THREE YEARS OF LAWN TEA

Three years ago today, I tentatively sent out the first post of these almost-eight-hundred, just flinging thoughts and memories out there to the whole universe, and now here we are---later in time and life, with many changes and new happenings happened and written and shared.


Still not up to posting as I'd like to, but I thought today should have at least one little Hello and a very large Thank You to all of you who have joined in and shared the moments of our days.   I appreciate and love you all, and am so grateful for all the wonderful sweet friends who have come to be such a part of my life.


So---just a small moment---a morning walk with Sweetpea, as we walked and marveled and looked at the world with wonder---the ordinary and the marvelous.

ADVENTURE WALK

We came upon a broken bag at the curb, bits of someone's plastic recycle scattered for several yards, the colors and the shapes splayed in the sunshine.   A paint tray, coat of pale yellow in the bottom, with a small waterline of soft blue to attest its former use.   We talked about the smell of fresh paint, how it brightens up things, how the roller rolls smooth through the thick colors and transforms walls with a swipe of the arm.   We speculated on places which might now BE those lovely colors---a cozy kitchen in the soft butter yellow of my own, or a baby's room in either that or the pale blue.


The rollers, some small bright cylinders which had been the V-legs of what looked like a child's easel, bits of crumbled pearly egg cartons scurrying in the breeze, a deep quad container which had held four hefty pots of new plants, long blue ribbons of painting-tape, dotted with color and furled into the bows and twists of Mardi Gras---all testament to New Beginnings---lay sprawled on the pavement like scattered toys.


I explained how it was to be refurbishing a house, trying to imagine the cool silence and vast expectant rooms, stripped to the echoes, awaiting transformation and renewal.    And I tried to imagine all those NEWS---the starting outs, the clearing aways, the brightenings and the cleanings.   

We came home and sat down at the dollhouse, which has accumulated WAY more than its share of needfuls---there always seems to be a new denizen for the never-ending backyard menagerie flowing from Ganner's pocket, and what started as a few little farm animals has progressed past farm, through Noah, and into Open Range/Jungle/Pampas/Veldt stage.   The little herd of cows, the couple of chickens, the goat and the lambs---those have blossomed, beginning with the yak, I think.   After all, after a YAK, the sky's the limit.

And now we have monkeys and an elephant and a raccoon, many cats, from snobbish little pillow-puffs to a whole fleet of fast jungle ones, a dozen dogs, a kangaroo.  All sizes of fat pink piggies, a whole stableful of mis-matched horses, with such a giant steed standing eaves-high guard outside the patio, folks are gonna be driving up craving Dan Dan Noodles.  

The latest is a white tiger, which she triumphantly claimed and crowed, "A SNOW Leopard!!"  And could not be dissuaded, though we explained spots and stripes, so Ganner proposed that perhaps this leopard got caught out in the rain and his colors ran.

We scooped everything out of the bright plastic rooms; we put our faces deep into the tiny spaces, shouting  a little HAH! into each small emptiness, as she always does when we enter a building, to hear the resounding in any vestibule, especially those little entry-ways with two sets of glass doors and nothing but space between.


A little Pine-Sol spray, a few paper towels, a pretty piece of border from a sticker-book cut into a cunning carpet-runner and matching valance and stuck in the little dining room, and our tiny house is refreshed.


And so, with several days since to work on my own house,  I have been slowly going floor-to-ceiling, round the room down here, scattering debris, putting the fear into dust bunnies, finding a lost brooch, the top to the tiniest teapot, a long-despaired-of shoe---in rightening these rooms for the great arrival of five-to-stay and more to visit.   

Moving slowly, and looking forward, still shouting a little "Hah!" out into the world, hoping for an echo.