December 29, 2025

For the remainder of the year, we're sneaking into the archives to celebrate some of your favorite Respites of 2025. Today's Respite is from May, when I declared our porch kitchen closed.

Good morning!

It’s Saturday [but really Monday], and Patrick wanted to say hi. As you may recall, Patrick is our chipmunk. He is all our chipmunks, whether past, present, and future, including the Patricias. They all go by Patrick, understanding that such a familiarity earns them a greater shot at birdseed every morning.

Last summer we had the bright idea to scatter seed along the edge of the porch every morning. It was fun to sip our coffee and watch Patrick enjoy his breakfast. But then Richard the red squirrel caught wind of the free buffet and started leaping up for his meal, leading to a very dramatic series of standoffs—which we foolishly tried to mediate by presenting them both with seed.

Before long, both Patrick and Richard were leaping up onto the porch and banging their empty cups on the screen whenever they saw us. Fortunately Gary the grey squirrel never figured things out or we would’ve had a real circus on our hands.

So the restaurant is closed this year. Everyone will have to content themselves with foraging beneath the bird feeder—where, I might add, there’s still more than enough to go around.

“No” is a complete sentence.”

― Annie Lamott

Onwards,

Clara