Abby disliked the winter so much that she went to great lengths to disguise the season. Her home was full of flowers year round and pictures of Hawaii on every wall. Her furniture was comprised of lawn chairs and aluminum loungers made of strapped plastic. Buckets of sand were strategically placed around the house and little water features trickled calmly in each room of the house.
Abby even went so far as to have special lighting installed so her home would be extra sunny. It was an extreme home but Abby never did anything half way…it was all or nothing for her so the environment she lived in was very important.
At the end of every summer Abby would throw a garden party with several of her close friends; it was a way for her to mentally prepare for the changing season - in her eyes fall was just a band-aid on winter…a season of crisp dead leaves and cool air.
At the garden party she would repeat this as if it were her mournful mantra, “Fall is a heartbreaker “. She would then return to drinking her gin and tonic with key lime and pretend that summer was never ending.
Abby should have lived in sunnier climes but she chose the Northwest or it chose her. A native of Bakersfield, California and the best speller in her seventh grade class, she travelled to Seattle for a spelling bee against another class. Abby was in a national competition and if she won this spelling meet she would go on to the finals in New York!
At the spelling bee she met Walt. Walt was on the opposing team and Abby could not take her eyes off him. He was tall with brown curly hair, glasses, and a Roman nose. She was smitten!
Abby was so distracted by the look of Walt, she lost the meet. He must have felt a little taken with her as well, as he too stumbled on his spelling.
After the meet they talked a little and exchanged phone numbers! The rest is history. The two wrote letters once a week and talked on the phone on Sundays. After high school they married and Abby ended up living in the North West with dark days and lots of rain.
Walt tried to make her happy. He built a greenhouse and grew lemon trees and white blooming Camellias.
For Sunday lunch he would turn the heat up so it was super hot. The table would be set in the greenhouse with ice cold lemonade, chilled Waldorf salad, and ice cream sundaes for dessert. Still, Abby would look outside the greenhouse windows, see winter, hear the rain, and feel more and more dismal.
This year Walt decided to get creative so on Thanksgiving he invited all Abby’s close friends and their family for a feast in the greenhouse. This was not the traditional meal you would have on Thanksgiving. The first course was green salad with mandarin orange slices; the main course was barbecued salmon with garlic, fresh dill, and white truffle oil; for desert…Key lime pie.
Now Abby noticed there was a platform in the corner of the greenhouse and when dinner was over Walt asked everyone to bring their chairs to the stage and wait for the show! Walt disappeared behind the makeshift curtain and the music began!
A few minutes later Walt appeared wearing a costume made entirely of Watermelon! He wore a scooped out watermelon hat and a suit with a tie! His shoes were so large they looked like they belonged to a clown! The audience roared and Abby just grinned shyly with her hand over her mouth!
Something had to be done. Walt had to make a rash decision. A few days after Thanksgiving he began research and decided the only thing left to do was to move to a sunnier climate. Abby grew up in California so that would be a good place to start. Walt has always wanted to live in LA. He was an engineer but had always wanted to pursue costume design and LA would be the place.
That night Walt told Abby over dinner his plans to re-locate them. Abby was hesitant at first. “What about my friends, our house, our family?” Walt gave Abby the positive points of moving. “You will be in a sunny place, your parents are still in Bakersfield, and at least we will be in the same state! No more greenhouse! You can have a lovely tropical outside garden and a pool!”
Abby thought about this transition long and hard and agreed with Walt that this was a good move.
Walt travelled to LA and scouted out a place to live. He found a beautiful cottage-style home and was able to rent it with intention to buy later in the year.
Several months later after the house sold in Seattle the couple made their move to Los Angeles.
Abby loved her new home and felt much more content in a sunnier climate. She was impressed with her husbands decisions and this motivated her to begin a new hobby…taxidermy. She would read in detail about Victorian taxidermy and how in those times pets were preserved and set around the house as part of the décor and an endearing memory…or in some people’s eyes, a grotesque and cruel act. But not Abby. She loved the idea of preservation and was determined to give all her taxidermy projects toothy smiles.
Life became very interesting for the couple with Walt attending classes to become a costume designer and Abby attending Taxidermy school. They spent their evenings sitting on the patio at night eating dinner and enjoying beautiful sunsets and warm weather.
For the first time in Abby’s life she felt truly happy. A new life was like a new suit made of the finest wool and Abby’s suit fit perfectly.
