Happy Thanksgiving!

 I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving however you celebrated.  Each of my children called for a chat and then I had a quiet day filled with writing and then spent an hour Facetiming with my Wisconsin family.  It worked like a charm.  I used my iPad and they had an iPhone propped on the table.  It was almost like being there.  LC and OJ sang to me and popped in and out from the kids' table in the foyer.  Instead of turkey I had Hoisin-glazed Chicken Breast and brown rice with steamed carrots, cranberry-pineapple relish, and pumpkin pie for dessert.  It was the best Thanksgiving I could hope for in this crazy year.

House Finches rarely pose for a portrait but this male did just that this morning.  Its partner was on the platform feeder and this one was tasked with keeping a little Nuthatch at bay.  It did a good job.  The Nuthatch tried a few times to get a seed from the feeder.  No luck.  It gave up and flew away.

The squirrels have managed to nibble away at the suet pellets.  This one hung on the feeder working very hard to make sure it got all of the rest of the pellets.  I don't understand why the blood doesn't rush to its head.

26 November--Barbara Malcolm, The Seaview. 

Chapter 15

The next day Iggy worked until it was impossible to see what he was doing anymore, and then he invited me to have supper with him.

Surprised, I said, "I'd like that.  Where would you like to go?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said, "Well.  I, um, well, I thought we might grill something.  I know that Anne has a grill she would let us use and it is beautiful in her courtyard at Sydans.  How about I bring over some lobsters and we grill them and then eat out there?  We can call it a 'welcome to Anguilla' supper, if you like."

"That's a great idea.  I can make a salad and I have some bread from Blanchard's that would be good with lobster."  I helped him stow the wires and things back in the shipping container and we locked the doors.

Neither of us was clean enough to eat supper so we agreed to shower and meet at my place in an hour.

After asking Anne to get the grill and charcoal out and making sure that it was okay to use the courtyard, I borrowed her iron to press my favorite sundress, got coffee ready to brew, and tidied up my studio just in case the bugs got to swarming before we were ready to end the evening.  I felt excited and a little nervous as I waited for Iggy to return.

 

As that day had worn on and we spent more time working together we had relaxed with each other.  He teased me about being the worst helper he had ever had and I told him that he was the most persnickety person I had ever met.  He was amazed that I used that word.  "Oh," he said, "I know that it means fastidious and precise, I am just surprised that (now do not be offended) that an American used it."

"Words are my superpower," I said in my best superhero, Saturday morning cartoon voice, both fists in the air.  "I am Vocabulary Woman."

He looked at me as if I had grown a second head and then he burst out laughing, I joined him.  There's nothing like being silly together to take a friendship to the next level.

By the end of the day we were joking and teasing and laughing like we had known each other a long time.  I was surprised when Iggy suggested that we cook supper together.  It felt somehow more serious, more intentional than just going to eat at a restaurant.  It felt like a date to me, and it wasn't until I saw him coming toward me along the covered porch to my door that I realized that Iggy might be feeling it was like a date too.  It was obvious that he had taken care with his grooming and his clothes were pressed.  I hadn't had a date since Jim died.  I hadn't thought about dating at all.  I went out to supper with friends, to a movie once or twice.  Maybe they thought it was a date, but I never did.  One guy tried to kiss me but I dodged his clumsy advances and didn't go out with him again.  This evening felt like a date, a date with a man who was almost a complete stranger.

Today's toss was another sleeve of magazines.  I almost kept a pamphlet with sock and slipper patterns in it but after paging through it realized that I can find similar patterns online and those I don't have to store.

Writing went okay today.  Only four more days in the National Novel Writing Month challenge.  I won't get to 50,000 words but I have proved to myself that I can still write on command, at least a little.

--Barbara