Routine

Simeon, Max and Sam

This is the first morning in a really long time – maybe years – that none of the animals wanted to go outside. Although Simeon hasn’t wanted to go out since it dropped below thirty degrees and snowed, Max was still game. Sam, like a good dog, uses the outdoor facilities no matter what the temperature is. We’re a veritable parade every morning – them following me or me them, a parade of one human, one dog, two cats. Sam’s about seven-years-old, the cats a year older. So it’s a routine of many years.

It was the absence of Sam that made for the change this morning. She’s gotten so she sleeps in. If I get up too early, she doesn’t always greet me as soon as my feet touch the floor as she does otherwise. The cats might have glanced at the door, but without Sam panting to go out, I simply got out the cat food, made my coffee, and didn’t even think of the unusualness of it until I got to my room and looked out the windows at the back yard. Then I thought, ‘Man, I didn’t smell the air or look at the sky, or feel the cold. What’s the day like?’ I can’t tell from here.

It’s a real haze out there, is what it is. The kind of haze that gets you blinking because it appears to be out of focus. I’m settled on my love seat now with the Fahrenheat blowing on me or I’d get up and check it out. But I can tell you the windows aren’t frosted – so it’s not them – not the windows today.

It’s just minutes before six o’clock and lighter outside than you might expect. Everything solid is black against the whitish-pink haze. This could mean there’s a fine mist of snow coming down and I can’t see it. It could actually be foggy. I can make a good guess that there’s fresh snow because there’s areas that are flat and un-trampled by boots or tracked by rabbit feet. The shadows of the apple trees just lay down flat and sublime on those stretches, as if giving up to the season. Totally surrendered.

Yesterday I took my mom Christmas shopping. The day was totally different: clear and bright in that crispy winter way. I purchased the only gift I’ve bought this year when I was with her last. It was a three pack of cars from the movie “Cars.” It was three dollars. It was for Henry.

I came home without a single gift this time, thinking maybe I should shop from inside. Do the internet thing. Don’t go out into it and see what’s it’s really like. Don’t go sniff the air in the aisles or hang out under the florescent lights.

In the store, I am swayed. Even not buying a thing I feel undisciplined. I can just see Henry with that kid-sized Black and Decker tool set with a belt and hardhat.

Henry wants some dinosaurs (and candy) for Christmas. That’s all.

So far I haven’t seen a dinosaur that doesn’t come with a gimmick. They roar or spit water or sense movement and turn toward it or to avoid it (I’m not sure which). I know the plain kind are out there somewhere and that the way to find them might be from home. I can sit right here. Not even sniff the day.

It’s just plain weird.

There’s different kinds of going out and different ways of staying in, and times you get in a routine and it takes you a while to realize you missed it…or might miss it.