PLUMB FINISHED

Yesterday was a frenzied day of getting-the-bathroom-done, for the GIRLS were due home from their week at the beach.

I cannot show or tell you where we started, except that a couple of days before they left, I remarked that the upstairs potty rocked a bit. They both said that it was just the new lid, and I said NOT. And it DID rock, from the floor. Scary and upsetting, for that is usually a harbinger of a LOT of work, and an expensive re-do.

Chris said that he could take care of it, and he DID---it is a constant source of amazement to me the things this man can DO. He tore out the two layers of flooring, the old linoleum, the crotty plumbing. We measured and calculated and drew diagrams, and then cut out the big sheets of flooring to fit. He trimmed and gouged and shaved the bits just so, and there was a neat, well-grounded shining layer of fresh new wood, gleaming in its new home.

The roll of linoleum was a gift from a client’s discontinued bin in his warehouse, perfect size and wonderful colors and pattern for the small space.

This is about 2/3 of the way done---he’s done the labor, the floor laying, the plumbing and seating and re-floating; I scrubbed the tub (repository of toilet, tools, trimmings, odd paper and nuts and bolts) and hung the new clear curtain. We put the shower in quite a few years ago, with no recourse but to shower-curtain the window. It’s worked quite well---she just changes out the clear one every couple of months, and it's on big rings up on a thin brass rod---easy to fling back to open the window on a nice day. A matching liner goes inside the decorative front curtain, as well.



The old vanity was one of those clunky doll-size pre-made two-drawer, one-door things, of that unspeakable dark fake wood, garish yellow formica, beige half-gallon plastic sink and a tee-ninecy flaking "chrome" faucet which stuck out about three inches---you could never even wash your hands without touching the back of the sink. This is the new sink, ready for plumbing:

We picked it up at a garage sale for $15.00 about three years ago, and it’s sat in the potting shed, awaiting its resurrection, all this time. I don’t think it had ever even been used.

We bought all the plumbing supplies and faucet, with several trips back and forth, for more parts and just the right elbow; he got to know everyone at Home Depot---I think he may be taking all the guys out for a beer this weekend.

Caro just said, “I’d like an up-and-over faucet, with the little side-wings, but not in shiny chrome.” And this is what I picked---a lovely brushed nickel with plenty of room beneath:

It will match the beautiful five-bulb nickel light I've chosen to replace that glaring fluorescent monstrosity.

I’ll show you the finished room after we’ve finished painting next weekend, and she gets all the Monet prints re-hung, and the wicker racks and towel-stand into place. This is the curtain, and one of her several old mirrors that she loves:

I hope one coat of the pale, wisp-of-smoke green--the exact color of the palest leaves on the curtain---will cover that unfortunate wallpaper.

Welcome Home, Dear Caro---how I MISSED you!

BLUEBERRY BRACKETS

Blueberries to open the day . . .

. . . and Blueberries to close it .

And lots of work in between. Progress report tomorrow.

Moire non,

rachel

MEETING MARGARET MEAD

PHOTOS: internet

I met Miss Margaret Mead once, when she lectured to all the Anthropology classes at Ole Miss. I was an English/Lit major, but, having taken a course or two, I was interested in the evolvement of societies and their mores and customs, and their marriages and birthing rites and how-in-heck did all the different ways of the world come about.

I hurried from a class WAY across campus to the lecture hall, rushing to the Ladies' Room quickly before going in to find a seat. I was standing at the sink, washing my hands, when I became aware that a stall door had opened behind me, and the occupant was just standing there, watching me.

I registered a small, huddled form---a really tiny woman holding a cane of immense proportions to her height, almost like a kindergarten Shepherd in the Christmas Pageant. She stood for a moment, regarding me, and I saw a dark serge-ish dress with a collar pin, small stumpy old-lady shoes, a small pleasant face beneath somewhat-Bette-Davis bangs, and what looked like a large dog across the arm not holding the cane.

I was so startled at her presence, I felt a shock of it’s HER! it’s HERRRR! which vanquished even my mental grammar. I think I had a flash between stage fright and specimen-on-a-slide. Dr. Coming-of-Age-In-Samoa was staring at me!

Between that, the still, silent regard, and how-the-heck-did-she-get-that-dog-into-that-tiny-stall?, I know I was mute for a moment. In the instant before I could summon at least a friendly smile, she spoke. And I remember every word with a clarity not allowed to many of the REALLY important moments in my life---I wish I remembered my first wedding as well, or my Mammaw’s last days---but somehow, this tiny moment in an insignificant day is still with me.

“My Dear,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am?” I said as I finished drying my hands.

“May I ask something of you?” she continued.

“Of course,” I replied with my brain fizzing like Speedy AlkaSeltzer---did she need directions to the lecture hall? Did she need my help? Was she going to ask me if Anthro were my major, and be disappointed at my leanings toward prose?

“May I touch your hair?” she asked. And I tried, I really did, to hide my astonishment. I really did take good care of my waist-length ponytail, curling it on rollers every night, and keeping it very neat, so I didn’t hesitate.

“Yes, Ma’am, if you’d like to.”

Taking no notice of the several other girls gawking from different spots in the loo, she transferred the huge dark fur coat into the crook of the arm holding the cane, and reached out as I turned a little sideways. Then she gently ran her hand down the great length of my hair, making a soft ‘hmmmm’ sound---kinda between an evaluation and a cat’s purr, as she crumpled it a bit between her fingers.

Then she said, “My Dear, don’t you EVER wash that beautiful hair more than once a week. All that washing takes out all the good oils and minerals and makes hair grow old.”

Astonished NOW to the point of knee-quakes, and very glad I’d already used the restroom, I answered, “Thank you, Ma’am. I'll remember that.”

Then I helped her into her coat---I’ve wondered about that the most, I think. She was just going down the hall and up onto the stage, but into that heavy fur she went. She murmured her thanks, I held the door, and she went out to meet the two professors escorting her, that woman-sized mink almost trailing the floor behind her.

And a few minutes later, standing on that stage, she’d grown three feet taller, with a presence which filled the pin-silent hall.

A tiny conversation, of no more consequence than a raindrop, but still I have it.

SCENT FROM THE PAST

We brushed by a dusty old evergreen border the other day on our way to lunch, and just the heat of the noon and the scent of those camphorous-resin-almost-cat-pee needles gave me a pang of remembrance for the Summer days at Miss Kitty Abernathy’s house. She was a nice married lady, with a whole gaggle of fists-and-elbows sons, whose shouts and whoops punctuated the long slow days of our neighborhood.

Those Abernathy boys were quite a bunch, along with the Masons down the block, and the Blackwoods and the Langfords---all houses bursting with loud, boisterous preposterone-brimming young guys whose lives were lived fast-track and whose bare feet and skinned knees were forever in motion. And I was the only girl for blocks, save for a really pretty girl next door, whose languid life was spent in attractive outfits from Goldsmith's and Lowenstein's and from trips to Neiman Marcus that she and her Mama took with her Aunt Co-Lette. She sat swinging one-footed in the big swing on her screen-porch, with fashion magazines and a whole pitcher of fresh-made lemonade on the little green wicker side-table, with a steady supply of glass straws from her Daddy's hospital.

I did my share of tree-climbing, ball-playing, knife-throwing and yelling of my own, refusing to be any female but Dale Evans, who was a bit of a hero in her own right, and I always got to be Sheena-by-default. I could throw a knife and spear with weird accuracy, and my lasso skills got downright dangerous on occasion, subduing signposts, tree limbs, lawn furniture, and a grumpy cat or two.

But Miss Kitty’s house---now THERE was a paradise---she had BOOKS. We had the BOMC, which I was forbidden to touch in their pristine jackets, and the RDCB, whose “leather” bindings with those gold-plated letters were things of beauty even before you turned the magical page. I’d walk across and step up onto her small porch, brushing past those odorous shrubs, their already-dull green dinged even more by the heavy coat of Summer dust, and as I waited for her to answer the bell, the heat of the sun on my back and the scent of that unmistakable musky evergreen have been eternally imprinted as harbingers of pleasant moments.

Miss Kitty had taught me to read when I was four, in that incongruous green-velvet living room with the dust of a thousand days swirling in the sun-cracks between the heavy drapes, and the smoke of her Kools rising around our heads. And I didn't mind the smoke, somehow---I sucked in great greedy lungsful, just as I looked my eyes full of all the knowledge and entertainment and sheer fun those books supplied. She opened the whole world to me, right there in that book-circled room, with great stacks of them around the walls, on tables, clumped every-which-way in the shelves---the whole room rich with paper-must, teeming with stories and adventures and colorful places and people I devoured with my eyes and still remember.

Penrod and Sam and Jim Hawkins and Cap’n Ahab and Hester Prynne and the Bobbsey twins---the Hardy boys and Doc Savage and Jean Valjean; Emma and the Dashwoods and Uncle Wiggily and Uncle Remus and all his critters. The South Seas and the depths of Africa; the parlors of England and the slums of Paree.

And when Aladdin lit the lamp and saw all the treasures in that cave---the pictures were in black and white, with one peachy-gold image punctuating the page, and I remember the huge diamonds and pearls, all lying strewn in abundant glow on the dirt floor. And the words had more color than the evening sky.

She had Godey’s Ladies’ Book and Harpers from the turn of the century, for her Mother had been a Great Beauty, spoken in the hushed tones reserved for awesome feats. The lady DID look down from the wall portraits in regal authority, her tiny waist and expanse of hip giving her the true hour-glass figure in those gorgeous clothes. HOW I longed to cut out those fashionable magazine-ladies in the plumed hats (or just the hats) for my paper dolls. Once a friend and I spent weeks drawing and coloring and cutting out our own set of fashion dolls, with fanciful outfits and furs and delicious hats, all exactly of a size to fit into kitchen matchboxes, which we also decorated with fancy slipcovers of wrapping paper.

Oh, my---I’ve gone from a hot, dusty scent in a parking lot to whole Summers of magic, and that's kinda how Miss Kitty transmuted my life; I owe that sweet woman inestimable gratitude, and I could never thank her enough.

MARY JANE AND SNIFFLES

Last night when we called to say Good Night to all our group at the beach, they’d had their dinner and all the kiddles were bathed and hair washed, sweet faces clean and glowing after a long sandy day in the sun and water. I could hear the theme song of “Dragon Tales” in the background, for a little wind-down before bedtime.

The show is about a magical world of round poufy benign dragons---all sweet creatures of kindness and charm (one pink one has two heads, a boy dragon and a girl dragon, both smiling). The little show always reminds me of the one of my childhood---does ANYONE remember Mary Jane and Sniffles?

 

 

Mary Jane is a little girl, and Sniffles is a mouse who lived in her room, but who also inhabited a wonderful place of exciting adventures, all always safe and safely concluded. Plus, Sniffles had a better wardrobe than Mickey and Donald combined.


And, in a precursor of the little modern-day Dragon Tales chant of “I wish—I wish with all my heart, to fly with dragons in a world apart,” as they’re magically whisked into DragonLand, my long-ago friend Mary Jane would close her eyes and say,
.

Sometimes she'd cross her fingers, and other times, she'd sprinkle a sparkly little cloud of magic dust over her blonde hair; perhaps the dust led to the greater, more magical adventures, or longer journeys---I never found out. And I cannot tell you how MANY times I tried that little incantation, just hoping for just once to experience that magical transformation.

And so she’d shrink like Alice, and they’d fly or transport off on lovely little innocent happenings amongst small creatures and magical kingdoms with mushroom warriors and candy landscapes and delightful new friends.

There was also a comic-book series, and I bought every one that came out; despite Mary Jane's occasionally also morphing from a childish little kneesock charmer into an uncanny pint-size version of Brenda Starr---disconcerting to a fan of both---I still headed to the drugstore with my dime for that month's adventure.

These small, innocent little beings and their adventures were a great part of many childhoods. They're fondly remembered by many, I'm sure---a lovely memory of a gentler time and an easier stage of life, these wonderful fantasies. That "Make me a child again, just for tonight" would come in handy in many, many of the dire or difficult circumstances of adulthood. And I'm sure, for a lot of children, they provided a momentary escape into another world---one of kindness and loving beings and the hope of a bright day to cling to.

Didn’t we all need transporting at some time or another during those days? And didn’t being mouse-sized seem tempting? Hiding in a shoe, creeping along unnoticed, invisible at the unfurl of a cloak, magically transporting from one wonderful place to another---what child would resist those?

And if you’d had a choice---Transport, Shrinking, or Invisibility, which would you have chosen?