It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, And I Feel Fine
Good morning! Look! We’re still here. I can’t wait to see what the New World Order will bring. Back on the Farm, everything is the same.
The roosters were the first to wake me – at 5:30. I kept my eyes closed enjoying my new humidifier hum until 6:30 when my German Shepherd (Athena) was ready for her dog door to be opened.
Caesar, my oldest Siamese, who has a condition called much-attention-needing-disorder (MAND), meowed, as always, until I turned the faucet. Owl Farm sits below thousands of acres of protected Forest Land. So the water is so delicious that it’s like a drug. Clean water? Who can blame Caesar for demanding that he get it fresh out of the faucet? Hunter gave him that habit so many years ago that, well, you understand. Right?
Jesse, my “special” peacock, snuck into the house and ate Athena’s food while I was outside in parka and boots fussing over hen eggs, feathers and beaks.
Pele, the small Siamese, is still sleeping.
Exciting life. Oh ya! This is life in the fast lane. but for some reason, I’m back in my bedroom. The humidifier still bubbling and Pele still purring. I snuck back here to avoid life’s other duties for the next hour or two. Angst.
Why the anxiety? Is it because I realized, almost suddenly, that I’m now a middle aged woman, 40, with cats? Although there are great benefits to turning 40: No pressure to look 29, no pressure to act giggly or even better … no pressure to act hip. I’m 40!
I’m engaged to a lovely man named Jim Caruso. Yes! Jim proposed over Thanksgiving. He watched me turn 40 while on a trip to Athens and Istanbul. After 4 years of friendship and a few months of romance, he still doesn’t seem to mind that I come with a truck-load of animals, boxes of old clothes, books, unpredictable decision-making process, other “baggage”, and more personality flaws than Courtney Love and Ann Coulter combined. And, did I mention that I’m a middle-aged woman with cats?
Jim is a great guy. He’s in Chevy Chase today for the opening of a new restaurant owned by his friends Hilda Staples and Brian Voltagio, while I work out my “commitment” fears. I do miss the city. And I love Jim very much. So, I look forward to splitting my time between East Coast and Owl Farm.
Hunter is always near me. And Jim seems to accept that with a kind of grace and confidence that only a man with 2 black-belts can. 15 years ago, I set foot here for the first time, fell in love, and it has become part of me ever since.
And my nephew is coming for the holidays to snowboard with me. You can’t help but loosen your grip on fear-of-the-future, when you look at the mountain-tops of the Rockies. These white peaks have seen kingdoms come and go, been photographed more than any mountain range in the USA, and still maintain a sense of uprightness (call it beauty), that let you know they’ve been looking out for us all our lives. It’ll take a few more million years for real change. How much more stability can one ask for…
I’m a lucky woman. It’s the New World Order and I Feel Fine.
Your friend in Woody Creek,
Anita Thompson
