Dear Reader,
As Word Raccoon and I washed the porch windows, our town’s Harvest Day hayride chugged by, and it truly felt as if fall arrived with it. Two rows of flannel-and-denim-clad citizens lined the cart. I was glad they were bundled up, and I found myself wondering how old Myah will have to be for her parents to let her go on a hayride. (Counting down to March.)
Other fall traditions bewitch me. I always want to create in the kitchen when the weather cools even a bit, and this morning the scent of sage filled the room as I fried sausage and made crisp homemade waffles while Gilbert Cruz interviewed Stephen King. (I try to save The Book Review Podcast for Saturday morning cooking sessions.)
For a moment, I thought WR had drank all of the syrup and I would have to make a sugar syrup instead, not the same but a decent substitute. But she poked her head in the fridge and found a partial bottle of maple syrup. All good.
I remembered (for once) to ask her, while she was in there, to get the butter out and leave it on the counter to soften. WR has been eyeing videos where people make their own butter (not with a churn; we’re not that ambitious) and is considering. I mean, she is mesmerized by the transformation of heavy whipping cream, sugar, and a hint of vanilla into whipped cream and would perform it as a circus trick if allowed.
I did not ask her why she left a pawprint in the butter.
While I prefer pancakes most days, waffles feel intentional. They’re not “Here, put a circle of batter into a bit of heated shortening in your fancy All-Clad skillet and walk away for two minutes,” they’re “Get out the waffle iron. Grease it. Make the batter. Pour it in. Close the waffle iron.”
Wait, is that really so different? Shh…it just seems fancier. (Kinda like quiche. You can never go wrong with a quiche. As easy and versatile as an omelet but you get so many more points for it.)
And sometimes you just need a crisp waffle with a side of sausage.
WR agrees. She had two waffles, and I didn’t begrudge her either because first of all, she had trouble sleeping again. Thank goodness she had a recommended movie to keep her company at 3 a.m. It didn’t make her blue, but it did keep her awake. She found much to admire in it. Something about the spare cinematography and the color scheme reminded her of 2023’s Asteroid City. (Yes, I know that the original title had quotation marks around it because it’s a story within a story, but technically I’m supposed to just italicize it??)
Secondly, I told my prissy raccoon missy to roll up her sweatshirt sleeves and pull out the ladder this morning, because it was window washing time. Not that she did a great job; I’m going to make her touch them up tomorrow. She said the sun was in her eyes.
Uh huh.
She begrudgingly took down her lovely red metal flowers and her other solar-powered flower lovies and put them in the garage where they glowed, thinking it was night out already, until she turned them off. She gave them a hug and told them she’d see them in a few months, but that they should nap in the meantime.
After she did her chores, WR sat on the porch with a book and read a section that made her stop and stare at the clouds. She noted how much bluer the sky is in fall and winter and how the sun behind that makes everything glow and then Maxfield Parrish clouds caught her attention and she decided to just watch the sunshine-tipped clouds which she hasn’t done in so long.
One cloud looked like a puppy and then a dragon and then it looked like how the wind is pictured in children’s books, a cloud with puffy cheeks and pursed lips.
I stared at the clouds shape shift for what seemed too long until I reminded myself that one of my jobs as a writer is to take things in.
I started describing what I saw to myself and realized I feel shy about giving too much detail in my writing, almost as if I am showing off or bragging or attributing too much to what I see or trying to hold the reader’s eye too long and maybe that’s one of the things I should take a better look at in my writing.
Woolf spent time dreaming up sentences, staring off into space, at the sky, at her cigarette smoke. She knew how to follow a thought, and the clouds led my thoughts today, too.
Anyway.
Yesterday I took another load to the thrift shop, but this one was different: WR took a huge box of wallpaper and other decorating supplies and practically tossed it into the attendant’s arms. WR said she is DONE with this household redecorating nonsense.
Some household projects we’ve decided don’t need doing.
Some we’ve decided we don’t want to do.
Some can just wait, HERBERT! (The nag in my head.)
Something in me has calmed. Finally.
What we do want is more writing time.
I have five things I want to say at once, and all of them could be their own blog posts. So I will just stop for now.
WR, you’re supposed to narrow your topic and deepen it. Dear Reader, have you ever tried to tame a raccoon’s brain? Pity me. Or don’t, because WR can be pretty entertaining sometimes.
Drema