Done!

The landscapers came this morning at about 7:30--CG, D, and CG's son--to rake the ground smooth, to shovel up the big clods, to spread fertilizer and seeds, and then to cover it all with a thin layer of straw.  Oh, CG also brought three sprinklers that he's lending me.  He poked them into the ground where they'd cover the most area and told me that I only needed to water for 15 minutes a day.



This part, the lane that the skid steer drove from the street to the back, isn't covered by a sprinkler--yet.  He said I should water this by hand but I do believe that I'll dig out a sprinkler and set it up.  I don't want to have to stand there and water every day.  Call me lazy, but I don't.





Tonight at Friday Knitting I finished the chrysalis, knitted the leaf, and started embroidering the veins on the leaf. 



 

When I got home I finished the veins and knitted the butterfly but I'm not thrilled with the darkness of the yarn.  I think I'll take another stab at it, pulling yarn out so that I'm knitting with the orange part, not the black part.






CG brought the shrubs that we talked about and got them planted.  I was at the dentist so I'm not sure what one of them is but I have a guess.  I'll ask him the next time I see him.


Speaking of the dentist, I had my teeth cleaned and had some floride goop painted on.  Never again.  It tasted vile and she warned me not to eat or drink anything hot for a couple hours.  Five hours later I had a bowl of soup and it was horrible, plus the stuff keeps coming off in chunks.  When I got to Goodwill to knit tonight they had sealed the parking lot and I realized that my mouth tasted like the parking lot smelled.  Yuk.

21 June--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon.

            The next day dawned overcast and rainy.  It was too messy outside to think about driving to Simpson Mall to buy some new lights for the studio.  Instead I decided to see if I couldn’t finish the flower painting for Clara’s bathroom today.  I turned on all the lights in the studio, decided it was still too dim, and went upstairs to relocate a couple of lamps from the seldom-used bedrooms.  Once I had a pair of lamps installed and turned on, it was much brighter, but the heat from them made the room uncomfortably warm for a woman at my age and stage in life, so I opened the window.

            It was a perfect day to spend painting.  No yard work could be done, there were no errands that couldn’t wait, and no one called to interrupt.

I painted for hours and, for the first time, what I put on the paper matched the vision in my head.  The jewel-tones of the chrysanthemums, the morning light slanting onto the vase and table, even the chickadees at the feeder outside in the honeysuckle seemed to leap off the page.  It was nearly two o’clock when I finally put down my brush.

            “Now that’s a painting I’ll be proud to give Clara.” 

             Looking at the clock, I saw it was 1:30 and realized I was starving.  I went to the kitchen to forage for leftovers in the fridge.  I heated some stew in the microwave and sat at the table to eat it while watching the raindrops chase each other down the windowpane.

After only a few bites, I picked up the bowl and walked into the studio to look at Clara’s painting, to reassure myself that it really was as good as I’d thought.  When I entered the room, I nearly dropped my bowl.

           The wind had shifted and rain was blowing in on the painting.  What had once been a bright, lively watercolor of a bouquet was now a muddy brown mess with paint dripping off the paper onto the floor.

            “Oh, no.”

I set my unfinished lunch on the table and slammed the window shut.  I gently picked up the painting, spun around, walked through the kitchen and out the back door still carrying the wet paper.  I stopped on the back porch to put on my raincoat then almost ran next door to Clara’s.  Bursting into Clara’s kitchen, I waved the ruined painting and started sobbing, babbling incoherently.

            “Gail, for heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?  Is something wrong with one of the boys?  Why are you waving that paper at me?”

            I tried to talk through my hiccupping sobs, “I painted this…and…the rain…oh, Clara, I’m so sorry.”

            “Honey, just calm down.  Here, let me get that raincoat off you and I’ll fix us some coffee.”  She gently removed the dripping coat and hung it up and steered me into a chair.

            “Now, have you eaten?”

            I nodded then shook my head, still crying too hard to talk.

            “Okay, I didn’t understand that, but I’m making you something anyway.”          

            She poured me a mug of coffee and made me an egg salad sandwich on homemade bread.  She set the plate on the table and sat down across from me.

            “Now, eat,” she said, as if to a stubborn child.

            I dried my eyes on the back of my hand and smiled at her.

            “I’m sorry I fell apart on you.”

“It’s okay.  What are friends for if you can’t cry all over them?  What’s so bad it made you cry like that?”

“Oh, Clara,” I said around a bite of sandwich, “I painted that for you today.”  I swallowed and took a sip of coffee.  “This is good.  Thanks.”  I nodded at the smeared paper.  “It was of the bouquet David picked for me over the weekend, and it was perfect.  The best I’ve ever done.  I was so happy that it was for you.  I had just fixed myself some lunch and, after a few bites, I went back into the studio to admire it.  In the three minutes I was gone, the wind had shifted and blew rain in the window and ruined it.”

“No wonder you cried if you thought it was your best work so far.  But that was an awful lot of tears over a painting.  Anything else bothering you?”

I woke up too early again today.  I have high hopes that I'll sleep past 5:45 tomorrow.  Sheesh.  Oh, Happy Summer!
--Barbara