Evening Rituals
No one disagrees that rituals are important. And yet, we live in a culture where rituals seem to have fallen by the wayside. Maybe that’s why we get so hyped up about Thanksgiving or Christmas, even when we all know families getting together can be treacherous and Christmas is way too commercial.
But it’s summer and I’m not thinking about Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’m thinking about this early evening, when I will change my clothes either from grubby to clean, or spiffy to casual, and go down to our living room to sit with my husband, Larry Thorpe, of so many years now I don’t want to count. It’s best to live in the NOW.
So, here’s what will happen. He will fix himself a Tanqueray on the rocks with a twist of lemon peel. Only Tanqueray will do, not some fancy offshoot like Tanqueray No. Ten, Tanqueray Rangpur, or Tanqueray Sevilla Orange. Anything other than Tanqueray will cause him to wrinkle up his nose in fake disgust. He carves the lemon peel carefully with one of his twenty-five pocketknives (some of which he has lost going through the security at Court – he’s a lawyer. The security guards won’t let him have it until he comes back, but by then he’s probably forgotten. We have wondered how many of those security guys see him coming because they know he packs a pocketknife.) He will rub the carefully carved lemon peel around the edge of one of his numerous tumblers. He likes one large chunk of ice plunked into the glass – an iceberg in a frozen sea. He pours the Tanqueray, that he keeps in the freezer. Then he stirs it with his finger around the ice as he walks to his end of his dog-worn grandmother’s couch that was recovered in blue mohair, now turned a shade of dog-rub-tan, in our living room. He waits for me to follow with whatever concoction I have decided to drink, as long as it has a cheery or olive on a stick in it. He won’t take a sip from his own drink until I sit, and we clink glasses. If the clink produces a crystal glass sound as opposed to a clunk sound, he emits a satisfied “Ahhh…” Mostly it doesn’t, but he’s satisfied anyway. That’s his cue to take a sip of his Tanqueray. That first sip is the best.
We talk, we argue, we reminisce, we play gin, etc. What’s most important is that the dogs keep things silly and humorous.
Then Bertie, one of our French bulldog mixes hops on the couch with one of her numerous toys strewn all over our house and tosses it at my husband challenging him to a tug of war. He plays and then she won’t leave until he lets her give him a slobbery lick him on the face.
Meanwhile, Fonz (Alphonse) Bertie’s half-brother bounces in with one of his five different colored balls. (Blue, red, green, orange, or pink). Fonz’s special balls are all over the house and yard. The game he plays is to toss it with his mouth, chase it and pounce, picking it up to parade around until he tosses it again. The ball will roll under a piece of furniture, like our coffee table where we sit. When he can’t reach it with his paw, he circles the table like a general assessing his strategy, then he wedges himself under as far as he can with his paw and often, he retrieves the ball and takes a victory lap around the room. And if he can’t get it, he stands there and emits a quick little demanding bark. That’s the signal for one of his humans to help. Sometimes when I help, I find two balls under the furniture. And if I bring out the green one, when he happens that night to be playing with the orange one, he looks at me as if to say, “You idiot! That’s not the right one!” Then he shoves his nose at me and barks, demanding that I try again. When I get the right one, all covered in slime and goo from the dank space under furniture, he snatches it and off he goes. This ball game of toss-pounce-retrieve usually lasts an hour.
So that’s our cocktail hour. It’s our nightly ritual. After that first clink and “Ahh. . .” things can go up or down. We talk, we argue, we reminisce, we play gin, etc. What’s most important is that the dogs keep things silly and humorous.
For me, writing’s like that. It’s a ritual. Things can go up or down. Up being good enough or better, with down being try again another day. It all counts in one way or another. It’s all heading in the right direction and that’s the thing to remember. And that’s why in all my stories, there are animals.