Kitchen Doors and Bathroom Floors

We went to take some of Guy’s homemade bread to a man we know. His wife was in the hospital for knee surgery, and we thought the bread might be a comfort. We don’t know him well, this man. He’s been farming in this area forever, one of the pillars of the community. And he’s the water master, which has made him a significant figure in our new horse lives. Reminds me of a New Englander—not long on words.

Of course, that makes me a little nervous around him, like half the words that I breath will somehow be sucked out through some invisible and only semi-permeable membrane in order to establish balance between us. How can a person who exists in a mist of words ever hope to read a person who remains silent? I end up talking even more, maybe some kind of echo location stradegy.

He is a good man. And I have only recently found out that he has been turning down hay customers right and left. Hay used to be common as grass around here. Then the price of gas went up, and the government began paying people to grow corn. I heard an interview with a man who has written about how there is corn in just about everything we touch these days—in all foods. And that it’s not at all good for us. As if anything that useful could turn out to be good for us.

The point is, the fields that have not been bought up by developers are not being put to hay, and all the horse people I know are feeling edgy about it. Bales are twice as expensive as they were two years ago, and that was during the drought. What happens when all the most basic things – the hay, the water, the gas – all get too expensive for whole segments of our community? I don’t know.

But John grew hay. And he sold me what I needed. Me. If there was a more surprising and potent affirmation of my not-entire-uselessness in the world, this is it. His son and grandson told me this: he only sold to three or four people. I thought I’d driven him crazy with my talk and my inept irrigation practices. But he is kinder than that. And now my hay is in.

Anyway, we took him this bread a couple of nights before he brought the hay. You drive down center to where it’s still open country, turn on the airport road (still two lanes, but for how long?), pass what used to be Jim Fulmer’s place—a lovely gray brick house now surrounded by white fenced pastures and grazing horses—and turn down the farm lane, heading east.

I’d been down that way twice before. Once many years ago now, following Geneva on horseback. We had permission then, to ride down that lane, down past the farm houses, east through the fields down to sixth south where the Paces still live. There were dogs in the yard by the farm building, but they hadn’t stirred an ear as we rode by then.

The last time, it was the first irrigation day of the year, and the water was stuck. John laughed at us then – in the way of farmers who are struck by the impenetrable stupidity of city folk playing at country life. But I do believe they pulled a real estate sign or something out of the pipe somewhere after that.

But this time, it was dark. After nine o’clock of a summer evening. The western sky had shed all the brighter tones and only showed the after-glow. The sky is big down there, and clear, as we have not had more than one rainstorm since spring. And that far off the road, things are very quiet. Our tires were loud on the lane, and I was antsy, not sure whether we’d be welcome.

Well, we got down there, and realized that there were two houses. Both showed lights. The nearer one, which seemed a little the younger, was all open windows, lights bright in the kitchen beyond the glass so that we could see everything in the room. Back in that far, who is going to be looking in through your big bay windows? Like a giant snow-globe, it looked, all that glass and the quiet scene inside.

We parked beside that house and began to open the car doors. Then here came the dogs. Lean hounds with neat heads. No barking, just an instant siege of the car. Guy is not afraid of dogs. He got right out. I came face to face with a hound through my open window. All he had in his was eager interest. So I, not wanting Guy to be the only brave one, spoke to the dog and opened my own door. It was a lovely pack of hounds, impossible to count because they were all constantly in motion.

At this point, no one had come to see what was going on, and there was no movement in the deep, bright kitchen. But there was a whistle from the other house, the one a little further east, and the dogs drained away like somebody had pulled a plug.

We followed slowly, now wondering if it was really too late to call. And realized that we had another choice ahead of us: when a house floats in the middle of a great property like that, do you knock on the front door that faces the fields to the north? Or the back, kitchen door, which gives out to the south?

Certainly, the kitchen was the brightest thing for miles, glowing gold through its half drawn curtains, and showing movement. But I am too much of a suburbanite to feel comfortable assuming that I am allowed to use a kitchen door. And realizing this, I had a strange moment of cognitive dissonance: there was a time in the world when the unworthy were sent around the back, and it was presumption to march up to somebody’s front door unless you were sure of your status there.

But we live in a different time: a back door is so much more intimate.

So we opted for the front, more comfortable appearing less comfortable. And knocked. And rang. And waited.

We waited a good, long time.

The young woman who finally came to the door surprised me. I had met the farmer’s namesake son, and he’d been a right, jolly good old boy who admitted to loving the occasional drag race down the airport road in the dead of night. But his wife was neat, pretty, very middle-class seeming. And as soon as I thought that, I was ashamed of my surprise. She was cordial, but we had disturbed her, knocking at the front door like that. And it was the wrong house.

So back we went to the other, and left the bread tucked between the storm door and the front door. As we walked away, a hound was nosing the doorframe with some interest, and I hoped the dogs were not smarter than the door. It only struck me as we got home: John may never use that front door at all, and the bread could languish there until it had turned to leather. So I called the young wife and told her where it was, and got a promise she’d make sure it was found and eaten.

In a lot of ways, I wish I lived back there, way down that lane in the quiet dark.

—*—

On the Monday before the 4th of July, Charlotte and I went downtown to the Freedom Festival Arts Fair. We do it every year, usually dragging Guy and Murphy with us. But we’re building on to the studio, and Guy is doing most of the work himself, and Murphy has outgrown the dragging stage, so the two of us women went alone in the evening, at the tail of the heat of the day.

Some years, that fair has been wonderful. Not this year. This year, there were more hot food booths than art ones. And more imported South American and Chinese junk than county fair level handmades. We breezed through two blocks of booths in an hour, with less than half an ear for the “talent” show going on right in the middle of the thing.

Still, we were together, and Ed Ham, my favorite potter was there, which made the thing worth while. We sampled some dips and sugared nuts and bought a Hawaiian smoothie to share. Ran into some neighbors. Went back to Ed’s to pick up the gorgeous serving plate I‘d bought from him. And then we ran over to Sam’s Club to pick up stuff for the family 4th barbeque.

It was when we were coming out of Sam’s that Char began to feel a little yucky. “Don’t feel so hot,” she admitted as we got into the car. And I was feeling just a little balloon-y down below. But we were pretty hilarious on the way home, fifteen minutes of charm, wit, and the occasional observation that Char was getting increasingly seasick.

Fifteen minutes later, we were pulling up to the curb in front of the house, and Char was hauling off her seatbelt. “Not till the vehicle comes to a complete stop,” I yelled, but she was gone, bailing as I got close enough to the curb for her to jump.

And that was only the beginning. We were all sympathetic, me not the least because that balloon was still getting bigger. And Murphy, who’d been sitting at his computer, finishing a project, said he wasn’t feeling so great either. At that point, we could rule out all and sundry Fair Samples. But something was in the wind – and Char was still in the bathroom.

It was just before midnight when Murphy nearly knocked Char over, trying to get past her to the commode. He didn’t make it. By that time, I was in bed, not wanting to move overmuch, but still not really queasy per se. Guy became mommy and mopped everybody up, a job that sounds pretty bad until you add the part about Murphy actually throwing up, along with two days’ almost processed intake, his very expensive, two-toothed retainer—which had to be fished out of the mess.

I finally decided to get out of bed. Just in case. Just a leisurely visit to the bathroom. And nearly didn’t make it myself. And this went on ALL NIGHT.

At two thirty in the morning, the phone rang—Cammon looking for patriarchal help because Lorri was “really feeling sick.” And Guy finally went down at about 4:30 in the morning.

Hmmmmm.

So Guy got dressed, ran to their house, then went to the grocery store to bring us back pedialite and crackers and I don’t know what all.

We traced it down to Sunday’s family dinner. Seventeen of us, Guy’s side of the family, and out of those, only three escaped without ill effect. Food poison? No. No, it seems that one of us had a norovirus, and the rest of us got it along with the salad. And it’s going around. My Geneva got it three days ago, and we’ve heard stories about whole families missing the grand parade because they were all holed up in bathrooms across the county.

And why am I telling you this? Because it’s two weeks later, and now, it’s really kind of funny in a disgusting, awful way. And because this thing really is going around. And you don’t want it. So—if you have ever listened to your mother in your life, do it now and wash your hands. Like every five minutes.

Especially if you wear a retainer.

******

Other than that, there is little news. It’s hot as heck in Utah and dry as chalk.

Murphy is taking two more classes at BYU after garnering an A- in his first ever college class.

Two months ago, I hit a nadir—after working hard for the last year on the re-working of still viable manuscripts, and the horrible search for an agent (and when you find one you really like, will she like you????), my web site server upped its prices about 100 times, and I decided to dump it.

Sudden panic. I realized how old and stupid my old site was. And that my version of GoLive was now five years old—and I didn’t remember how to use it. I went on line and searched for other people’s sites (one young Utah author of my acquaintance, who started long after I did and now has a flipping New York Times best seller credit – am I bitter?) and realized that I am old and left behind, and helpless and ugly and a loser.

I looked at dozens of sites and spent a lot of time running around the house, pulling out my hair. Char graduated from BYU this spring. Murphy graduated from high school. I will never chaperone another choir/band tour. I have no more children. Only young adult friends. And the studio was suddenly dead in the water. And it seems like everything that has been lovely, dependable and pleasant is changing.

Is this mid-life crisis? It can’t be; I don’t even care about buying a sports car.

So, I happened to have a copy of CSS for Dummies (picked it up with PHP for Dummies, back when I was trying to configure the ponymoon bookstore), and I made contact with Lisa Firke, a brilliant woman who does web design, and posted a few author’s I’ve never met or read and ended up strapping on my roller skates (figuratively – if I wanted to kill myself, I’d ride a horse).

I read the book, discovered Project Seven, which is about the coolest CSS/Dreamweaver resource ever, Dumped GoLive and invested in the new Dreamweaver, and set about learning Css/html.

The result is a fascination that can keep me at my desk NOT EATING for eight hours, easy. I love writing code. Well, I hate it, too. If I’m writing a story and I misspell something, or stick in a wild comma, the whole thing doesn’t come grinding to a catastrophic halt. But I love the game – if you add this here, and you stick that there, will it work? And after weeks of designing and marking up, I finished the website. Well, as much as you can say you’ve finished such a thing. It’s probably clunky and ugly, but it’s mine, and I love it, and I want you to go and look at it, too, not the least because there are pictures there – the About section under crafty things, and our gallery, and under the horses under gallery.

I am SO excited. And I want you all to go there and look at it and tell me it’s brilliant and you love it and report the broken links. (http://www.krandle(dot)com)

And I got a new book deal. Which is wonderful, thanks to the beloved Tonya.

So, for today, on this hot but suspiciously cloudy Sabbath afternoon, after church is over, music led and classes taught (Char taught RS today. Last week, I led, taught Sunday School, then taught RS, too)—men are out visiting folks, and Char is upstairs drawing—we are all together, and all apart, and it is quiet. For this moment, the world is not shouting, and there are no emergencies (slam on wood) and my yard is lovely (though weedy). Maybe life will go on. Maybe there is more in store. Maybe we will live through gas prices and terrorists and Ginna living so far away. Maybe things will work out somehow.

It is summer, after-all. And soon enough, it will be autumn. And we will make a fire in the fire-pit and wear sweaters, and make each day last forever.

Or, at least, we’ll do our darnedest to.