81 degrees in the middle of December here in Los Angeles.
Just spent the last two hours in the Backyard Emirates
with Butterbean the cat and Cucuy the macaw.
It’s almost 2 pm.
I sit on a plastic Ikea folding chair,
scrolling on my phone
in constant disappointment
while keeping one eye on Butterbean.
Her middle name is Houdini.
Sitting on a last patch of green grassy weeds,
she chomps it from time to time.
I think about making a vet appointment
she eats a lot of grass.
December light tries to tease me with a promise of
more golden times.
Santa Ana whispers her dry warm lies in my ears.
I have been here before.
I’m not buying it.
The gardeners are at the neighbors’
on one side of us buzzing with their equipment.
Little yappy dogs in their house
snap their disapproval.
12 to 15 minutes and they’ll be done.
Over the chainlink fence on the other side,
my neighbor Maria waves and says, “Hi Neighbor!”
I wave and say “Beautiful day isn’t it?”
We share some small talk about hanging laundry
and maybe taking a walk before it gets dark.
It gets dark a little before 5, right?
Then we wave goodbye and say to each other, “I love you.”
I walk back into the house to finish my own laundry.
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