November 3, 2008

• Three Little Thankfuls

  This is my entry for the current challenge from Kween of the Queens,

  “3 small things that you never pay too much attention to, but when
  you think about it, you really wouldn’t want to do without them.”

  First, I am thankful for my sense of smell.  It has been “with me” again now for a few months, just about long enough for me to get used to smelling things and become blasé about it.  For most of my lifetime, I have spent more time in anosmia, without a sense of smell, than I have spent smelling things.  It is just another symptom, less annoying from moment to moment than some of the other sensorimotor deficits, but more dangerous and life-threatening than the various pains and twitches. 

  When I can’t smell, I barely think about it unless I’m cooking, or unless someone asks, “Do you smell something funny?” or the house fills with smoke from an electrical fire I wish I’d noticed sooner.  There are actually some benefits in anosmia.  I’m the one the family relies on to do the nasty, smelly tasks nobody else wants to do.  I do them even if I can smell, but they are less distasteful in anosmia.

  Now, I add a touch of vanilla to my pancakes, put more onion in the stew, and take the time to smash and mince a clove of garlic for the hash — things I might not bother to do if I couldn’t smell them, and therefore couldn’t taste the lack of them in the finished products.
   
  Next on my list of three thankfuls is Tiny Ted, shown at left perched on top of a chunk of firewood in a warm spot next to the woodstove.  Ted is a runt, one of a long line of runty cats and dogs, bummer lambs, and orphaned younglings of various species that have captured my heart.  Ted is less than half the size of his two husky and hardy orange littermates.  He has the appearance of a six-week-old kitten and is about six months old.

  Around here lately, Doug or I often speak the words, “There’s Ted!” with affectionate delight, or, “Have you seen Ted lately?” with tender concern.  He never liked joining in his brothers’ rough and tumble prey play.  He spends most of his time in his warm spot by the stove or cuddled with old Aunty Muffin in her favorite spot, with Val (who might be his father and/or brother) on a cushion in front of the stove, or with his older brother Count Spatula on that same cushion.  He likes the warm places, peace and quiet, just as I do.

  I thought about listing my new woodstove as one of my three little things, but upon further consideration it is too big a thing to fit the criteria.  Heat here is a life or death necessity, and the old stove had become dangerous when an internal baffle warped free of its welds, separated, and fell loose into the firebox.  Removing the old stove and installing the new one was the biggest thing I did all summer.  No, that’s too big a thing for the three little ones, so I settled on…

  …our new toilet seat.  You can see it behind Ted in the picture above, resting in its warm spot behind the woodstove, ready to be grabbed up as I head out the door to the outhouse at any time of any frigid day.  The old seat was very old.  It predated our residence here, and was cracked so that it tended to pinch tender parts of one’s anatomy at inopportune times.  I am ever so thankful for the pristine new seat.
  
  

  • 10:54 am
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