Four’s Flights

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 the B&B folks( two almost invisible, quiet women with a slinky, invisibly quiet dog)  left early so I got a chance to do some glazing and firing without having to worry about smoking anyone out upstairs, always a plus. The metallic glazes are coming out great these days, lustrous and sculptural, just fascinating to see especially coming out of the kiln red hot and developing in front of our eyes, in this case, the “us” being me and the dogs, none of whom were terribly interested since it didn’t involve food of any kind, just a slightly singed human jumping up and down screaming “YES!! MY MOJO’S BACK!!!” 

    Also fired the indoor glaze kiln full of commissioned bowls, which means, if they come out a mess, I’ll have to commit hara kiri. No pressure, though.

    Am not holding my breath, but the family “menfolk” are talking about actually tackling the garden project, which has been in disaster mode all winter. If I knew how to operate a backhoe I might have bought one and done the jobs myself, but was chicken, I admit it. The Cousin with the heavy-equipment-moving machines is scheduled for early next week. I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, the huge pile of brush and old rusted farm equipment sits in the dead center middle of the lot, no doubt still pleasing the eyes of all the neighbors. Great.

   How to make self a pariah in one easy lesson: have husband’s crew clear out brush and old farm equipment only halfway, leave mess in plain sight of everyone, and forget about it. Right.

Back to firing — something over which I have at least a modicum of control.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the home old people were shuffling their feet through the desperately elongated corridors of their last days, milky glazed eyes cast down as we passed, no longer expecting anyone to be walking along those fully decked halls looking for them. We were from the world of the living, already invisible to them.
    We made our way to my mother-in-law’s room, the end room, right next to the emergency exit which I thought a little heavy handed as metaphor, but most definitely the room I would have chosen for myself in the event I needed an emergency exit from a place like this. There’s a limit, after all, to how much white bread and mayonnaise a person can be expected to consume. We arrived just as supper (white bread and mayonnaise) was being served. After an extensive search, hidden inside the pool of mayo, we found some egg salad. Hooray! Oh yes, there was some canned tomato soup (made with water), and some potato salad, also thoroughly protected by mayonnaise. I think the “cooks” there must fear that food in its natural state will feel too exposed. Hey, I can’t always be coming up with good reasons for things.
   I gave L. one of my whole wheat pita pockets, spooned in a little of the tabouleh salad I had brought along and she made a hearty sandwich for herself, though she said everything tasted bitter. In a place like that, who could doubt it? She did eat more than half of it though, so that was good.
  We wished her Merry Christmas, much to her surprise. She’d thought it was next week. She began singing Jingle Bells along with the ever-present TV, so we joined in, not feeling terribly jingly. I guess she didn’t either, as her eyes never left the floor. I told her a few stories from the home front, a few doggy anecdotes (which dog rolled in what kind of compost, which threw up on the bed and which off) to cheer her up and surprisingly this worked. The thought of throwing up and cleaning up must have made her glad to be in her nice clean “home” room. An hour’s worth of small talk later she began to nod off, or maybe that was a ruse to get us to stop badgering her with our senselessly busy lives, who knows. We said our good-byes and gave a basket of fruit to the nurses at the nurses station which was well and truly laden with what seemed acres of cookies, fruitcakes, and candies of every colour and type. I stopped myself from drooling too obviously over all of it and passed quickly by — felt very virtuous once out in the parking lot for having extricated myself without stealing any of their hard-won goodies.
    We drove back to town for a quick (read: expensive) bite at one of those atmospheric in-crowd reaturants which, as one of the only restaurants in the entire east end with the chutzpah to be open, was packed to the rafters with its usual complement of fur-and-cashmere bedecked City Folks Out For The Holidays In The Country But Really Wanting To Be Back In The Civilized City. The place is home base for them, obnoxious, but it does serve really killer-delicious food. I had a dish of tender, sweet mussels cooked so exquisitely in wine, cream, butter and garlic I almost swooned. I won’t go into what Frank ordered (first time in three years!!!)– suffice it to say I hope he doesn’t show up with mad cow disease anytime soon. We brought home an order of unbelievably delectable date cake topped with what seems to be very smooth caramelized brown sugar. I still have half left — no idea why, except maybe I’m afraid life won’t be worth living when it’s finally gone.

    It was a nice Christmas Eve, all things considered. My mitzvah:

This DOG – ID#A587666
 unaltered female, white Terrier mix.  –( will post her picture when I figure out how)

The shelter staff think I am about 9 years old.travel arrangements, stretch limo: check

will be arriving by caravan sometime tomorrow Will keep you apprised.
🙂

halloo the hall