Hide and Seek

For the second time, my FND Zoom group didn’t happen, and it left me sad. However, I can’t complain about the failure of volunteers to make the session happen. I really value my link to them, so I was very disappointed. Worse, no more donuts with which to soothe my soul. Instead, I took Her Highness for a good walk and then came home to get started on cleaning up the backyard. 

Our morning walk was truly heavenly. It was lovely and warm and beautiful uplifting birdsong was the music of our walk. It was just as wonderful working in the yard. I’ve weeks of work to do, but no deadline and lots and lots of time. Every day for the next week, except Saturday, is predicted to be nice—especially from Sunday on.  I’ll be able to be outside every day. 

My speech is as good as it can get, considering my affliction. I’ll bet being outside and the sunshine and warmth is why I am doing so well right now—at least here at home, I am doing exceptionally well.

Doing the yard work is very satisfying but the progress is very slow. I started with the decks. Whoever built them did not know anything about building decks, so parts of my decks and stairs are slowly rotting. A big job will have to be done sometime down the line. And they painted the wood, which was treated and therefore resistant to bonding with the paint. I did a lot of scraping to get the peeling paint off the wood and into the garbage.

Perhaps the worst part is cleaning between the planks where needles and sludge build up and impede the wood from drying out. I was bending forever and scraping down the cracks with a palette knife and my back does not like all that bending. I vacillate between hating having to do all the work and being grateful that Pinecone Park provides me with so much work that keeps me active, outdoors and proud when all the work is done.

The fountain fills my yard with a lovely sound and that sound attracts lots of birds. Plus, two ornamental trees are in bloom and beautiful. And … it was 17° in the afternoon. Pure Springtime. The only thing wrong with the day, was not having donuts. I shan’t, however, be making more any time soon. I don’t want to get fat again.

I quit at 4:00 and got into the spa. It felt so, so good to have had so productive a day. Today I’ll get some stain and bring life back to my outdoor wooden table and chairs that are showing their age. I’ve done a fraction of the work that needs to be done, but all I’ve done really pleases my eye.

How I’ll be back in the yard; it’s a glorious day. It’d be wonderful to have temperatures like yesterday. Oh, that 17° air felt delicious.

“One … two …three … four….?

The voice of their father waned as the twins, Alisha and Allegra, ran to their brother’s room. They scooped their new baby brother from his crib and ran to the guest room where they carefully put him into one of the drawers that formed the base of the bed. Alisha gently wrapped him in her mother’s cashmere wrap so that he’d be comfortable before she slid the drawer closed. Then they ran to their hiding places.

“Sixty-six … sixty-seven … sixty-eight….”

Allegra headed upstairs. She’d built a hiding place by pushing a chest, several cartons of family history, and the family luggage into a corner of her mother’s closet. Alisha headed to the basement where she grabbed a floor mat took from inside the back door and hid, under it, in an indent in the wall of the former coal room where a furnace had once been. He’d have trouble seeing her. 

“Seventy-nine … eighty … eighty-one ….”

As soon as Allegra heard Alisha close the door to the basement, she turned and raced back down the stairs and into the guest room. She retrieved her brother from the drawer, put the blanket back on the bed, and put her brother back in his crib. Then she scurried back upstairs to her fort.

“Here I come.”

He found Allegra first. She said to him, “You’d better hurry and find Alisha because you know how much she hates the dark.”

He took the hint. He went directly to the coal room and as he and Alisha were climbing the basement stairs, he heard Allegra let out a bloodcurdling scream. “

“He’s gone. Todd’s not in his crib,” she screamed.

When Alisha saw the horror fill her father’s face, she said, “It’s a joke dad. He’s in the guest room. We wanted him to play hide and seek with us.”

Allegra saw them going into the guest room and ran in behind them. She watched as Alisha pulled open the empty drawer and she saw her sister’s face flash the same look of horror that had overtaken her father’s face moments ago. 

Alisha looked at her sister, “What’d you do with him?”

Allegra couldn’t believe how perfectly everything was going. She looked at her father.

“Alisha thought hiding Todd would be funny, and I don’t think Todd is a plaything dad. So, I went along with her, but then, once she was gone, I got Todd from in here and put him back in his crib.” 

She got the outcome she wanted! Alisha was grounded for two weeks—their first two weeks with a new puppy. Allegra would have Benji all to herself.