PINK ROSES

 

It’s a chilly, drizzly day here today, with a BIG WOOHAH of a storm showing on the Weathermap---blue clouds swirling like a dragon from here to Montana. We’re way down under what would be the tail, so he’s sorta backing past us way up through the Lake area, with his body stretched across the Dakotas and a big old horned head threatening to cover the BIG SKY altogether. A few snorts of blue-smoke breath hang down all the way into Nevada, just as I looked at the map just now, and it looks fierce all the way.

Yesterday was sunny and fabulous---I crackled open a package of my new seersucker Capris, fresh from the Lane Bryant bag, grabbed a T to sorta match, and out we went, to lunch and some SHOPPING. I seldom say the “S” word, for I think I must have some form of agoraphobia---not that I don’t like to get out of the house, and if there’s lunch involved, I’m your girl.

I’ve just got to where walking around in a store is so boring, and I’m ready to go home really soon---like one of those Southern husbands sitting on a tee-ninecy chair at Goldsmith’s with his cap in his hands between his khaki knees while his wife tries on clothes. That bored. (And if he’s holding her purse, he’s bored AND embarrassed).

But yesterday was different. It was Pink Saturday, courtesy of sweet BEVERLY, and my early-morning scan of the links revealed picture after picture of the most beautifully photographed, most lovingly arranged vignettes and tabletops and desserts and FLOWERS---all with shades of pink. And pink IS my color, I think---I’m just to a Pastel Phase of life, where comfort and cushion and color trump style or smart.

Olive Duntley photo

And one picture in particular caught my eye---this one. Just the colors of the roses, and especially the depth of those pink candles---you could see into them a bit, like looking into beautifully-hued glass, almost, and I WANTED SOME. I wanted to FIND those; I wanted to MAKE that, and have it to look at in my own house.

Since I don’t go out much, when I said, “How about lunch and a trip to Michael’s?” Chris’ answer was quick and happy, “AbsoLUTEly!” he said. And we did. We had a long leisurely lunch at Cracker Barrel, and then back out into the warming sun to Michael’s, through the aisles overgrown with every shade of silk and plastic known to bloom.

I think we DID find the candles there, two round baby-pink ones, a squat one for the dining table and a tall regal one for the immense candlestick that’s hidden somewhere in the silver graveyard upstairs.

On to JoAnn’s, with nothing much in the right colors, then to Hobby Lobby, where the great aisles of lush, hanging plants and leis and bouquets and hand-clutches boggled the eyes even before the mind could take hold.

Seven (all there were) blushing silk roses with the hue of a Southern Summer, a big bouquet of the palest wobbly blooms, a lovely cascade of some white silky lilac-y things, and some gently-green leaves to intersperse. Two candle-rings and of course, a big bagful of markers, coloring books, crafty things, little pastel buckets, and felt cutouts in all hues and shapes for the Grands’ Easter Baskets.

I’ll enlist Caro’s aid in getting these together, and this rainy day may be just the time. I’m craft-impaired, but she’s a whiz, and I’m looking forward to the work as much as the result.

Moiré non about all the blush and bashful covering my table,