I'm a Fairy Tale Princess

My bathroom is avocado green. There. I’ve said it. And, shameful as it is, it’s all true. But hear me out.

When we moved into this 1970s house, the fixtures in the guest bathroom, which I claimed as my own, were avocado green, and the walls were covered with cream, pink, and green wallpaper in very narrow stripes and topped with a  border that looked like a Monet painting. One day I was walking through Wal-mart, a place where I spend as little time as possible, and saw a shower curtain with exactly the same look. I almost didn’t pick it up because the shower already had beautiful glass doors. But I did, and I hung it up over the glass door. It was perfect. A few months later, I talked Hubby into removing the shower door. That’s where it started—a Monet’s garden look for my bathroom.

A few years later, I covered the tile floor with new vinyl that looks like green Italian slate. I put a swag of silk flowers over the mirror. I found a cute bunny statue to peek out from behind the basket of silk vines I put on the floor. At an art fair, I found two watercolors by a local artist that also fit into the Monet theme. Yeah, I know. It sounds just too, too precious. But I like it. And because Hubby and I don’t share a bathroom (much as I love him, he’s kind of a slob), it’s one of the few rooms in the house I can have pretty much the way I want it.

When my mother died, I inherited the silver tea service my sister and I bought our parents for their 25th anniversary. Now I understand the look of dismay on her face when she opened the gift. It’s impossible to keep shiny, and nobody in her—or my—mostly bluecollar world has tea parties anyway. When I want a cup of tea, I stick a mug in the microwave. But I kind of like the patina on old silver. So I put a bunch of silk flowers in the teapot and sat it on the back of the toilet. (Who says a toilet can’t be pretty?) The sugar bowl and creamer hold plenty of cotton balls.

As a corporate employee, I had to be calm and decisive. As an author, I write about cops and werewolves. In my bathroom I can be all girly. I can have perfumes lined up on the vanity and a drawer full of makeup. I can be the fairy tale princess. OK, the fairy tale dowager queen, then. No jokes about thrones…

Cobwebs in my Brain--and a Poem

Cobwebs are nearly a feature of the decor in my house. I hate cleaning, and my theory is that as long as the spiders stay up there and catch flies, we can coexist. But this morning I woke up with cobwebs in my brain. 

Not the kind made by spiders, of course, but the kind made by staying up too late and getting up too early--plus taking a couple of medications that say, "Do not operate heavy machinery while taking this medication." 

Which brings up a question: Just what qualifies as heavy machinery? Heavy is pretty subjective, don't you think? I assume I'm allowed to use my blender and not allowed to drive an end loader. But in between lies a vast category of machinery that's "a little bit heavy" or "almost heavy" or "heavy, but not quite heavy enough to prevent the taking of medications." What about my car? Is it heavy machinery?

This morning I opted to let Hubby drive to church--that's how cobwebby my brain was. I also opted not to volunteer to run one of the television cameras--a job I sometimes do because everyone else is too busy or too lazy or too intimidated to tackle it. (It isn't that difficult if you have more than four hours of sleep. A college class in studio production helps, too.)

A long afternoon nap cleared the cobwebs out of my head. Wish I could clear the cobwebs out of my house that pleasantly.

On a more serious note, I'm sure I've used this here before, but with the prompt for this week being "cobwebs," I couldn't resist. Besides, it's one of my favorites of the poems I've written.

Love

Is like the silken touch of cobweb

Against the cheek,

And often just as absently

Brushed away.