A Slice of Orange

And so I am back to writing, just for you. I hate missing out on our meetings together in the mornings. I mean, some days, all I have is you...So let's have some coffee. I'll smoke your share of cigarettes, if you use my share of cream. But it has to be real cream.

I am spending as much time of the season as I can at Plantagenet Rose...a lovely little shop in Salem, VA, run by an even lovelier British woman...the Saucy Brit, also known as Portia. I like it there because she has the most refined taste in candles, and home decor;  and luxurious fabrics practically drip from the walls. Everywhere you turn is soft, jazzy music, scented wax, and pashmina...a fabric invented by F. Scott Fitzgerald to symbolize what he lost in the Jazz Age.

Just kidding. Let's just say pashmina reminds me of the Silk Road, and running through the old Egyptian marketplace in Cairo, buying bright silks on a visit long ago. It's enough to make one swoon, darling, and so I go and smell the scents, and listen to the music and Portia's accent, and run my hands across the velvet pillows and scarves. Heaven.

But what news? It's been a while, an eternity, since I talked to you. I felt like I had lost my mojo for a while there...and so I stopped writing. But here we are.

The new, unicorn meat eating cat, Georgia is doing well and ventured out first when the 'boys' were sleeping. That is slowly changing; she is bolder now, and more inclined to play. She discovered the glass door to the outside yesterday, and took up the well used perch on the back of the couch to look outside. She will be my first indoor only cat, and it is a new experience for both of us.

 Minkins, one of the boys, a grey tabby, goes out for exactly five minutes every morning and night. The rest of the time, he is content to share the apartment with me and the dog. I am always surprised at this: not at his affection for the dog, Max. Minkins was orphaned at birth and raised by a dog, but that he is content to stay indoors after spending his life on a 100 acre farm.

And Rat Face, my plump, but oh, so active orange tabby, spends most of the day out, coming in for food and pettings. He is the principal danger to the unicorns in the neighborhood, as he is a very tough hunter.

And Christmas is shaping up nicely. Except for the news from a small town in Connecticut.