For Mater's Entertainment

Something Wonderful:

Rian has, in the back yard, roughly....oh, ten? eight? hyndrangea of a particular variety. They are mopheads, yes? And Endless Summer, which means they will bloom on new growth as well as old. So they will bloom throughout the spring and summer, yes, if one deadheads?

This evening, as the sun began to go down, Rian decided to spend a ttch of time on gardening. A small chore, Rian thought. Deadheading the hydrangeas. The plants were wilting, Rian turned a low sprinkler apon them, and then decided it was hot enough to deadhead IN the sprinkler.

So, Rian stood in the falling droplets, snipping soft, drying globes from their stems. Most of the blossoms are blue. A few, those that did not get quite enough supplement, are purplish. One, which Rian apparently missed altogether, is pink.

I worked for ten or fifteen minutes. By the time I was finished, Rian had a huge pile of hydrangea blossoms on the grass. They are soft, even whilst drying. And as I had purposely dropped them one on top of another on the grass, they looked as though nature had arranged a floral centerpiece beneath Rian's pear tree.

I crouched in the grass, running fingers through shaded globes, admiring, the sprinkler hissing softly at my back, sending false rain into the hot air.

Something Amusing:

Rian and the new kitten in my Abode, Freddie, are having Obsessive Compulsive wars. Rian is, of course, perfect. But a ttch...just a ttch, yes?...OC. And apparently Freddie is as well.

Freddie's food and water bowls are neatly arranged on - for the moment - a blue dish towel at one end of Rian's kitchen. Freddie is a pig, but a thrifty pig. Whenever he finishes or wanders past the dish towel and realizes that there is food left in the bowl, he carefully 'covers' it for 'later'. For all intents and purposes, this means the kitten scrapes up the dish towel carefully about the bowl, trying to bury it. And, Rian must point out, ruffling the dish towel quite off center.

Freddie covers. Rian, with one toe, perfectly straightens the dish towel and bowls. Freddie trots past a few minutes later, and covers. Rian wanders past half an hour or so along, and straightens.

Freddie covers. Rian straightens. And so life goes on.

Something Odd:

There is a noose in Rian's back stair well. The stairwell itself is narrow and sharp. Once used for servants or maids, yes? Two stories tall. No room for a ladder. If Rian ever wants to free the well from their lemon bright paint colour - which, by chance, drives Rian mad - Rian shall have to rent scaffolding.

There is one window waaaaay up high, thirty or forty feet up. And attached to the molding by the window there is a pulley and a very thick rope. The rope runs from the pulley to the ceiling, yes? And then falls a graceful six feet into a carefully tied noose. Just as one would see over a branch in an Old West Movie.

I imagine the noose once, perhaps, held a plant. But then again, it may indeed have been used for offing laggardly maids.