Ladybird

scarlet_quince

For the second year, dozens of ladybugs hatched inside the house. Somehow a nursery took root in the sunny southwestern room and ladybirds awoke and marched across the windows toward the light. We tipped them one-by-one onto an index card and carried them outside, ever so gently so they wouldn’t take flight, and offered them room in the geranium pots.

I keep a stack of index cards in the sideboard drawer. They are useful in many ways besides saving ladybugs: grocery lists, chore lists, recording vaccine registration codes to hand over at intake, or a bench scrappers if salt spills from the cellar.

When I make a sweet I take a portion over to share with neighbor Vic. I write out an index card to hand over as well because he rarely wears his hearing aids. Perhaps he has no reason to, living alone since Shirley died, perhaps they hurt his ears. When I call to tell him I’m coming over, he knows there’s a sweet coming, but can’t hear what it is nor any other news I have. Last week’s card:

Blank side:

Carrot Cake with Buttermilk Glaze, has Coconut and Pineapple
(written in big bold capital letters)

Lined side:

We will take out your garbage and recycling bins on
Sundays with ours, so look for them in the street if needed.

We take Vic’s empty bins up the steep drive on Monday’s, but after he nearly rode the recycling bin down to the street, it’s better we all agree on the take-out as well. Since his last seizure, he walks with a cane to the mailbox and gathers his mail into a bag hung from his wrist. The heavy blue wheeled bin is a beast.

At the farm and housewares store today there were crowds thronging between the nursery aisles and shelves of seed, pet food, and kitchen gadgets. I wondered if it was because it is a sunny March afternoon and spring break from university, if more travelers venture here, or because more people are vaccinated. Everyone wore a mask, but I could hear my own breath and paid and left.

I’m not eligible for vaccination until May. I’m envious.

Allium

Author: Kim K. McCrea

Kim K. McCrea earned her BA in English before embarking on a career in technology and public service. Kim won Oregon Writers Colony 2018 essay award, Treefort’s 2017 Wild West Writing Prize, and was named runner-up in Cutbank 2018 Big Sky/Small Prose contest. Her creative nonfiction is featured in Cutbank, Tishman Review, Cagibi, and elsewhere; she is the author of the novel Pandora's Last Gift. A native of the Pacific Northwest, Kim lives in Oregon, where she studies the moon and stars and wanders with her Labrador in the rain.

11 thoughts on “Ladybird”

  5. To May then! May the fourth be with you, so to speak. I remember that couple as you wrote about them when his wife was alive, still. Gosh he’s lucky to have you for a neighbor! I can’t reread that bit about the cake or it will wake my stomach to the thought of sweets. Since I quit drinking I’ve developed a taste for that, I guess the body keeps track of its sugar needs (air-quotes around that) and lets you know when you’re falling short. We are just north of 50 and won’t qualify for the vaccine for a while but so be it. My mom lives in Germany and man, there ain’t shit going there in that category yet, sadly. Count our blessings as they say. Be well Kim!

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    1. Thanks Bill, hanging out. Not much of a baker except chocolate chip cookies until Covid— more of a ruthless soup/stew/soba short-order chef. Now it’s arts and crafts time. No shortage of elders around willing to taste test and offer opinions. Sounds like you are doing fine

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