Carry on

We're settled now, in our cozy new house. It's a modest little rental, but it feels quite luxurious compared to the oddball place we lived (not unhappily) this summer.

We like old places. We've always lived in old places. So we're kind of thrown off by a house with regular right angles and floors that don't slope. We marvel at the uniformity of the windows, and the airtight-ness of the doors. We're embarrassingly reverent in the gleaming presence of the basement washer/dryer.

The basement of our former apartment abruptly filled with water last weekend, destroying still more of our boxes. (Including a box of my teaching materials from last spring. Blast!) We slowly moved our stuff across the street through seven, eight, NINE straight days of heavy rain.

When the sun finally made its appearance late yesterday, it felt like a miracle. Like a balm on the eyes. We ran out of the house and squished carelessly in the mud. Adam put up the bird feeder and planted spring bulbs. We bought a dozen gourds and pumpkins to line the stoop.

The baby kicked all weekend long. The cats licked and lolled in the sunlight. The house began to hum with color and life.

Without my glasses, it's a watercolor world. But I could see this morning that the bird feeder was still. No cardinal. No blue jays. No frantic cloud of finches.

Here was something even more dramatic.

"Adam, come see! Giant wild turkeys in the yard!"

Would the charms of this new home never cease? Wild turkeys. How very New England.

Adam put down his book and strolled to the window. He pushed his own glasses further up his nose.

"Do you see what their eating?" he asked slowly. "Looks like a rabbit."

What? I ran back to the bedroom and felt for my specs.

"Those aren't turkeys," Adam laughed. "Those are vultures."