Rhododendron

Day 73: Rhododenron

 

Rhododendra should be considered annuals, at least in this climate. Or, if you have a crazy idea that you'd like to keep one alive for multiple years, don't plant it in fill dirt. Also, don't plant it in a hot dry spot. And if the winter is really long and cold, cover it.

Or, why not just compost it, replace it with an ornamental grass and comfort yourself with the thought that your dead rhododendron is still a part of the circle of life?

Tush Cush

Day 72: Tush Cush

I did not know the name of this object
until I did a web search today.
I don't need it any more, praise be.

I've finally gotten over the pain of childbirth, just in time for the children to leave home. I mean that quite literally.

I take that back. I don't mean it. Pain awakened me last night at midnight. I stumbled to the bathroom. Downed three Advil. Stumbled back to bed. Turned on the heating pad. Lay awake until the pain subsided.

Fifteen years ago, these incidents filled me with panic. I imagined bone cancer eating away at me. I imagined my helpless children growing up, motherless. I imagined myself floating on the ceiling, looking down upon myself from a distance. I moaned. I cried. I vomited. I locked the door against my children; I didn't want to scare them. Once, I lost consciousness in the wee hours on my way to the medicine cabinet, and came to sometime later on my back halfway down the stairs, head a few treads below feet.

The GP told me it was irritable bowel syndrome. I said, that doesn't seem right. You don't know, she said, pursing her lips, briskly handing me a gastrointestinal referral and an IBS information sheet. But the GI specialist - and later, the bone doctor - diagnosed a broken tailbone. Nothing for it but to wait.

Ah, childbirth.

Fast forward fifteen years. I don't run any more; running irritates a broken tailbone. I do yoga, or take long walks, or use the elliptical. Sometimes, when I ride my bike to work, I still get awakened in the night. But the pain isn't nearly as acute. I can manage it.

And I'm fearless. I understand. I accept. I wait.

Happy to be alive.

Dresser

Day 71: Dresser
Dear Mom:

Remember when you helped me restore Emma's room? You painted this old dresser gray, put some purple star knobs on the top drawers, and treated the brass hardware with a frost wash to soften the color. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, your kindness and your creativity. Thank you for caring.

Remember how miserable Sam was when we left that house and moved to Morton Avenue? He was only four years old, and cried and cried. You and I painted his new room together. We gave him blue walls with soccer balls and basketballs and baseballs, and a dinosaur light switch, because he loved balls and dinosaurs so. But he just kept missing his bright yellow room with the giraffes and the rocking chair, only two blocks away. He's almost sixteen now, and he still misses his old room.

Remember how tired you were when we finished painting? How you decided that was the last room you were ever going to decorate yourself?

The dresser has been in our attic - empty drawers and all - since Emma rebelled against WTP in middle school. I still have the hand-hooked rug. Christopher Robin and Piglet using a blanket as a trampoline, throwing Tigger up into the air.

Love you, Mom.

I don't like your sharp edges.
I don't like the inconsistency between the purple stars and brass hardware.
Your drawers are empty.
I don't need you any more.

Heart-Shaped Pillows

Day 70: Heart-Shaped Pillows

Hours spent removing old-fashioned ivory flowered wallpaper with a paper dragon and DIF. Pulling up ancient, heavy, filthy rose-colored wall-to-wall carpeting, cutting it into pieces small enough to drag down the stairs and out of the house. Meticulously removing thousands of carpet tacks with pliers to keep soft new feet from being pierced, sliding my own feet along the floor to be sure I'd got them all. Scraping, patching, painting. Heart-shaped pillows, pastel blue comforter, old-fashioned Winnie-the-Pooh wallpaper border, huge brown eyes, thumb in rosebud mouth, great big twin bed with rails. Lying cupped beside her warm little body until she sighs and stills, sleeping myself, exhausted.

I'm no longer allowed in her room, which I lovingly refer to as a toxic waste site. Sometimes, I sneak in and remove old apple cores, cereal bowls with milk puddled in the bottom, empty SmartPop bags, gum wrappers, damp towels. My shirts, my belts, my shoes, my make-up, surreptitiously removed from my shelves, now lost in the rubble.

Come on and take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.

Maybe each of my three young nieces would like a pillow.

Broken Footstools

Day 69: Broken Footstools

Collapsing in on themselves

Beautiful sturdy design,
sitting empty in a corner

This was a home run stuff project day. I replaced a couple of broken but highly useful footstools with a beloved but useless pine trunk, which I purchased at a sidewalk sale on Oak Street in San Francisco. (A sidewalk sale in San Francisco is what we Ann Arborites call a yard sale, because most people in San Francisco don't have yards.)

The footstools are cheap covered cardboard, and have been gradually collapsing for years. I had to use extra torque to get the top off the most broken of the two. The cushions from the footstools fit the top of the trunk perfectly. Now I have no more broken junk, and a beloved and useful footstool with storage.

Woo hoo! It's all worth it.

Voila

Craft Supplies

Day 68: Craft Supplies

My heart is in two places: northern California and Ann Arbor. A few months ago, Rich had an opportunity to take a job in San Luis Obispo. This possibility filled us with joy - reunited with that distant piece of our hearts! - and sorrow - separated from the bits of ourselves rooted here in the Midwest.

Because there are no jobs in SLO for policy analysts cum botanical gardens managers, I began to research franchises. The franchise I was interested in was Plato's Closet, which resells gently used teen and twenty-something clothing, This is right up my alley, doing its bit to keep the economy going while deemphasizing new (non-sustainably, non-humanely produced) merchandise.

I can see why it's so hard for local businesses to compete with a franchise. Economies of scale combined with tried and true business practices. Most of the profits and the jobs held locally. Exponentially higher chances of running a profit. If you follow the formula, it's very difficult to fail.

The formula: aye, there's the rub. We like the quirky individualism of local businesses. We like the idea that all the profits come to our local communities. We like knowing and caring about the owner.

That's why I loved A2UP!, which brings the reuse business to arts & crafts. I'd met the young entrepreneur, Kati, and was totally charmed. I know that she quit her corporate job to open this new business, and that she's invested her money, her heart and her soul into it. She's made a beautiful space, and she can use all her intelligence and creativity to make a place that is more than just a resale shop: it's a community.

On the downside, she can't afford staff, and so has to keep her hours limited. I arrived yesterday at 1:30 because the web site said she was open from 11:30 to 5 on Sundays. The door was locked, though the sign said "open." The shop has no phone number, so I emailed and stood knocking for a while. Ultimately, I left - and left a message saying that the craft supplies were on my front porch for her if she wanted them. She sent a gracious and apologetic response and quickly came to take the supplies away.

All's well that ends well.

Carpet Scraps

Day 67: Carpet Scraps

Why did we put these carpet scraps and an area rug on the garage floor? They are so filthy I had to wash my hands for several minutes after touching them, and I'm still coughing.

Better question: why did we purchase all this wall-to-wall carpeting for the attic and studio, while at the same time pulling up and discarding an equal amount from the bedrooms and hallways? The environmental impact of carpeting is especially scary: billions of pounds of carpeting in the landfills, indoor air quality concerns, chemical emissions from disposal. The list is depressing.

Our reasons were mundane: better sound insulation, too costly to restore the damaged floors, easy implementation. We didn't think as much about environmental impacts ten years ago. 

The closest place to recycle carpet, according to carpetrecovery.org, appears to be Romulus. Given the dubious quality of recycled plastic and the environmental cost of driving to Romulus, no way. Into the garbage can. 

Never again.