dogs

Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver on Unsplash

The World Series is on while I wash the lunch dishes at nearly dinnertime. A load of whites is agitating around in the washing machine, in the room on the back deck, as the evening goes from periwinkles and lemon ice to lavender, mauve, pale rose, hints of coral and cerulean. I’m playing old school jazz as I watch the score change on my cell phone just tuned to the headline scores. I wish I could listen to a game on the radio like my great-grandfather used to, as I really don’t have the time to watch the nationals eek out a better baseball score.

Never mind, I’m turning on the game. I have to see if these points wracking up quickly make for a good game….. they do. It was worth my time to turn on the game and get immersed in the plays. Yelling at a completely ridiculous call by what must be a biased umpire. That play was totally legit! Where were his eyes?! I am yelling at the television, my father and I, neither one of us sports watchers, totally involved with the call coming in from the head of the NBL umpires association.

There’s nothing more American than a baseball game. I picture Steve Rogers listening to the Dodgers on his front porch as Peggy mixes up cookie dough in an old and well loved mixing bowl of Pyrex glass. I just have finished watching the final Avengers film and Steve and Peggy dancing in their craftsman style home, with the windows open and the radio playing… Now when I say I want that, you can’t imagine how much of a dream that is. “Kiss me once and kiss me twice, then kiss me once again, it’s been a long, long time….”

It’s nearly November and all the leaves have escaped the hold each mother tree had on them. Now stark and bare, practically indecent, it’s just spread branches and trunks. Somebody get them a coat! I’m reminded of the Barney Miller line, “We caught a flasher.” “In THIS weather?!” for who wants to have an ounce of flesh exposed to the dry ice air? The wind pulls any moisture right out of every living cell and leaves behind a cracked and parched shell.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

The Washington Nationals have won the series after seven games. A historic game, just like the Cubs winning two years ago. Sports has been fun. And a week has gone by. The air is now balmy in the day. Nearly seventy and warm enough to dry laundry on the line. From freezing to balmy. Mountain life is lovely like that. The time change throws us all off, rushing around to find it is only 4pm with the sun gone. Thank goodness we are attempting to reorganize our schedules so we are up sooner in the day. It’s amazing what can get done when one is up before midday. A novel thought.

I’m sitting outside at this moment, it’s just after 5pm. Evening has come….

A rosy twilight settled in, pink hued glow over every building and tree, the sky pastel shades of pink, coral, baby boy blue. The oaks in their brown coats turned a shade more burnt sienna and bittersweet red, like the crayons in every child’s box of coloring supplies. It was a “La vie en rose” moment as if a pair of rose colored glasses had slipped over the world and people walked hand in hand up the sidewalks and past lit storefronts and cozy eateries. The scent in the air of damp leaves and wood smoke, fragrant from incense cedar and pine, alder and oak. The wood that burns in the wood stoves and fireplaces in the mountains is so much more fragrant than any other place. Everything smells so much better.

Right now the coffee I drink tastes like I was at my grandparent’s cabin in the Sierra Nevadas, in mid August or September, when the cabin gets a bit chilly in the afternoon because the wood stove isn’t burning and the sun is shifting behind the trees towards it’s western route. Miles Davis is playing “When I Fall In Love”. The trumpets just get to me and make me tear up. I was listening to a lot of Miles Davis as I slowly lost Rugburn a year and a half ago. Miles Davis and his jazz era has been hard for me to listen too in the last year because of that. I miss him a little too much these days.

The days are short, and time is sweet. Let me dream of baseball, and good romance and the sweet sounds of the best jazz music that makes your heart clench and cling.

Kate

Photo by Adrián Tormo on Unsplash

People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all… has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It’s a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it’ll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it’s a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that’s the sort of thing I’m always saying. But the truth is… I’m heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right. ~Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail

Miss Holly and I were talking about change this last Wednesday. By the quote above, can you tell I hate change? So does Miss Holly. (psst, I knew I was going to need to showcase you in a post, even if it’s not a huge thing) Today was a lot of change. She doesn’t like change. I don’t like change. We talk about how it’s good for us. We still don’t like change.

Change isn’t always bad. Today wasn’t a bad change. But change scares me. I like status quo, unless I’m the one making the change. I’ll make changes all the time, that’s fun. But I don’t like outside powers changing things. I’m rarely ready. Today I wasn’t ready. I knew a change might come, but I just wasn’t ready.

I can honestly say working in a professional kitchen has dropped a boatload of change on my life. Every single time I work, something has changed. Even down to the order of spices. It annoys the heck out of me. I have complained in the past, meaning probably last week, to Lucifer, my sous chef, that I hate change. He always laughs and says it will always change in the kitchen. “One day!” I always declare. “I want one day where nothing changes.” I actually got that last week. I had one subliminal day. One perfect day where I had a marvelously perfect change free day.

One day.

My sous chef is now my Chef. I have to start capitalizing that. Which is hard because think of my current Chef as the Chef, not Lucifer. Sure, I’ve viewed him as my boss, but he really is the boss now. This is good. This is Sweetbitter. Probably a mixture of both. An even mix. I’m happy. I’m sad…. No, I’m wrong, I think I’m a tad more bitter. Keep reading.

I finally get to work with one person that I have been dying to work with. Not that we don’t work together all the time, but well, he’s in charge now. I’m looking forward to that. But now that he’s my boss, I can’t have him as an on the side friend. “No fraternization with anyone non manager.” is the general rule of thumb. I am no where near manager position. This is the bitter. Very bitter in my opinion. How do you give up a confidant in life? Bitter doesn’t even begin to touch the iceberg here.

Change is hard.

Rugburn, taking a selfie…. Okay, I held up the camera, but it looks like he is.

Last night I lost the love of my life. My baby, my puppy, my Rugburn, my guy for the last 15 years said goodbye last night. You always know your dog isn’t going to last forever, but you always think you have a little more time. You don’t. If someone ever tells you that there will be time, they are wrong. There is never enough time. Not with people. Not with dogs. Never take life for granted.

I fell asleep next to his body last night, curved just right, his front ‘bear paws’ so soft, smelling and feeling just like my puppy, and I woke up this morning thinking just a few more minutes with this. A few more…. A few more never fixes it because he’s not coming back. At some point I realized that I was prolonging the hurt. Maybe. Because holding his body one more minute doesn’t make him come back. I want to go out and scoop him right up and say “hey, it will be alright.” But he’s not the one that’s in pain. Finally his pain is gone and he’s not suffering anymore. I’m the one that wants someone to say to me”hey, it will be alright.’ I want a hug that won’t stop. I want someone to not let go and suck all the hurt out. t’s kind of hard to feel that things will be alright when so much change happens. The hard kind of change.

Rugburn and I when he was only about 3

I hope anyone else going through change and doesn’t like it, understands that I can completely empathize with you. It hurts sometimes. It’s hard, a lot of the times. And it’s not something we like. I hate when people tell me that change is a part of life. Which is why I always think about what Meg Ryan said above. “People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all… has happened.”

Kate