted the wood with polyurethane.

He also worked on steps. Because a contractor had improperly installed oak trim to the treads with wire brads instead of nails and screws, the wood cracked over time. Spence screwed in new oak noses, sanded, and sealed them. Last he sanded the treads on the second floor stairs. Sawdust covered his polyurethane streaked shirt.

    Though the house started to shine, we looked and smelled like we'd crawled out of a contractor's garbage bin.

   We returned to Wells Wood where our Spotlight amaryllis bloomed. Red and white petals stretched into cone shapes then curled back to open flowers. Without any effort on our part, the near-spring sun lit each flower to make it shine.

 

 

Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Winter

    Spence was on his knees in the bathroom when the lights went out.

    I'd washed a single dish after the Country Charms Quilt Guild meeting Wednesday evening. “Are you all right,” I yelled from the kitchen.

    “Yeah,” he answered. To read the directions for installing a new toilet seat, he'd taken off his glasses. He groped along the floor for them.

    By the wood stove's red glow and the computer screen's blue-white glare, I gathered candles and matches. Cinnamon, wild cherry, and lilac fragrances mixed with bubble gum flavors of my youth. The burning candles formed a shrine emitting waxy, fruit salad smoke. A mini mason jar wafting coconut fumes gave the best light. I carried it to find the flashlight for Spence and recalled two previous blackouts after which the electricity surged back and burnt out the computer board that activates the water heater when we turn on the tap. I handed the flashlight to Spence. “One of us should turn off the hot-water-on-demand.”

   He put on his glasses–they'd been on top of the toilet tank where he wouldn't step on them–and took the flashlight. “She can find things for me to do in the dark,” Spence told George.

    Emma mer-rowed in the loft. George climbed up the spiral stairs to comfort her. She met him half way. In candle light, the cats touched noses.

    Spence turned off the hot water unit. I turned off the computer. He cleared walkways. I tripped over George. Since we didn't have electricity to pump more water, I abandoned the dishes. “Let's star gaze.”

    Spence shook his head. “No stars. The sky is overcast.”

    I checked. The moon glow through the clouds gave more light outside than the candles did inside.

Spence re-attached the old toilet seat. “Figuring out how to put the new one on is too complicated in the dark.”

    I blew out the candles, went to bed early, and read a Hercule Poirot short story by flashlight.

    Spence thumped around the great room. “Noises are louder in the dark,” he said. He stomped back and forth in the hall. “I'm going to the bathroom.” Instead of the old toilet seat thudding against the tank, the front door slammed.

    He wouldn't. Would he?

    Footsteps clunked down the porch steps.

    Silence.

    Under a cozy fleece blanket, I hoped he didn't freeze anything on his trip to the woods.

    Finally, Spence lay down. George settled on Spence's chest, Emma snuggled against my back, and we fell asleep.

    At 1:15, lights blazed, the refrigerator buzzed, and the cat fountain burbled. I rolled over and let Spence turn off the lights the proper way–with switches.