Culture shock -
It was the red barrier tape across the door leading to the basement that caught my eye on my return from a shopping trip. In my experience, red tape criss-crossing a doorway is something found at a crime scene or in a construction zone. So the uncomfortable question ricocheting like a wayward ping pong ball in my mind was this; what renovations was Len up to now, and how would this affect me, and the cat?
The cat looked up at me in silent, wide-eyed wonder, and she had every right to wonder ... her litter box was at the bottom of the basement stairs. Gingerly I poked my head through the criss-crossed construction tape and looked down where the stairs used to be, and found them to be absent. It was a dizzying experience to see the cement floor more than ten feet below, where the sawed-up stringers lay stacked in piles like so much firewood, with no new steps in sight. I knew right then that this was another of those 'spur of the moment' renovations that Len is notorious for.
Len's face appeared at the bottom of what used to be the stairs. "They were no good. I'll get new stringers on my next trip to town."
For the most part, Len and I get along just fine. On pleasant days we often take a thermos of tea and walk up on the hill with a pair of binoculars and spy the cruise ships, the icebergs, and the general lay of the land. On indoor days, when the wind is howling and the sea is heaving, he renovates (his latest project is the basement) and I mess around in the kitchen. While he is sawing, drilling and hammering, I thumb through recipe books looking for something new and interesting to try.
So, on this particular day, I found a delectable recipe for Pralines, which are pecans cooked and then baked in a sticky syrup made with brown sugar, honey, ground cardamom and unsalted butter. As far as I know, cardamom is not available anywhere on the Northern Peninsula, so I had it imported from the mainland. I drove to the store for the honey and brown sugar and, when I returned, there was the barrier tape barring admittance to the basement.
There's a song that says, "You don't know what you got till it's gone", and that sure is the truth. Take the cat; her litter box has always been in the basement, so when the stairs went missing it took her a little time to realize that running through the door and skittering around the corner to the downstairs was more than her life was worth. Like me, she had to re-learn a few things, or risk plummeting to her death.
The firewood is usually stored handily at the bottom of the stairs. It still is, but getting to it takes a little more effort. We have to pick up the wood box, put on coat and boots, open the door against the howling gales, trudge down the front steps, hike around the corner to the basement door, venture into the farthest reaches of the basement, and load up the wood box. The return trip is even more arduous because the wood box is full.
Then there are Len's brothers, who have been accustomed to coming in through the basement door. Len and I will be sitting down, taking a blow, when a voice from the nether regions of the basement will holler up, "Hey! Where are the steps?"
Fiki, the cat, loves to watch me in the kitchen as much as I like to work there. She'll sit on her stool and watch owlishly as I measure and pour, mix and stir, bake and broil. If I reach for the doorknob to the basement, she's right at my feet, ready to skite down the stairs behind me. But the missing stairs have changed all that: she and I have seen a parting of the ways. All alone, I have to don boots and jacket and head out into the northeast gale, because in the cat's eyes, facing a gale - or worse yet, a moose - is just not on her agenda.
Fiki and I wait for new steps the way some folks wait for spring. The way I see it, until the weather improves and the new steps are installed, at least she and I can keep warm by the fire; old stringers make great firewood.
You can take the girl out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girl; at least, not yet.
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