Breakfast Hall

The Breakfast Hall

Hah! Here I am in the splendor of my private breakfast hall: eight feet wide, perhaps, and opening onto a vista of our ten-foot strip of back yard – mostly concrete – which ends in a mixed laurel and juniper hedge, under which the neighbors' magnificent chickens strut – glorious gray-speckled dominae, with red crests that take on an unearthly glow in the sunlight: they tear up the duff with gloriously contemptuous back-kicks of their powerful feet, and peck up whatever they find. Kiki likes to contemplate them too, but apparently all parties are convinced of mutually assured destruction. They keep a watchful eye on each other, but they stick to their spheres of influence.

The Chicken Hedge

 But my dining hall: Alan is coming back for at least the early part of the summer, and I'm going to require some private space, so I'm turning this odd slot of a room into a breakfast nook / writing space. It was simply storage, and the door to the back, before. So I've cleared some things away – my poor neglected bicycle, alas! among other things – and set up a card table and a folding chair, and moved my coffeemaker back here. The kitchen window, which used to be an exterior window, overlooks this space, and its sill can serve conveniently as a pass-through. When I'm done I can simply stand up and set my dishes up there. This all may work. We'll see. Two boiled eggs – I can do my back exercises while they boil – and broccoli steamed in the microwave, and a banana, and coffee. And straight up above my head, a skylight: white clouds drifting due east in a blue sky. I may even set the door ajar and get some spring air and some birdsong. 

The Elegant Pass-Through

Birdsong; spring air. It's good.