Dear Ferret Folks-

It was the darkest heart of the night, and dagnabit, I COULDN'T SLEEP!
I didn't want to keep my husband up so I took my book and my reading
classes (very retro with rhinestones) out into the living room to read
quietly until I got tired.

It was very welcoming in the living room. It's kind of a shock to go
back and forth to Mexico as I do, it makes me appreciate home more.
Some part of me expected to open the bedroom door onto my Mother's
Mexican patio, to the soft rustling of banana leaves and the swooping
arcs of foot-long bats snatching mosquitoes out of the gentle tropical
night sky.

But no, I found myself in Massachusetts where we had been pounded with
snow and blizzard strength winds, then thunder and lightning, then rain
and freezing temperatures. It was *good*, it was really, really good
to be inside with the woodstove. My living room was lit by the blue
strings of lights on the Christmas tree. The dog, the Noble Allis
Chompers raised her head from where she lay curled up on the sofa and
gave her woofle--snort--woofle--snort that she gives to pack members
in the middle of the night. It means basically "wadda ya want? I was
sleeping." It's a very different sound than a stranger would get at
two in the morning.

I moved over to turn on an overhead light and as I did I noticed
something out of the corner of my eye...It was the tree skirt, the
decorative piece of fabric that SHOULD have been lying spread out on
the ground beneath the tree. Instead, some ferret or ferrets had pulled
it out of position and left it wadded up half-beneath the tree like a
wet towel abandoned on the floor after a shower.

I was home, I was home.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 6543]