The Chick Abides

Inspirational song: Dead Flowers (The Rolling Stones)

The Dude was so right. Rugs really tie rooms together. I've been thinking for weeks, months probably, that I wanted to get an outdoor rug to finish off the deck. Today that dream was realized. I am very conscious of where I live, and how much it rains here. (Last year really drove that last part home for me.) I wasn't going to invest in an expensive rug, knowing that it would be rained on, and knowing the nature of dogs, potentially peed on. I went in search of an easy-care polypropylene, and and found a couple of them in wonderful bright colors. They cost next to nothing, weigh next to nothing, but they have a big impact. Just what I hoped for. I intended to spend all day furiously cleaning so I won't be embarrassed when the Directv repairman comes tomorrow, and instead I was playing on the deck, arranging the furniture just so on the rugs, making plans, and generally just staring at it so I could admire what I have created. I haven't spent enough time outside in the last couple weeks, while there was a little heat wave. I regret that. It's so perfect out there at this time of year, as everything is starting to grow in, and only a few flowers are spent and dying off. We've gone back to seasonal temperatures, and it was comfortable and comforting in the shade of the sycamores. The only thing that would make my Park better would be a crowd. That should be coming this weekend, god willing and the creeks don't rise.

I had a few leftover bedding plants--petunias, marigolds, allyssum, and a lavender--that never made it into containers. They had been sitting, stunted, against the house, trying to die. I was inspired to tidy up and get the stragglers planted, throwing out the dead ranunculus and pansies in one hanging basket, replacing them with the lavender, and putting the others into a few small pots I had lying around. On one of the trips back from throwing out the empty containers, I bent to rip out some weeds at the base of the deck stair. I stopped my hand just as I was about to toss them on the ground to die. I noticed that the shape of the leaves was remarkably similar to the leaves on the large catnip cluster in the pot above them. And then I was surrounded by three young cats, all sniffing around enthusiastically, interested in what I had done. I took three or four of the largest stems, and planted them in one of the new flowerpots, hoping that I hadn't completely killed them in the five minutes or so while I waved them under the cats noses, for verification of what I was indeed holding. I let the kids have the rest of the handful. I think Athena got a little too much of it, because she spent the next hour acting like she was totally tripping, seeing things I can only imagine. Poor little stoner kitty.

I really love my man, but I feel like I ought to check and see whether he has recently taken out a large life insurance policy on me. In his travels, he purchased a large quantity of beautiful rugs overseas, and he has been shipping them home. I've gotten five boxes since Mother's Day, and he says two more are on the way. He's planning on selling them once he gets back, and as gorgeous as they are, I expect he will be able to do it. But to get them here free of damage from pests, he added mothballs to each box. I only opened a couple of the boxes, and one split down a corner, and that was enough to make the entire ground floor of my house unlivable. After the first box, I was reminded of the coat closet at my grandmother's house, that always smelled of mothballs, even years after she died and we removed them from there. By the third or fourth box, I was overwhelmed, coughing and gagging anytime I was in the living room with them. I had to pick up the fifth box from the post office today (why they couldn't have delivered it like the others, I don't know), and I had the seats folded down in my hatchback car. I thought I was going to pass out by the time I got home from buying plastic tubs to store them in, to get the mothball-soaked cardboard out of this house. That smell very nearly did me in. I hope the smaller mammals in the house weren't unduly affected by the off-gassing too. So far I have transferred two boxes worth from the cardboard to the plastic. I unfolded a couple of them, to admire how insanely gorgeous they are. As I struggled to refold them for half an hour, I am sure I looked like Clark Griswold trying to refold a map while driving the family truckster down the highway. I fumbled, I cursed, and I thought many times about giving up. But I persevered.