Six
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Gerry and Marcie live in a paranoid small town where they avoid the community and prefer the warmth, beauty and tranquility inside their lovely Victorian home with a legion of eight cats: Orlando, Gerry’s favourite rescued cat, Emily (Dickinson), Teaport or Teepee, who appears in one of his drawings, Grigio (the color of the cat), Lew (Lewis Carroll), Melville (Herman), Vita (Sackville-West), and Amber, who loathes visitors and hides in the poetry room on the second floor as long as the guests are inside the house - which by all means is a small paradise, and from the nearby farmers market Marcie would bring back all sorts of Winter squash: acorn, buttercup butternut, dumpling, hubbard, pumpkin, kabocha and spaghetti, stacking them up on the tables in such ways that they look like pieces of art. Now the aromatic smells of scones and coffee permeate the kitchen, suggesting that Marcie is preparing for today’s special cooking - a day-long feast for Gerry’s birthday, and as a reminder, a hand-written note is taped on the door of the kitchen cabinet: Breakfast - banana rose-water-scented scones with cardamon-scented coffee; Lunch - toasted bagels with cream cheese, adding wild smoked salmon, rounds of red onion, cucumber slices and capers; Dinner - squash gnocchi in mushroom cream sauce, warm red cabbage salad; Desert: poached pears in spiced pomegranate juice, and at the Botton of this paper, Marcie reminds herself in red the bottle of rose wine in the refrigerator, a sparkling wine she hand-picked to celebrate Gerry’s 81st birthday. Deep down she believes Gerry’s unspoken love and admiration of every single meal she has cooked, a blessed life together, endowed with good, healthy food year-long, so much and so run-over that he can easily do away with age as the reason for the all-day feast, and proudly proclaim, EVERYDAY IS A FEAST.