That's What It Is

The final bill for the retaining wall and bush plantings came today and on the bill are the names of the three bushes that CG planted.  The one that I admire so much is called Black-Lace Elderberry.

I had picnic leftovers for lunch.  I love meals like this--a little cheese, a bunch of fruit and veg, a few crackers--delicious.



 


I waited until the sun went behind the neighbor's tree before hauling the lawnmower around the house to mow the parts of the back that weren't seeded and were growing so tall that bunnies could hide in it.  I even used the bagger because the grass was so high.





Here's an example of the critters that the tall grass was harboring.  It's a pretty new bunny holding very still because I was taking its picture.  When I moved it zoomed away into the ferns.


 


I sliced up the radishes I picked the other day and look at the patterns in them.  Pretty, don't you think?  They're tasty too.



 

I knitted one of the sock toes and started the other one but I pulled the second one back because I forgot that I had knotted the yarn together so it didn't get lost while it waited its turn.  I thought, oh it'll be okay, but the knot ended up on the bottom of the ball of the foot and that wouldn't be okay so I frogged it back to the foot and will start again tomorrow.





13 July--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

I sat on my new couch with the portable walnut desk Bert made for me years ago on my lap.  I remember the Christmas he gave it to me.  He was so proud.  He said he made it for me so I could write my weekly letters to my sister, Lydie, and the boys in comfort.  He must have gotten tired of watching me try to balance a magazine on my lap and keep the stationery from sliding off.  It has compartments for my pens and places for paper and envelopes, even a little drawer on top for stamps.  Aaron kept bugging me to get a computer but I liked the old-fashioned way of writing letters.  I wished it were warmer; I would have been out on the porch writing my letters but it was below zero and blowing like crazy.  I had poked my nose out at sunset but it was just too cold.  So there I sat in my newly redecorated living room with Andrea Boccelli singing to me in Italian from the stereo, writing letters.

            My sister Lydie is three years younger than me and she lives outside of Chicago in Bensenville.  She loves to garden and has been divorced for over thirty years.  After covering the usual family catch-up information, I jumped right into what I really wanted to talk to her about:

“I can’t decide what to do,” I wrote.  “I want to change my life but face opposition at every turn.  Clara looks hurt every time I talk about painting and, especially, about Samara.  Can’t she see I’m the same person I’ve always been?  Inside, anyway.  I can’t believe I’ve been that good an actor my whole life.  Or maybe it’s true that people only see what they want to see.  And my boys?  Why, Lydie, you’d think I’d been kidnapped by aliens and reprogrammed.  I figure they’ll get over it once they see how happy I am.

“But anyway I have to tell you about my new watercolor class.  It’s long—twelve weeks—and I don’t think Jake the teacher likes me.  And he especially doesn’t like the way I paint.  He’s constantly at my shoulder criticizing, correcting, pushing, pushing until I’m just about ready to scream or throw down my brush and quit for good.  The rest of the students must feel neglected.  I keep waiting for them to rise up and rebel.  But they keep working.  Maybe they’re hunching their shoulders and concentrating so Jake doesn’t pick on them next.  One of these nights, I’m going to just burst out crying and then I’ll be so embarrassed.  He’s not going to make me quit painting, if that’s what he’s trying to do.  Nobody’s going to make me quit, not Clara, not my boys, not Jake the painting Nazi, nobody.  Every week after class I paint and paint (this is costing me a fortune in supplies) but I’m determined to get Jake off my back.  I must admit my work is getting better.  Sometimes I just fling the paint on the paper, cram it on, mash it on, I’m so angry with him.  He’s not going to scare me away.  I’ll show him.

“And Jake’s not the only annoying man in my life.  There’s that darned Abel Baker.  I wish I’d never bumped into him at the garden center; he’s been like an annoying fly in my face ever since.  He started out trying to take over redoing my flowerbeds and now he turns up everywhere I go.  It seems like every time I get groceries at Merrick’s, there he is.  He was at the hardware store when I went in for new knobs for the kitchen cupboards last week.  And Sunday there he was at fellowship after Mass.  Sometimes I think he’s following me, but then I remind myself how small Kingman really is.

                   “Right after I started my new painting class, I got it in my head to redo the living room.  I don’t know why.  Probably watching too many decorating shows.  Anyway, I was sick of the safe boring colors and traditional furniture.  I called the Salvation Army and they sent over two guys with a big truck.  They were really nice—one of them gave me his recipe for enchiladas.  Anyway, I had them haul everything away.  Don’t worry, I kept Aunt Mary’s Tiffany lamp and Grandma Wayne’s marble topped table.  Clara came over to see what I was getting rid of and she stayed to help me rip out that old gold carpet, roll it up, and haul it out.  We ended up cutting it into strips and then rolling and taping it so we could carry it.  (I love duct tape.)  I  I  t was really heavy.  I figure it was the dirt of the ages ground into it from all those years of farmers tramping over it.  We tore the pad into pieces and stuffed it into garbage bags.  After Clara left, I spent the evening scraping up the pad pieces that were stuck to the floor and ripping up the tack strips.  Under all that was a beautiful old plank floor.  I went to the hardware early the next morning and talked to Charlie about the best way to clean it and make it shine.  That darned Abel was there too and had to put his two cents in.  I froze him right out of the conversation.

“I bought what Charlie recommended, drove right home and got to work.  It took me the rest of the day and my back was killing me by the time I quit, but that floor just gleams.  It’s beautiful and worth every minute of hard work and pain.

“The next morning I hobbled into Simpson to that new furniture outlet on the eastern edge of town and bought a chocolate brown chenille couch, a gold and red paisley side chair and ottoman, some side tables and a coffee table, and a floor lamp.  It was the first time I ever bought brand new furniture, except for the mattress Bert and I bought for our twentieth anniversary.  I was lucky they’d had a cancellation and could deliver it the very next day.  So I stopped at Charlie’s on my way home, bought paint and some new roller covers and brushes, and stayed up half the night painting the walls a rich cinnamon red.  The next day I borrowed Clara’s son Larry to help me drag an old oriental rug of Bert’s mom’s out of the attic and we got it unrolled just as the delivery truck pulled up.  Larry hung around while the men carried in the furniture so he could help me shove it around and get it just right.  Clara came over when we were almost done and couldn’t believe how different the room looked.  I was so proud.  I hung a few of my favorite paintings in there and it looks great, the red of the walls and the chocolate of the sofa are repeated in the rug.  But it makes the rest of my house look drab and dowdy.  Guess I know where a bit more of my savings is going—after I take a few days to recover, that is.  I’m getting too old and creaky to work this hard for very long.

           “I get such pleasure from the changes I’m making in my life, Lydie.  The boys make me feel like I have to defend my decisions at nearly every turn, but I don’t care, I’m having a blast.  I’ve even changed my hairstyle and updated my wardrobe.  I wish I’d done it years ago.”    

Tsk.  I don't know what happened with the formatting in the piece up there.  I tried to fix it but that only made things worse so I'm leaving it.  Man, I'm tired.  I finished the laundry today which took a while but I knitted instead of sewed so I don't have any new clothes to show.  Oh well.  I need to stop waking up around 6:15, especially since I'm in the habit of turning out the light at 11.  One day.

Hey, today is my darling daughter's birthday.  We talked on the phone this morning for a bit.  I sure wish they lived closer but that'll never happen, she's a Kentucky girl now.  *sigh*
--Barbara