“Tail Whacker” A woman was working in her yard with the weed whacker, when she accidentally cut off the tail of her cat. She ran screaming into the house, and told her husband, wondering what to do. He replied calmly, “Get the cat, and the tail, and we’ll take them […]
“Tail Whacker” / “Bear Flight” / Kitchen Fire Read More »
All houses should have a kitchen window. At least, for me, there is a lot to see in the view from my kitchen window. It happened many years ago, but it was a view that I can still see in my mind’s eye. It was one of those significant moments
The View From My Kitchen Window Read More »
It’s six
A.M., gray and still. Thelma Wright, a sparrow-sized woman of seventy-seven, sits
on the back step watching the sunrise. Overhead two purple finches circle.
Thelma is often up before the birds. Up at midnight to care for her husband,
Wilbur, she seldom drops back to sleep. Instead she scrubs the bathtub or dusts
a few shelves. In the ten years since Wilbur’s stroke she’s had little time for
chores in daylight. Indoors, there is a bit of sparrow in her movements, the
plucky hip-hop of arthritic joints. On the kitchen counter, the coffee machine
gurgles. Thelma peers at it through her thick-lensed glasses. By instinct more
than sight, she navigates the familiar kitchen spaces, cupboard to refrigerator
to drawer, mixing Wilbur’s strawberry drink, carrying his bran flakes and
white-scalloped bowl.
