Episode 8

Notes From the North IF Episode 8

It occurred to me today walking to the Speedy Mart (our replacement for the missing Seven Elevens) that the sky here is - (are you ready?) - 50 shades of grey! It snowed here early in the morning on the 27th September; snowed but did not stick in our yard, except, for a time, on our toolshed. The snow did stick on the foothills around us. Nevertheless, as I walked bundled in layer after layer of clothing, I saw the native children running around in shirtsleeves and in at least one case, shorts!

Has my blood thinned so much during my life beside the mighty Pacific, and thickened so very little despite our having been here a month? The answers must be, yes and yes. This snowfall, such a trauma and shock to me was literally nothing to these children. I will observe them closely so that I know when real winter has arrived; they must sometime break out winter coats, mittens, scarves and so on.

We are seeing signs everywhere for haunted houses, spook houses, haunted mansions - the harbingers of Halloween. I had briefly thought that this pagan revelry might be minimized here in such a Godly place, but no. I suppose that it has become a holiday almost as secular as Christmas - that celebration of consumption, that orgy of consumerism. Costumes, spook houses, trick or treating, I suddenly realize that with all the neighbors, all the children, we had better be ready with candy on the night set aside for begging. Surely hordes of glittering princesses, sheet-swathed ghosts, black-clad and warty witches, legions of tiny spider-men, diminutive Hulks, scampering little soldiers and the whole panoply of costumed beggars will troop down our block, under the watchful and indulgent eyes of their parents, filling bags with tooth-rotting prizes, and we had best be ready for it. By golly - we need at least a jack-o-lantern, maybe some artfully deployed cobwebs, perhaps even a tombstone? We had better be ready with costumes ourselves.

And cold on the heels of Halloween will be winter, real winter, not the gentle almost comical dusting of snow we got the other day, but cold enough to freeze the ground down 2 feet (so we have been told), cold enough to draw armies of skiers and snow boarders to the nearby "champagne snow", certainly cold enough to at last stop our lawn from getting even longer.

The repairs to our water main have left their mark. There remains, despite their earnest promises to return and tidy up, a 40 foot long, 2 foot wide snake of humped dirt, broken in several places where the little backhoe rolled over it. In addition, dirt was broadcast over the lawn in generous portions, muddy dirt full of clay that clings with the slightest opportunity to everything it touches. I have 2 pairs of shoes laying sole up, encouraging the adhesive soil to dry with the hope that it might someday be coaxed loose. I avoid the backyard and the sideyard where the trench was dug, as the soil in some paces lurks under the nodding fronds of grass, waiting for any host to come so it can wed itself to anything touching it.

I have noticed that our yard has it's own cat - white with black splotches - or is it black with white swaths? The cat spends much of the day in our yard, under the bushes around the edge of the yard, leisurely hunting the birds who also use our yard. I finally decided that since our yard is one of the few without a dog or dogs, the rest of nature sees it as a protected reserve. The cat has condescended to let us live here - after the first days of furtive scrutiny it is becoming bolder. In the evening it sits on our back deck and watches us through the sliding glass doors. A human zoological exhibit? Fair enough. It tolerates us being in the yard with it, but any motion which it interprets as an approach sends it teleporting away with that sudden instantaneity which is the province of the housecat everywhere.

D has gotten his benefit package from his employer, and careful scrutiny of the domestic partner benefit requirements shows that I will not be eligible. Obamacare here I come! I will report on my expriences with that furiously contested program when and if it begins and when and if I enroll.

Stay tuned for more episodes of NFTNIF!