The Things That Matter

It's Sunday morning. Button has taken lately to pattering about early in the morning; we can hear her nails clattering on the hardwood floors, then silence as she runs over the wool area rug in our bedroom. Until last summer she had always slept in our bed, at the foot of the bed, and she wouldn't budge until there was a definite indication that we were prepared to leap out of bed. Now, she sleeps in one of our two back bedrooms. Actually on the very bed that we used when she was herself young, now retired to a guest bedroom.

She whines, and leaps up at the bed, not interested in joining us on the bed, but wanting us to rouse our lazy bones out of bed and give her breakfast. Riley, until then fast asleep deep under the duvet, begins a low growl, unappreciative of her pestering awakening. We don't resort to growling; promise her we'll soon get up. She settles down for another half-hour then gives it another try, and finally we troop downstairs to let them both out to pee.

Cold overnight; minus 4 degrees centigrade, so we put a sweater on little Riley before he goes out. That sweater will remain on him; he has never taken to cold weather and will shiver uncontrollably if he's left sweaterless. Once they've been tended to, and we've had our morning shower for invigoration and hair-washing, it's our own breakfast we tend to. During which we read the morning newspapers as is our wont, luxuriating over the sheer pleasure of doing both; eating and reading.

Actually, he's reading one of his art magazines, and I'm reading the paper. If I find something I know will be of interest to him I'll alert him. We're simultaneously listening to the CBC; don't want to miss out on any news items, along with socially significant revelations. Michael Enright is interviewing an author about his latest publication; the war on women in society. The number of women being murdered by their partners. He cites staggering statistics.

Among other items in the paper I'm reading, there's one about the Queen's diamond wedding anniversary. She's 81, married at 21 to her tall Prince Charming; royal grump to most other people. Sixty years of connubiality. We're lagging less than a mere 8 years behind. We were both 18 years old when we were married. To one another. We're also ten years younger than her Royal Highness. Far less famous.

Later, he goes upstairs to begin the electrical work in the guest bathroom. He's already done the hard work of replacing the vanity countertop, tiling the floor and halfway up the walls. While I'm downstairs in the kitchen, half-way to cleaning up, but diverted for the moment, mixing up a bread dough, and kneading it. Still listening to the radio. Still dialled to the CBC; for us the only station on the dial, in any event.

This later interview is with yet another author of a newly-released book. This one, purporting to settle, once and for all, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Not a conspiracy. Just a random act of madness. The details and comparisons of earlier findings are fairly interesting. Then the radio is shut off and the battery-powered radio sitting nearby is put on - to CBC Radio 2, where it's perennially dialled in to music.

He's clattered downstairs and I hadn't heard him. He has another radio on upstairs, where he's working, and as he occasionally does, wants me to hear a golden oldie. I laugh when I hear what it is: "Tennessee Waltz". He pulls me away from the counter and we dance, slowly, easily, just as we did so many years ago, when we were young.