A long-awaited outing into the Berkshire night

One can’t help but wonder why copper casseroles have become the de facto image for French restaurants in America. Domo is skeptical, but Beaver has faith; tonight they will sample the best French restaurant in the Berkshires. The wine list is impressive, the occasion is a birthday, and the Maitre d' has outdone herself with the jubilatory scamperings behind the celebration. But the bistro is named a somewhat perfunctory “Chez Nous”, and they’ve elected those damn casseroles for their tawdry signage. It awaits to be seen what they can do on the stove.

Monster de gateaux

This astonishing piece of shocking gastronomy just in: Domo is up to one packet of cookies a day. After discovering a delectable hamlet in North Lee where his very favorite cookies are sold at a discount, the little animal has become an unstoppable mangeur de gateaux. Beaver doesn't have the heart to hide them, as the benefits of this most American treat seem to outweigh their potential hazard. A cookie a day keeps the doctor away. Six cookies a day? She'll have to keep him on a strict diet of winter wood chopping.

Tag sale, ti amo

The site of the blue truck and the wooden black bear that Beaver thought was real until the day the fog lifted...she was called to them today, called towards their estate sale.

Antique milk crates and Fiestaware and stationary bikes galore!Is there any better way to spend a crisp and windy Sunday than to go a'tag-saling in picturesque Colebrook?

School desks, ironing boards, doorknobs and spice racks. A thrilling host of thingamajigs laid out amongst the leaves.

Beaver came home with a vintage brown bike and visions of pumpkins spinning through her head. There are so many nice places to live on this planet, but the light of a Northeastern October is something to be reckoned with.

Pregnant with the melancholy fragrance of childhood, it transpierces everything. The light here, the light!

The postman and the puddle

"...Please find enclosed your purchase orders. They came back to me because the address on the front of the envelope was destroyed. (The postman probably dropped it in a puddle)."

There is a couch to sell in September. A couch that has moved more than she has. It has crossed an ocean, like she has. Been witness to scenes without curtains, putrid betrayals, cookie-making, cookie-eating, a cookie-cutter lifestyle.

This is an item that was won, once, in an earlier time, in a more private place. She thinks of her guitar, how strange that she once knew how to play it. With the coming winter, her fingers are fingerless with cold rumination.

A hawk flies. A snake sleeps. The garden can't remember.

Pommeau & Pimms

The eager wood of a brand new pressing machine, cold drinks with bubbles and blankets on the grass. Who would have thought that Domo and the Beaver could have found such like minded creatures in the middle of the woods?

Three cheers, then, to the Garden Party, so often passed over for cocktails or for dinner. But the sun is setting earlier now, the leaves have started on their final journey, and it is the afternoon, not the evening, that ripples with excitement.

So why not, a garden party? Why not, indeed? Puppies and horses and a gargling goose, fresh cider, iced spiced cake, scarves and sunglasses. The apples crash down with a thump- with a thump, thump- into a gold field of delightful imaginings.

Leafing September

Before, she thought of them only in leaf piles...crisp pyramids from a fragrant past. Jumping or crashing into a world of certain maybes, sometimes wet and scary. The little bugs. The worms.

But now they fall most everywhere around her, and their presence feels different. Nostalgic, but changed. What are these things that have to be raked? How is it possible- there are so very many- tumbling in somersaults down from the sky. What is the use of putting them in piles? What will become of the grass underneath? How is it that these leaves used to be "dealt with"...They fell, and then they disappeared, ushered away by modern contraptions buzzing in the hands of men with red T-shirts.

Here, there is no buzzing, no humming, no logo-printed truck to take them all away. They fall and keep falling, covering her house in such physical rain.

Very electric

Her E.T.A was one PM, but she arrived at quarter past, looking forward to the homecoming. Feed the duck, mop the floors, change the sheets for her much-awaited house guests...The list was long for little Beaver, recently left seul after Domo's departure for Franche.

Her afternoon plans shifted when she came upon a gigantic redwood blocking her dirt road; a web of power lines and telephone poles brought down in its wake. The very ground she walked upon was buzzing with electricity, as was her roof and her freshly cut wood.

She ran inside to check on the duck, who was red-eyed and frightened by the recent, loud crash. "It will be okay, little duck!" She said, brushing his feathers. No power, no water, no way to telephone. Just a house full of candles and sharp cheddar cheese.

The pull to home

A week on the cape.
Afternoons of ice cream cones, egrets, sandy shoes and neat, white houses.

Here, the trees stand tall and solemn and somehow independent. Yards are filled with knick knacks and hand painted signs. Roofs leak. Paint cracks. And things works out just fine.

The Pow Wow Bone Case

Whilst Sir Domo was insulating the ceiling the other day, attempting to winterize the red house for his beaver, he came upon a big surprise. A large, heavy typewriter, sitting plump there in the roof; black, and old and ancient. He couldn't quite reach it from the tip of his ladder, so he perched and huffed a while, twisting and turning and trying to get closer. Hark! There was something else there, a white folder with black writing. "The Pow Wow Bone Case!" He yelled down to Beaver. "Does that mean something in English?"

"No!" Answered Beaver. "We've something to solve!"

Why did the former owner cram a typewriter into his roof? And what is the mystery behind the Pow Wow Bone Case? Like a hot loaf of stuffed bread, the red house is just oozing with mysteries. But what will come up next?

Ode to the sandwich

The deliciousness of childhood, lathered on with a spoon. The sweet, sparkled tang of simplicity. It is happiness itself, accompanied with a cool drink of something chocolate. Everything else seems snobbish in comparison. Alongside the fennel, the codfish, the frown-inducing rhubarb risotto, it lies on certain menus as a planted flag of Life as it Should Be. It is peanut butter. It is jelly.
The greatest love story America has told.

The Seventh Month Itch

Today is a strange day. A bad dream, an awkward look, a general sense of disconnect. It occurred to La Beav as she was swimming this morning that she felt somewhat homeless. The tidal pull of restlessness keeps carrying her away. Why lay roots out here, in Sandisfield, while the West is softly singing?

There are so many places. So many unknown creatures to befriend. Is it wrong to give in to the life of the nomad, if this life feels most true? Beaver has the saddest of feelings in her belly. Arising from a bad dream colors your day khaki. Nothing stands out. Little makes sense. It’s like she’s simply floating.

Not Quite Right

Sometime back in the land of Sandisfield, a young elk went skinny-dipping at West Lake, late at night, when all the other creatures of 01255 were asleep. In place of the shimmering shores she’d grown so attached to, she was astonished to find representatives of the Po Po, chock-full of questions and “exactly who are you”s.

A moose had been found, belly up and floating, a gunshot in his side, and they thought the elk had done it. “I’ve just come for a swim!” She replied, bathing suit in hand. After further questions and suggestions to “get dressed”, the Elk went home, much saddened. She hadn’t had her swim.

In the days and weeks that follow, she was surprised to hear nothing further about the mysterious moose murder. On hazy afternoons, she overheard things at the swamp; a revenge story between the two rivaling families of Sandisfield. Which family’d done it? No one has discovered the truth about that evening. But no one's ever tried to. Beaver’s on the case now. Who killed that darn moose?

Visiting Season

Sunshine, swimming holes and sweet corn; summer visiting season is finally open.

Boy and girl beavers from the overheated city have been arriving via log jam this past month by the baker's dozen.

There's sunbathing, rib-grilling and wood-cutting to be done, ale and deep slumber to follow. Horseshoe clubs are forming and mandolins are struck. The house isn't finished, but no one seems to notice, so welcome is the company of these long-awaited friends.

Not so mellow yellow

The evening started out oddly enough to suggest that it might happen. The bumbling Internet technicians, sent via horseback to repair La Beaver's Internet connection, arrived two weeks and seven hours late sans excuse. They materialized out of the hot, humid air, letting themselves into the kitchen while Beaver had her back turned. Who were these two strange groundhogs in her kitchen? She gasped and cried for Domo. Two hours and two bags of potato chips later, the Internet was back, but the yellow fridge was finished.

Fur-lined friends might remember the story of the antique Frigidaire the former owner so kindly left behind him. Overheated and thirsty, it used up all their electricity and shook wildly each evening, but Beaver and Domo became very attached to it after painting it yellow one cool winter's night. But summer has come, with three digit temperatures, and La Yellow Fridge is no longer. It died a solemn death with a solemn goodbye. I...just...couldn't...take...it, it croaked, with much sadness. Beaver and Domo could only stand and sigh. And they had just gone shopping!

The evening's adventures were only just beginning. As Beavy climbed the ladder to her long-awaited dam, she was nearly knocked out cold by a monstrously large bat, flapping around aimlessly, asking for directions.

"Never in the bedroom!" She shouted, tumbling downstairs. Whatever happened to the respect of matrimonial spaces? The bats are going batty!The battiest of bats! Vintage Bjorg-like racket in hand, Domo headed to the dam quite gallant and manly, swinging this way and that without fear, without fright. Not one, but two bats had taken over the arched ceiling. "You've got the wrong neighbors!" He told them, when they finally settled down. "It's those guys you want, they're only here on weekends!"

The bats, visibly embarrassed, promised to bring by some choco-choco truffles and left where they came from, a hole too small to see.

Time out

It’s been three weeks now that our happy couple has been in Paris-- City of mating pigeons, zigzagging between benches, dragging their tails. City of chocolate pastries and infinite politeness, except on the boulevards where cars hunt down small girls on bicycles.

After an early burst of inspiration, Beaver is left with some questions. Why did they leave the planet Franche in the first place? They left in search of some sort of dream…. It happens everyday; you put down the plastic bag your lunch came in and you take some time to daydream. Minutes later, the plastic bag is floating away and is it just your imagination or doesn’t it seem to float even higher the minute you run after it?

The parcours is similar. Franche. Manhattan. Sandisfield, MA. If you don’t run after it, it just might end up in the sea.

The 100 Year Floodplain

Good news from country. The beaver's leaky roof, which has instilled great fear and contempt in the three little creatures living under it as of late, has stopped leaking. Several days ago, brave Domo took to the tippy-top of the red house, and started working on it with an Exacto knife, following an ancient technique employed by his grandfather, an artisan pipe maker.

Fear lingered late last night when an belated thunderstorm moved in on the town, sending down torrents of rain and other-worldly lightening upon the little house. Little Beaver crept into the living room with much apprehension to find her duck, Mylo, setting happily on the couch. A couch that was dry
for the first time this season. She checked the other leaky spots that Domo had highlighted with glow-in-the-dark tape, and they too were dry as could be.

Hippity-hop, could the news get any better? Lady Beaver has been working for the Beagle following all sorts of exciting hallmarks such as the acquisition of a brand new Sander for the town of Otis, and a dispute over a roof right here in Sandisfield. Indeed, leaky roofs plague the South County mountains almost as frequently as Mayflies. It remains to be seen if last night was a fluke, but for the moment, we've got two little Beavers, sitting high, dry and happy in their little red house.

Happy feet

After intense deliberation at the massively attended Sandisfield Cultural Council meeting last night, little Beaver has been elected to the board as Grant Coordinator. She will be in charge of deciding what lucky artists, senior citizens and Brownie Troups will get to do what with how much money in the upcoming year.

She is very pleased to step one foot closer to small town immersion, and is also eagerly awaiting the outcome of an interview she has on Friday to write for the region's daily paper, the Pulitzer Prize winning Berkshire Beagle. She has met several local Beavers who are quite active in the small, but strong-willed intellectual sector of Sandisfield, including one bubbly lady who never wears shoes.

This resistance to shoe wearing is something that Beaver has pondered in the past, and she has concluded that it has little to do with one's economical status, and everything to do with one's outlook on life. Some people just find them constraining. Beaver is always cold, so she can't quite understand why one would go without, but she is pleased to meet some new creatures, footwear free, or not.

Tag sales and joint tape

A recent purchase of a 1950's vintage General Electric clock radio at a local tag sale earned Beaver the chance to visit a mini-white house on the river that she'd always admired. Beaver was curious whether the handsome thing worked or not, and the owner of the house invited her inside to try.

The clock, she explained, was used by her Uncle to play music to his cows. The house had taken her twenty years to renovate, "and look", she said, gesturing upstairs, "it isn't even finished yet".

This is the reply of most Sandisfieldians when Beaver says she is renovating a house up the hill. "Take it room by room," they say. "Go slowly." "Triple any estimate." "Start with the most important thing." Underlining everything is the insistence to keep a sense of humor in the face of leaking roofs, hornet invasions, mice, even termites. A sturdy suggestion to do the best you can, and to laugh when the going gets expensive.

Humor is essential when applying joint tape, especially to the cracking corners of a molded kitchen ceiling. Spray bottle of bleach in hand, Beaver mounts her ladder, and with a single spritz she is dowsed with a gentle rain of Clorox right in her eyes. She toils, nearly upside down, scrubbing the spotted ceiling, rubbing her furry head against the omnipresent bleach. It's certainly cheaper than highlights.

Joint tape. Joint compound. Messy, messy, messy. It oozes and goozes and drips on the floor, it cracks at will and disobeys her spatula. And yet she persists. Dreams of a white kitchen call her to move on.

Acquisition of a duck

After a week in the financial quicksands of Manhattan, Beaver and Domo are back in their red house, and green things are sprouting. There is something suspect happening in the right end of their yard; a knotted root of red that smells like mint and onion. Will it be rhubarb? Or some kind of flower? Impossible to tell when one has a webbed paw instead of a green thumb.

After three weeks of struggles with acorns, gum wrappers, and nibbled insulation, Beaver and Domo have a dining room floor. In days of yore, the dining room was one foot higher than the living room for no other reason than the particular owner felt like building up. The floor ended halfway near the wall, revealing woodland depths of dirt and earth below. The radiator sat in the middle of the room, blocking any possibility of installing a proper table. The pantry was a veritable labyrinth of slanting shelves of varying sizes, books were placed with great risk and hazard to never be removed. The ceiling fan had been installed a convenient two inches from the southern wall so that it rocked back and forth and rubbed shoulders with sheet rock each time it was turned on. In short, the dining room was a place of heavy haunting, the last place in the house where one would choose to dine.

But thanks to the Macaw carpenter from Chicopee, it is no longer the pariah of the household and lacks only some salvaged barn wood flooring to make its transition complete. The completion of one room out of seven makes our couple very happy, as does the addition of their new pet duck, Mylo. Mylo is a little mallard they found wandering in the mud after the three day deluge last week. He likes peanut butter rice cakes and green chili and a host of other foods that are difficult to find, but Beaver has taken quite a liking to her duck and it's a pleasure to spoil him in the messy red house.

In other news of late, Beaver has found a nice little shop that sells 8 grapefruits for two dollars. And that's all the news that's fit to print.

If you can't take the heat...

Is there anything more unnerving than having a professional visit your abode for such and such a problem, only to find after the obligatory elapse of 17 hours that he's only made it worse? How do badgers do that? How do they time it so you go to sleep smiling, the check in the mail, and you wake up with no heat in the house, the check already cashed?

It's a perpetual thirty degrees out and Beaver's been toiling in long Johns and a cap, a hot water bottle on her trembling webbed feet. She can work under these conditions, but she dislikes paying someone to make these conditions so. The more the Little Red House gets roughed up by professionals, the more things fall apart.

Kimchi, mon amour

The impossible has happened. Poor little Beaver, a devotee of fermented Korean cabbage since her earliest, furriest beginnings, has been forced to keep her beloved kimchi in a heavy duty contractor bag in the middle of the yard, so repugnant is its smell to her Domo. When she lived in Brooklyland, she wasn't allowed to bring it to her office. Her longings to eat it for breakfast were rebuffed by those around her. But finally, enfin, enfin, it appears she might have found a potential partner in brine. A friendly tabby cat of a neighbor handed her the phone number today of a mysterious duckling who wants to start a kimchi farm. Beaver huddles near the fire in her home as the snow outside keeps falling. There is nothing she would like more than to start a kimchi farm with a duckling! Could her prayers be answered? Will she really find an outlet for Korean cuisine in the middle of the rural hilltops of snowy Massachusetts? Stay tuned. Bring mints. Things are gonna get stinky.

Good luck, Chuck

A key, divided and welded back together. A penny under every single floorboard. A computer chip fashioned to look like a smiley face. It seems the former owner of the little red house was quite obsessed with talismans. The more that Beaver and Domo chew through all the things that were built incorrectly, the more tiny charms they find. Mr. Fix-Nothing put up a beam to support a ceiling that didn't quite reach high enough-- he plopped a good luck penny on top of it in hopes that the roof wouldn't fall.

But when it comes to supporting an entire structure, painted feathers only go so far. Beaver has a jar full of Mr. Fix-Nothing's thingamajigs, but if the house hasn't fallen, it's thanks more to the teamwork of Sir Domo and his new sidekick, the carpenter, a macaw from Chicopee who works fast, and clean.

U-Stall

One would think, in the vast and eclectic bushland of Brooklyn that a company as substantial as U-Haul would have reliable outposts and cognizant creatures toiling for them, merrily. But one would be wrong. Beaver and Domo reserved their U-Haul for 6 am on Saturday morning. The night before their move from New York to Massachusetts, they were informed that their truck would not be available until 6 pm, and that they would have to fetch said vehicle at the other end of the island of Manhattan, which, on a Friday evening during rush hour, might as well have been the other side of the world.

The porcupine from whom they rented the U-Stall was manning, a la fois, a deli, a gas station, a lotto center, a truck rental outpost and some kind of mysterious storage center from a stairwell in his basement. Multi-tasking has its merits, but not during a move.

Humpty nest

24 hours 'till moving day, but no empty nest in sight. In fact, the creatures are moving in before the new tenants do. There's a little bird building a home for his lady right under their awning-- he works tirelessly to not much of an avail. Each time Beaver and Sir Domo walk out the front door, the slamming causes him to drop a branch out of his beak. Beaver, with her extensive knowledge of woodworking, would like to help the little thing get on with his project, but she's been told that beavers shouldn't touch the branches of birds.

There is also a tiny mouse on the premises. It seems he can't decide where to set up his dwelling. He scurries to and fro between the bedroom and the guest room, sizing up the options. Personally, Beaver would suggest the guest room. The view is much better- but it is a little large and can get cold in the wintertime. Hopefully, Mouseman will have made a decision by this evening. Beaver and Domo need a good sleep.

We all live in a yellow frigidaire

The color yellow has taken the responsibility of promoting optimism throughout the little red house. It started with the bathroom cabinet; a horribly outdated little thing that had been built for a very short beaver and adorned with 1970's motel wood. The sink that sat upon it, albeit a charming shade of blue, looked washed out atop its ancient cousin. So Lady B gave it a nice hit of "Cowardly Custard" which turned out to be quite mighty next to the blue and very uber Swedish, which egales spectacular to Beaver, who very much likes that far off Northern place.

The next victim to fall under the brush was the vintage General Electric Frigidaire. Pull up a chair, lady and gents, and inspect your own refrigerators because this paint job was the best one yet. The yellow fridge has become something of a piece de resistance in the kitchen, bringing glory, hope and pride to a house under siege.

Raindrops keep falling on my bed

It was Bachelard, a nice little scribe hailing from Franche, who once said in "The Poetics of Space" that a house only comes into its own in bad weather, when the poetry of shelter receives its fullest expression. Well then, the little red house has come into its own. Just about as gracefully as a competitor in a potato sack race.

It rained on Saturday night. It rained hard. It melted three months worth of snow and sent a host of little creatures crawling towards the light of the little red house. They approached the hearth with high hopes, only to be daunted by a strange site in the living room. It was raining outside of the house, and inside as well. Disheartened, they crept back outside into the muddy night to spend the evening awash in rain and stars.

Beaver and Domo should have done so as well. The Building Inspector told them their roof was in grand shape. But the Building Inspector didn't visit during a rainstorm.

Immortar beloved

Domo and Beaver have a big fat hole in their chimney. En fait, they have two. Today Domo tried to seal them up with mortar, bricks and stones just like the unfortunate republicans at the T-Bone Depot told him to.

The bricks stayed put, the pebbles fell, and the mortar leaked all over the beautiful stone chimney. Domo felt sad. He isn't a professional contracting beaver, he's just a little guy, with lots of bushy fur. He stood in the middle of the living room and watched as the soppy, grey mess dripped onto the floor.

Beaver went and fetched him some sasafrass tea. Try, try again, little Domo! Even the highest tree will fall with enough earnest chewing.

And you thought acoustic ceiling tile was treacherous...

Beaver and Sir Domo have finally met their match in the form of wall-to-wall linoleum. As if the acoustic ceiling tile in the original log cabin living room wasn't enough of an aesthetic obstacle, the kitchen, bathroom and the entirety of the guest cottage is adorned with blue and grey industrial strength lino.

After 40 straight hours of work, Beaver and Domo succeeded in removing a mere 6" x 4" section in the kitchen. Lady B cried a bit, who wouldn't? If the previous owner had simply put down some plywood, she could have chewed it all up in no time flat and gone for a swim in the river.

Fear has taken hold- short of knocking down the kitchen all together, the lino might be here to stay. Only too late, they learn the cruelty of their error; they could have put down flooring right over the hell-raising linoleum. They didn't, though, and now it's too late. In order for their lovely, white-washed Scandinavian flooring to lie flat and never buckle, every single piece of the lino must go.

Why, former owner from North Carolina, why such ill-made choices? Had you never heard of cork?

New Kid on the Block

On Saturday, as they were driving up to their little red house from Brooklynland, a piece of Beaver's tooth came off. Just like that. A little one. She nudged the ridged space with her Beaver tongue the entire drive long. It felt like an invader. Like someone sitting next to you on the subway with their Ipod far too loud. Had this really happened? She could do nothing but accept it. Just like that- on a sunny Saturday morning. And chip- chip- she was getting old.

Sometimes Beaver can't help but stand back and stare at the direction her life is taking as if it were a stranger filling up her doorway. A handsome stranger, and a mysterious one at that, but a stranger all the same. After the long journey from her home in Franche, she thought things would be different. In her heart of hearts, she thought that her book would be out and gently feted in small, well-wishing circles of farm animals and deer. She thought there would be parties and punch bowls and fetching, peep-toe shoes. She thought there would be inspiration and steady light that said: Come this way. Come now.
She thought her days would be filled with that perfect concoction of frivoltry and ambition that constitutes the life of a young artist in New York.

This isn't the way things worked out for La Beav. Her book sits unnoticed somewhere, a surplus object like a booster seat in a restaurant, and she can't help but feel that things aren't going correctly. It's like that part in a book or a movie that starts heading off-kilter, leaving you to wonder- where is the story I first started out with? Where is the ending that I thought was pre-written?

In exactly one month, Beaver and Sir Domo will be moving to the most rural town in the Berkshires with no job offers, no Internet, no friends and no postal delivery. Gone are the girlish ponderings of a Beaver in Manhattan, trying to make it through the well-pawed streets of the city. Enter the immediacy of finding the proper gift for ones neighbors in a town of 664. Beaver can't bake. Is stone-cut Irish oatmeal too humdrum? Or is simplicity the way to make a sound impression?

Adventures, challenges, life lessons to be learned- certainly all these things lie in the path that's now in front of these Beavers. But what if they are making a mistake? We assume that we have taken the right road because we need to. But what if their destiny waits on the other path?

Tastes like Team Spirit

To aid them in their efforts to renovate their dwelling, Beaver and Sir Domo bought a bright, lovely chariot with gigantic spokes to take them to and fro from the quarry. The previous owners seemed a nice couple indeed, even if they were ferretts and kept a rumpled house.

Alas, the great big chariot turned out to be a lemon. What in the world will they do with it now? Pebbles are tight at the moment and they certainly regret spending so many of them on a big, juicy lemon. Sigh, little Beaver. Sigh, little Domo. You'll get over the error or your youthful ways! You've got a little red house now to see you through the bad times. On a frozen river!

Blood on the Mortgage

Folks, they finally did it! After two and a half months of setbacks, employment gone missing and a fickle lender that doesn't like Franche, Beaver and Sir Domo finally closed on their little red house.

The living room has daudy acoustic ceiling tile, the layout of the guest bedroom makes no sense whatsoever and the chimney has two holes in it-- but it's theirs! Water stains, linoleum floors, popcorn ceilings and all- it's theirs. A little red house on a river with a great big forest behind them. The beavers of Western Massachusetts seem a cool and hardy type, but with patience and good faith, Beaver and Sir Domo will surely break through. Now, if only they knew a little bit more about wainscoting....

Gimme back my plate, bub

A second musing of La Beav's. Why, pray tell, when dining out in the United Greats must the eager-beaver waiters whisk away your dinner plate the minute your fourchette kisses the linen? Why ever can't they dally about until you've both finished nibbling away at whatever sub-standard sustenance they've placed upon your table? The hand appears, as if out of nowhere, and mid-sentence, there's that sigh; Er,yes, I suppose I'm finished. Your dining partner looks on in horror. You've finished before he has! He'd better hurry up now, hadn't he? Christ on crutches, the rhythm's all off! Got to hurry it up now, hurry, go, go, go! What were you just talking about? He can't seem to find it...something has shifted. All the candles have gone hiding! Only moments ago, he had images of white clapboard fences and bumblebees buzzing through his mind, but now there's that glaring, gaping space where your plate used to be. Why is he taking so utterly long to finish? A crumbly conundrum, just wrap it for the doggy! What in the world were we talking about, anyway?

Stop stop go go

Last night, Lady Beaver was thinking about some things. About the significance of stoplights, for starters. Or more precisely, the lack of significance they have in the city. Stoplights either abet or hinder you from rushing off to some place you aren't presently at, but wish to get to. Red, yellow, green; stop, go, why aren't you going?? When you're waiting for a red light in Manhattan, you are waiting for Le Man to allow you to rush forward. But Beaver was thinking about red lights in the country side. Waiting for a red light in the pitch black darkness of the woods, on a narrow, looping road. Anything could come out of that darkness. A dear. A sasquatch. A turtle with a sledgehammer. Red lights in the country feel like they go on forever. And what if it did? Would you go?

A light at the end of the funnel

Like legumes, lenders should be local. Things were looking pretty gloomy for La Beav and Sir D. several days ago, but they bounced back like a Jackalope on RedBull. Things got dirty: mud was thrown, names were tossed about with PG13 ratings, and mottled fur was mauled, but they came out victorious with a pair of Big Buck's antlers as their well-earned prize.

So what if that big ol' Buck of a lender thought the couple too bohemian to lend his nuggets to? They found themselves a local lender who thinks it's okay to want to write books for a living. A nice old soul who doesn't think Domo is a bad beaver for hailing from Franche. Go little! Go local! Go loco! Go Beav!

So once again they have rescheduled their closing, this time for the 16th of February. It isn't Groundhog Day, and it isn't the birthday of Beaver's ex-boyfriend, but the third time is a charm, n'est-ce pas?

Things fall apart

At 8pm last night, the odious underwriter pulled out citing the "unstable income" of Lady Beaver as their reason. What they didn't mention was their consistent refusal to factor Sir Domo into the equation, and pool both their incomes into a natatorium of marital wealth. They wouldn't even consider the income Domo receives from renting out his cave in Franche. Why? Because the cave isn't situated in the United Greats. And the money they receive from it is in a foreign currency, and as we all know by now, all foreign things are inherently evil.

So that's it, then. Lady B doesn't earn enough to buy the little red house on her own, and the spanky-Bank won't consider Sir Domo's income because he's a foreigner. Legal, married, functional and friendly, but foreign all the same, and thus, non-existent.

But these gallant beavers are not going down without gnawing their way through this forest of narrow-minded bankers that would have them swap their Long Johns for a bromidic, grey suit. Stay tuned, fellow beavers. It's time to get dirty.

Trouble in bluburbia

Only two days from closing, and the thick-necked underwriter has taken issue with the freelancing status of Lady B. and Sir Domo. They have good credit, no debt and no outstanding loans, but somehow this makes them "unreliable" beavers. The underwriter won't even consider Sir Domo for the mortgage-porridge, because he hails from a far-away continent called Franche.

Everything seems to be sitting on Lady B's shoulders- and her shoulders are shikiity-shaking. It's 15 degrees outside and she has 48 hours to convince Le Man that refusing to commute each day to the same, soulless job, holed up in a cubicle like a dehydrated gerbil does not make her an "unreliable" beaver. Lady B likes to laugh and cook and write and read and own her life, because Beavers, unlike kittens, only get one. But Le Man prefers to see her schlepping off to Corporate Land like a marching number; eating, working, drinking and sleeping, day in and day out like an automaton.

Sometimes, living in Manhattan can make you feel like a little lost sock wedged behind the washing machine while all the others swirl and spin in colorful circles of cacophonic success.

Goshdarn that lender!

Outrage in Beaverland! All will end in a riot of flowers! Lady B and Domo’s closing date has just been moved from Groundhog Day to February 8th. Groundhog day is a very lucky day for beavers involving platefuls of crumpets and cream tea and bubble & squeak in the morning. February 8th is a very unlucky date for beavers because it represents the birthdates of one of the most inauspicious characters in the known-universe; Lady B’s ex-boyfriend!

One can only hope that the number of good things that have happened on February 8ths past will out-shadow the fuggity birthday of the Mean Man. This, and that the groundhog won’t see his shadow because 21°F is just downright inappropriate.

This just in

A big decision has just been made in Beaverland. Due to the recent loss of Lady B’s job (flyers have been posted, but it hasn’t turned up yet) the couple is giving up their apartment in Windsorville and moving to the country as soon as they close on their little red house. Bygone, the dreams of weekend getaways from the nitty-gritty city. It’s overalls and circular saws and spam sandwiches from here, bub.

2,472,523 people live in Brooklyn, NY. 664 live in Sandisfield, MA. Someone better kick the bucket or pop out some kiddies, or their upcoming relocation will make for one hell of an inauspicious number.

Most likely to move forward

Lady B’s mother is selling her house, and this weekend she had to take a raft upriver to go through dozens of boxes of forgotten-about things. Slipperless dolls that had never been played with. A decade of paperbacks with underlined text. Stones and pebbles from driveways of old playmates. Alas, Lady Beaver has tired of sentimentality. Sentimentality feels like walking up a staircase in telemark ski boots. Clunky. Impractical. Not very attractive.

She bid bye-bye to her yearbooks; photos of faces slumbering in attics. Bye-bye to the pencils, the pens, albums filled to bursting with photos of school plays. Lady Beaver might not know who she is at the moment, but she isn’t Lady Larkin from “Once Upon a Mattress”. She no longer harbors a crush on Dan Block from Long Lake Theater and Arts camp, and that sewing machine she once got for Christmas? She never learned to use it. The petit beaver of yore is floating away on a little brown log, sleeping oh-so softly. What lies ahead for the grown up Lady B? So many maybes knit into dreams. Black and white photos turned midnight with time. Unrecognizable. Foreign. Steel cold and strange.

Don't scrimp on Q-tips

Lady Beaver and Sir Domo have had to make some changes in their lifestyle in order to prepare themselves for the fatty-ass weight of a rent and a mortgage. Gone the hand-holding over the candlelit tables of tucked-away bistros, the crisp nip of the air whizzing past as they explored the hidden enclaves of the terrible city. Gone, too, the elegant soirees of days gone by where pigs-in-a-duvet were served on crystal trays.

Enter the dark, cold Winter of Saving. Indeed, they've been husbanding away their pennies and quarters, muddling about their apartment in heavy clothing and doing their shopping at Flopsco. There are some things that were easy to bid adieu to. Some others, not so much. Champagne, for instance, has proved vital fuel for the couple's self-esteem. Indeed, there is nothing quite as charming as coming across a sturdy bottle of bubbly standing proudly in your fridge, soldiering on when you feared you could go no further. You might not be able to pay your state taxes, but if you have Champy in your fridge, goodness! Life is glorious. So don't scrimp on the bubbly, bub. You'll need it in the darkness. (You will also need heavy cream, organic eggs, high-end linguine and some form of red meat. You will not be needing vanilla non-fat lattes, Happy Hour, Vogue, straight jacket blue jeans). But one thing, ladies and gentlemen, that absolutely can not be scrimped upon, that must be respected at all times, is the sanctity of Q-tips.

Poor Lady Beaver has a confession to make. Sometimes she shops for necessities at the dollar store. She does! Once Sir Domo brought home tulips only to find that his homemaker had not a vase- it was off through the tangled web of Fort Hamilton to the little dollar shop where a welcoming vessel was waiting. Toilet paper, napkins, the occasional sponge; it's easy, it's practical, it's so goshdarn cheap! We can forgive her, (can't we?) for thinking that the dollar store Q-tips might do the trick? Certainly, their TP had nothing on Charmin, and it certainly wasn't ribbed nor bedecked with nonsensical flowers, but the lovely sticks were pink and proud and only fifty cents. Ah! But La Beaver would have been better sticking a quarter in her ear, such was the horror of manipulating the budget version of the Q-tip. Wiggly, floppy, worm-like instruments that removed neither make-up nor earwax, useful only when lying in the bottom of a trashcan of banana peels and wet filters of coffee.

Scrimp, friends, on groceries, try to slurp some fruit, turn off the lights and use public transportation, but by all means do not compromise on spelunking equipment for your darling eardrums!

Mardi Noir

Ah, but it was a dark day in Beaverland on Tuesday the 23rd. Only ten days from closing, and Lady Beaver lost her job. Where in the world did she put it? She checked all of her handbags and inside of the highest of her heels, alas-- to no avail. It seems she really lost it.

Chin up, Lady Beaver. You need to keep on chomping away at the proverbial career log! Surely someone will want to hire a nice little animal like you to copywrite the wondrous things that they want to communicate to the public at large.

In the meantime, the poor creature has been reduced to selling her fetching escarpins and clutches on Ebay. It's terrible, the things an innocent beaver has to do to survive in the mucky marshes of Manhattan.

Lady Beaver isn't frightened. She doesn't sleep. She waits.

10 Ribbety Road, Beaverland, MA

Here is a photo of the hopefully-new home of Lady Beaver and Sir Domo. They have scheduled the closing on Groundhog day because that is a day of auspiciousness in Beaverland. They have decided to go locally, and are only using contractors, lawyers, and insurance agents that live locally and were recommended to them by their realtor, who lives in a snuggly cave not far from the red house.

Lady Beaver and Sir Domo are hoping to spend about half the week in their little red house fixing it up to proper Beaver standards. The rest of the time they will spend in mushy-poo Manhattan schleping to their jobbity-jobs and paying too much for watered down coffee.