June 03, 2020

It never fails. I try to move stealth-like in the kitchen as I make my morning coffee. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. This time, I succeeded in placing coffee grounds in the metal filter without clanging the rim. But then, like a cat burglar, I quietly reached for the coiled up electric cord hiding at the bottom of the cabinet. In slow motion I pulled it out from the darkness. And just as it reached the light of day, the plug got caught and knocked over the stainless-steel cocktail shakers sitting next to it. Not a quiet landing.

And now that our desert tortoise has been out of hibernation a few months, we have another mouth to feed. Lawrence of Arabia is as much a princess as Lola. Every living thing in our household gets equal treatment. So, after feeding Lola and administering her last phase of eye meds, I pulled out fresh dandelion greens. This time, I changed out the topping of diced zucchini with shredded carrots. Flower petals are everyday favorites. I must remember to pick leaves from our fruitless mulberry tree as the leaves are nutritious for her, too.

Often times, I think that humans should hibernate like Lawrence who sleeps half the year from early October to early March. Like clockwork, she’s ready for her long slumber the first week of October and we can always count on her emerging from her den by the first week in March. If we all hibernated, we would enjoy the best rest of our lives. With the short time we would have awake, we would appreciate every day, and we would embrace Mother Nature’s beauty all around us. Perhaps this would give us all reason to get along.