Today it was a gray day. Gray clouds, chill wind, we didn't stay out too long. Impending rain. The keeper's friends, Gabriel and Teo, came over, and scraped her south wall and painted it with primer. They are anxious to come back and do the whole thing in the spring. It already looks better. While they painted, she cleaned and then moved out her summer clothes and brought out the winter ones. In a house this small, everything that isn't being used gets put away. It had a finality too it. No more shorts, no more lounging in the sun for whole afternoons for a while. They say it snowed in the mountains. Yuck. We are creatures of summer. It was chilly enough last night that Alice and I fought over the pillow nest next to the keeper's head last night. I am happy to say I won. I even brought my slobbery toy mouse to bed. The keeper praised my hunting skills.
While we slept this afternoon, she went out walking in the twilight and said it was full of woodsmoke and that sweet mossy fall smell mixed with the smell of rain and exhaust. But she found a beautiful clump of Oregon Grape, with those pretty purple berries. She said she became nostalgic over her memories of playing with the Oregon Grape in the field next door and painting faces with Dustine and Chrissy and MA and Mike. Trouble was, paint was easier to get off than the purple juice of the Oregon Grape. Faces, arms, legs smeared blue and purple, stained for awhile. She said she resisted the urge to try it again this afternoon.
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