March 18, 2005 - From Ms. Mary to S:
Well, where there is heart room there is house room -- but warn your menagerie that being snug as a bug in a rug is nothing compared to being snug as a bear on a bookshelf. We had to do a little rearranging last night to fit the newest members of the menagerie in with the rest. They are NOT all on top of the bookshelf -- they have taken over the two bottom shelves of the bookcase that was supposed to be just for pictures and doodaddy stuff after I pared my book collection from four bookshelves down to three. Anyway, we snuggled everybody up a bit on the bookshelf and did a little rearranging. They are all very nice and well-mannered (for the most part anyway -- and I'm not saying that just because they are reading over my shoulder now) but they do have minds of their own and they do state their wishes now and then. So there I was, perched on the kitchen stepstool trying to figure out how Lucky could sit in two laps at once and how I Love You could hold his pillow without bumping LAP off the shelf . . . and poor Francisco took a header all the way down to the floor. Even though his stuffing prevented major trauma, he made it clear that nothing but a kiss on his fake owie would make everything all better . . . and suddenly I had a whole menagerie complaining about owie-this and owie-that. Do you have any idea how long it takes to kiss 20 owies, move the stepstool, kiss 20 more, move the stepstool, kiss 20 owies? And then there were the 3 Vermont bears on the sofa who looked at me -- oh, my, you know how they can look at one with those sad brown eyes! -- and I had to kiss them, too. And then there were the two shelves of creatures across the room in the bookshelf that was supposed to be for pictures and stuff. It's a good thing I wasn't wearing chapstick or I would still be trying to puh! puh! the fur off my lips!
We have one menagerie member who is not with us in the living room. Giddyup has been put out to pasture ... actually, out to patio. He arrived here in January. Oh, goodness, I never told the story of his arrival, did I? Well, let's see if I can make a short story long . . .
Way back last August or September, my sister in Minnesota told me she had been to a yard sale and bought something I would love. From the way she worded it, I convinced myself that she had bought some sort of storage unit or shelving and I tried to imagine where I'd find room for it in my little one-bedroom apartment -- other than hanging it from the ceiling. In December she and my brother's girlfriend exchanged some cryptic email messages (with me copied on them) about how much effort they had put into getting this thing into the girlfriend's jeep to haul it to her house so she and my brother could haul it down in their motorhome when they drove to Arizona for mom's birthday on Jan. 22nd. I asked how I was expected to get it home if it had to be hauled in the motorhome. My sister said, "You have a convertible. If it won't work to stick part out the window, then put the top down." Yeah, right. Like I'm going to drive 380 miles across the desert with the top down and traffic in the slow lane going 80 miles an hour! I had scoped out the location of the nearest thrift store to mom and dad's house in Phoenix, so I was prepared to thank my sister very kindly, load the thing in my car, drive to the thrift store and dump it, and then drive home with the top UP on my convertible. Well, come the weekend of the 22nd and the plan is for my brother's girlfriend to take the bus from her sister's house up north of me (where she has been visiting for 2 weeks) down to Los Angeles and ride with me out to Phoenix. She's all giggly about the "thing" that my sister will present me with on Friday evening. In the meantime, my brother called Tuesday evening to tell me the motorhome broke down so he will be driving a car to Phoenix. I was rather relieved to postpone the delightful surprise of my sister's gifting ceremony, but I was also dying because curiosity was killing me. What was this stupid thing she had bought at the garage sale? I said, "Oh, darn, then you won't be able to haul my present down." And my big, brave, truck-driving brother replied, "Oh, heck, that thing is plastic. As soon as Sandi walked out of the motorhome, I took it apart. That thing is in the car with me." Well, that meant my curiosity would be satisfied soon -- and it meant I COULD haul the thing home in the convertible without putting the top down -- but what the heck was it? -- and would I really want to haul it home?
When we were all in Phoenix that Friday evening, I went out on the porch after dinner to use my cell phone. I was interrupted by my brother when he came to fetch me to see my surprise. I had almost forgotten about the darn thing. So I walked down the hallway to my dad's office where everyone was standing in the dark waiting for me to turn on the light and faint in delighted surprise. I turned on the light. Flashbulbs went off. When I could finally see again, what to my wondering eyes had appeared but a carousel horse . . . on a pole . . . mounted on a heavy square plank painted green like grass. This was a rocking horse (a real, kid-sized plastic rocking horse) who had been retired after some little monster broke his left hind leg off just below the knee. Some woman rescued the horse, removed the rockers and the handles, drilled a big hole down through his saddle, stuck a pole through him, hot-glued his leg back on, hot-glued crepe-paper bows over the holes from his rocking horse days, and hot-glued eucalyptus leaves and dried flowers around his neck. I could see by his eyes that he was a bit embarrassed about the bows and the flowers, but he seemed to be an honest, upstanding horse -- and it was kind of love at first sight. If nothing else, he would make a good clothes horse in my bedroom. His left hind leg had come off during his travels, and my brother held it up and apologized for the damage. No problem. When you look at Giddyup from the right side, you hardly notice the left foot is missing.
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