Beauty * and * Bread

What did I do today?

First off . . . I didn’t work, at least not at either of my office jobs. An actual day off. What a treat.

• I slept in till 5:30 a.m.

• I watered all the green children while Foxy made her early-morning toilette, and I enjoyed the coolness of a North Fork morning. Everyone seemed happy and healthy.

• I had a date with my boyfriend.

• Basement Cat left with Hunter.

• I took a nap.

Hunter and I had great fun.  Papa and Mama dropped him off on their way to Fresno to get their car worked on. Because they have to pass right by my house, it seemed like the perfect opportunity, and Hunter was all for it. He bounced into the house, raced to his room and pulled out his Caterpiller. I bought the Cat for him when I lived at Carol’s at Snappy’s suggestion so that he’d have something special to look forward to and would ignore all the knick-knacks he shouldn’t touch.

Papa, on the other hand, immediately spotted the yowling piece of catdom on the back deck. Since he doesn’t read my blog, he didn’t know about Basement. “Where’d he come from?”

“I don’t know. I just want him gone.”

“Can I have him?” Actually I’ve discovered that Basement is a “her.” But never mind. “We need a cat.” Jason proclaimed. “I think since Flash and Smoky disappeared, we have mice in the basement. And she’ll keep the snakes away.” (Yes, this is true. Where was Basement when *I* needed her? But wait! I had Grey Eagle–and he did NOTHING. Walked around the snake as if it weren’t even there.)

“Sure. You can take him/her when you pick up Hunter.”

“So can you feed her in the meantime?”

I agreed, and Hunter helped with that. Basement acted as if she hasn’t had a meal in forever. I haven’t fed her because I really didn’t want her sticking around, and I’m sure neighbor Mari hasn’t indulged her either.

Hunter and I had breakfast al fresco and talked about our plans for the day until we realized that we couldn’t keep Basement out of our laps and our grub, so we moved inside. Hunter was intrigued by the vacuum cleaner that I had removed ifrom the closet n anticipation of his visit.  “Can we vacuum now?” he kept asking.

Hunter is fascinated with switches, plugs and buttons of all sorts, so he was very quick to learn about the various operations of the vacuum. We took turns creating lines and patterns on the carpet. It took us pretty much all morning to do the living room.Vacuuming was often interrupted with Hunter’s need to play with some of his other toys.

And his need to know what time it is. We can’t quite figure out where this came from. We think it’s his way of making conversation. After every stroke of the vacuum, he’d have to turn it off and ask “what time is it?” This would be every two minutes.

Of course we also did a bit of rearranging. I moved the phones around, so that occasioned the necessity of making phone calls to ensure that the instrument was working. The first call was to Mama and Papa. After that one was completed, he asked, “who else can we call?”

“How about Snappy?” Snaps was working, but she’s told us a number of times that we can call her there. It was a seminal event because Hunter actually carried on a conversation with his aunt that involved her talking and his answering. His usual modus operandi is to either 1) refuse to talk at all or 2) say two words and hand the phone to someone else.

In the middle of vacuuming, Hunter asked if he could swiffer the kitchen floor. Since I’d dumped a wad of watermelon on the floor the night before, that seemed like a great idea. I got the Swiffer out and told my helper that he had to remove the throw rugs, which he did. He then proceeded to wash the floor. His idea of the right way to do it is to hit the water button after every one-foot stroke of the Swiffer. In any case we accomplished our mission in fine style, and my linoleum no longer bears any vestige of last night’s little accident.

He also helped bring in the trash cans after the garbage men paid us a visit.

He investigated the fan and the printers in my office and needed to learn how they all operated. He is now an expert at turning the fan on and off.

When Mama and Papa arrived from their Fresno adventure, they found Hunter and me having a discussion in my bathroom about the merits of different types of toothpaste. He’d just finished declaring that the second bathroom is his private domain and wanted to make sure he had aluminum-free toothpaste in there. He doesn’t right now, but I will rectify that before he next visits. He also didn’t like the toothpaste now present in his bathroom because it is about half used. He wants new.

The peeps loaded Basement in my cat carrier and, after kisses all around, they headed for home.

I called about 6:30 this evening to see how Basement is adjusting to her new home. I have it on good authority that Basement has completely settled in to her new digs . . . in the basement.

It was a good day, Charlie Brown.