Fox Sighting

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Bangor

The neighborhood fox made an appearance the other night when we were watching, after putting out some leftover turkey bones in the yard. We turned on the outdoor light, and turned off all the indoor ones, and sat inside the patio doors to wait. He or she appeared after just a few minutes at the edge of the garden in the back, then scurried out of sight into the shadows off to the side. It circled in towards the bones, hesitated and turned back a little, then circled again and gathered courage before making a beeline for the bones, grabbing them and heading straight back into the shadows at the back of the garden, where there is a place where it can slip under the gate and into the woods. I didn't realize it would be so skinny looking - very insubstantial, long and thin and low to the ground. And definitely more nervous than sly.

After walking so much here in Bangor I can now identify the smell that will always mean Ireland for me: coal fire and wood smoke combined with salty sea air. I can add that to my personal catalog of world odors: Indian food mixed with car exhaust for London, salty sea air with evergreen for Puget Sound, freshly mown hay for the Midwest, rosemary for Provence, sea air and wood smoke for Southeast Alaska. The only smell I associate with Paris so far is roasted chestnuts, from our Christmastime visit several years ago – but when we visit in the spring I’m sure I’ll learn some new ones.

Chocolate chip cookies in the oven make for a cozy day, even though it isn’t raining today and the wind isn’t blowing much either. Chocolate chips here are not really common – we don’t have the same choices as at home – and they are really expensive besides. So instead of buying chips I bought a big bar of Green and Black’s organic baking chocolate (72%!) and chopped it up into pieces with a knife. More work, but probably akin to the original chocolate chip cookie recipe and much better tasting. I keep steering myself away from the counter where they are cooling on an old copy of The Times so as not to eat dozens of them in just one afternoon.

I’m working on a writing project that pays and has a deadline so am staying home today to get work done. Also, during the week we’ve started making a list each morning for Reed with all his scheduled things through the day. He loves to cross things off, so we put everything on there: breakfast, wash face, brush teeth, get dressed, recess, music, recess, books, math, science, recess, handwriting, lunch, more recess, more books, supper, bath, bed. One day a week we take some kind of field trip; this week it might be to the aquarium down by Strangford Lough in Portaferry, or perhaps to Carrickfergus castle. One afternoon a week we go to the swimming pool, and of course late on Monday afternoons I take Reed to Kerry McClure’s house for his violin lesson. If the weather is exceptionally fine we ditch the schedule and take Reed down to the beach, where he is supremely happy, poking about in the tidepools. Violin practice has been going much more smoothly lately than it did at first, as I’ve cut the time back from 15 or more minutes to only 5 or 10. It’s pretty exciting to see him learning to read the notes, following the music with his eyes and moving his bow to the right string. I think he is feeling a sense of accomplishment about it too. Getting to go to Kerry’s is pretty motivating too: she always has lots of scented candles lit – which Reed adores – not to mention a huge coal fire burning in the fireplace, right in front of where the kids stand to play. Getting there by train and bus is a fun adventure too – so I’m feeling much more optimistic and relaxed about the whole violin thing.

We experienced our first traditional Church of Ireland service on Sunday, with lots of readings from the Book of Common Prayer followed by communion. Reed went off to Sunday school with the other kids – he was very excited to do that – and they all came back in time for communion. You go clear up front, past the huge pipes of the organ, and kneel, and the reverend or one of the assistants (I’m not sure what you call them here, at home it’s deacons) gives you a small piece of bread and then a sip of wine from a gold chalice. Reed was given a grape. Not realizing that Walt had never done this before, I forgot to tell him to only take a sip. So… when handed the chalice full of wine, he downed the whole thing, taking two long swallows! I didn’t see this happen, as we were busy kneeling further down the line. Later on the way home when he ‘fessed up to this I couldn’t stop laughing for a very long time – imagining what the deacon who served him must’ve been thinking. It might explain why my own chalice, handed to me a minute or two later, only contained a sip – she probably thought I would swig down a whole cup too.