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.