Not A Chance

It’s like pulling teeth with my naked fingers, but slowly, painfully, a chapter of Tying the Knot (which name may be changed to Goodbye Crewel World) is taking shape in the form of a New Year’s Eve poker game.  I’m almost afraid to mention it, for fear it will scare the words away.

There’s a red fox in the neighborhood.  The crows have his number; I was alerted to the fox’s presence by the crows screaming vituperation at him as he slunk across a neighbor’s lawn early one morning.  I’ve seen him twice, he’s a beautiful red color.  Maybe he’s why I haven’t seen many rabbits this spring and summer.  It’s interesting to note the way wild animals are reclaiming territory humans ran them out of long ago.  When I was a child (I’m in my seventies) city dwellers never saw a raccoon raiding their garbage cans like they do now.  Or had deer eating their hostas.  Also lately there are urban coyotes, and their dangerous new cousin the coyote-wolf crossbreed, and even the occasional bear.  Maybe it’s because we’re cleaning up the environment,  Or because we’ve stopped shooting them on sight.

I’m having a spell of “I want that, but I can’t have it.”  There’s a counted cross stitch kit for sale in two catalogs that makes me laugh when I see it.  It’s actually on the cover of one of them.  It depicts a peacock who looks like he’s been through a battle.  His feathers are disordered, half his tail is missing or the feathers broken, even those little things that stand up on his head are messy.  His eyes are staring.  He’s vastly different from the proud, elegant bird you normally see in pictures.  He looks like I’ve felt some mornings, I’d love him on a sweatshirt.  But the kit (and I don’t like kits) costs fifty dollars – and, anyway, I’ve no talent for counted cross stitch.  My fingers itch to try him, but experience says Not A Chance.