In Good Repair

Selma Rae made fruit preserves. They're orange. Marmalade. Had me singing in my head that Pointer Sisters song all day. They were ready by dinner. She put most of 'em in to jars for - well they're preserves, but we had some with dinner and so she made biscuits. Not the kind you break out of the tube, but with flour and baking powder which it turns out is different than baking soda, and eggs and salt and butter and delicious!

We were old fashioned today. She cooked, I was the handy man. I fixed the doggie door. It was stuck on in. If Childress goes out, the flap shuts after him, but if he comes in, the flap stays up. This invites the racoons. The oranges had been boiling down on the stove all night and Selma Rae got up about 4 and turned off the stove so they could cool, and when we got up at six we had two raccoons.

Our timing getting up was luckier than lucky, because as one raccoon innocently drank out of Childress' water bowl, the other was up on the counter, whipping his little hand at the edge of the lid to the pot (still hot) and about to knock it off. If she'd knocked off the lid the next move would've been to knock the pot to the floor.

Instead, I yelled, "get outa there!" and Childress sprung to his feet growling as his claws tried to grip on the linoleum and barking when he got traction he chased those racoons to that doggie door and the first one hit the flap that was sticking horizontal into the kitchen and the second one hit the first one and they tumbled and scrambled a little and Childress, well he didn't really want to catch 'em so he stood there barking at 'em. He was scolding those racoons for missing the target but he kept his eyes on the racoons and turned his head toward me like to say, "When are you gonna fix that dog door?" Childress wouldn't be the kind of dog who would say "doggie."

The racoons got their bearings and slip-skulked through the doggie door and ran off and Childress ducked his head out the dog door standing wide stanced in the kitchen and barked a few more choice phrases then he hopped outside to go pee.

So today I fixed the flap on the dog door which meant replacing a few springs and a bolt and I had 'em in the garage and Selma Rae put the marmalade in jars and we had mashed potatoes and string beans and salmon for dinner and biscuits butter and with fresh, delicious slightly bitter, sweet marmalade. So I said to Selma Rae, "Voulez vous couche avec moi, c'est sois?" and she said, "Oh you know I love it when you fix things!"