Thursday, December 04, 2003
HAMMER GIRL For about the last ten years, I've been meeting regularly with a group of girlfriends for a couple of glasses of wine. In the summer we might meet once a week. In the winter maybe once a month. The hostess is the friend I mentioned a few months ago -- my friend whose Bed and Breakfast the daughter and I stayed at while our wood floors were being refinished.
When I arrived this evening the smoke alarms were going off throughout the house. She had started a fire in the fireplace and forgot to open the flue. This is the same house they had to move out of for nearly two years when the third floor caught fire. Thankfully that fire stayed contained to the third floor but the smoke and water damage made the house unlivable. To the extent that a house fire can turn out to be a blessing in disguise, this fire turned out to be a windfall. My friend got her entire 300-year-old house re-done: new roof, new windows, new plumbing, new wiring, new appliances, new furniture, and new paint job -- all paid for by their insurance. I couldn't have wished a windfall on anyone more than on this particular friend. She and her family basically scrape by on fumes and I was glad for them that at least house repairs would be checked off the 'to-do' list for a while
Amidst the acrid smoke in the living room lay her seventeen-year-old daughter on the couch. There was a lot of loud yelling going on but as far as I could make out, the daughter claimed she never noticed the smoke. In five minutes the incident was just one more 'moment' passed. My friend, who doesn't drink, was pouring us wine and pulling out two fresh-baked hot loaves of bread. The kitten had just jumped up on the kitchen counter en route to the tub of whipped butter. My friend, as usual, was barefoot and smoking a filterless Camel cigarette. All of us have lovely homes but it is to this chaotic house we all always want to go.
We had been invited this time with a mission to accomplish. Their three-hundred-year-old house is one of a handful designated for viewing during the Christmas Walk in our town. She needed help decorating. "Don't worry about those boxes and bed stuff on the floor. We'll move that this weekend. Don't worry about all this stuff in the hallway. We'll move all that too. Don't worry about..."
Apparently I didn't get the email that said to bring extra Xmas decorations you're not using, or shears to cut greens. Even so my friend insisted we all got the same email. On the table was an eclectic array of wreaths, greens, tired-looking bows, and ornaments past. It looked to me to be a dubious collection and in my mind I was thinking that a quick run to the supermarket to buy a dozen red poinsettias might be the way to go. And then the most amazing thing happened. Two of the women there turned into magical fairies. The dining room chandelier was suddenly draped with evergreen and holly. A Santa wall-ornament with a straw beard that looked frankly pretty tacky on the dining room table looked fabulous hanging on the brick wall on the third floor. They wove garlands of greens along the banister and within minutes had fluffed and perked the wilted bows and attached them at all the right places along with the strands of white lights. Arrangements of greens were thrown into vases which had I tried the same thing would have looked like greens thrown into vases. Their arrangements turned into works of art.
While the two Christmas fairies discussed a possible flower arrangement to go on the mantle - a glass vase filled with cranberries and water into which flower X should be placed -- I moaned to my friend "How do they do this? And why did you invite me to come decorate?" Well it turns out we all have our talents. They made me hammer girl. I got to hammer in the nails and hang up the wreath/ornament/whatever. Not such an easy task in such an old house. You never know quite what you're going to be hammering into. When the hammering jobs were done I sat sipping wine and marveling at this wizardry taking place before my eyes. "Oh it's nothing!" they laughed. "Just some greens..."
Thank goodness for them. Thank goodness for hubby who can cook. Thank goodness for my friends who paint and garden. Thank goodness for my barefoot friend and her Camel cigarettes. The aesthetic wonderland they create around me gives me the fortitude and inspiration to create the words I need for work and play -- the words that flow onto a letter that might be the difference between someone getting housing or not, words that zing back and forth daily with a handful of conservatives that I at least try to get to see the world differently, words that become a short story for submission, words that might one day make themselves into a book that may or may not ever get published. We all do these things whether we get paid for doing it or not. We do it because we have to.
When I arrived this evening the smoke alarms were going off throughout the house. She had started a fire in the fireplace and forgot to open the flue. This is the same house they had to move out of for nearly two years when the third floor caught fire. Thankfully that fire stayed contained to the third floor but the smoke and water damage made the house unlivable. To the extent that a house fire can turn out to be a blessing in disguise, this fire turned out to be a windfall. My friend got her entire 300-year-old house re-done: new roof, new windows, new plumbing, new wiring, new appliances, new furniture, and new paint job -- all paid for by their insurance. I couldn't have wished a windfall on anyone more than on this particular friend. She and her family basically scrape by on fumes and I was glad for them that at least house repairs would be checked off the 'to-do' list for a while
Amidst the acrid smoke in the living room lay her seventeen-year-old daughter on the couch. There was a lot of loud yelling going on but as far as I could make out, the daughter claimed she never noticed the smoke. In five minutes the incident was just one more 'moment' passed. My friend, who doesn't drink, was pouring us wine and pulling out two fresh-baked hot loaves of bread. The kitten had just jumped up on the kitchen counter en route to the tub of whipped butter. My friend, as usual, was barefoot and smoking a filterless Camel cigarette. All of us have lovely homes but it is to this chaotic house we all always want to go.
We had been invited this time with a mission to accomplish. Their three-hundred-year-old house is one of a handful designated for viewing during the Christmas Walk in our town. She needed help decorating. "Don't worry about those boxes and bed stuff on the floor. We'll move that this weekend. Don't worry about all this stuff in the hallway. We'll move all that too. Don't worry about..."
Apparently I didn't get the email that said to bring extra Xmas decorations you're not using, or shears to cut greens. Even so my friend insisted we all got the same email. On the table was an eclectic array of wreaths, greens, tired-looking bows, and ornaments past. It looked to me to be a dubious collection and in my mind I was thinking that a quick run to the supermarket to buy a dozen red poinsettias might be the way to go. And then the most amazing thing happened. Two of the women there turned into magical fairies. The dining room chandelier was suddenly draped with evergreen and holly. A Santa wall-ornament with a straw beard that looked frankly pretty tacky on the dining room table looked fabulous hanging on the brick wall on the third floor. They wove garlands of greens along the banister and within minutes had fluffed and perked the wilted bows and attached them at all the right places along with the strands of white lights. Arrangements of greens were thrown into vases which had I tried the same thing would have looked like greens thrown into vases. Their arrangements turned into works of art.
While the two Christmas fairies discussed a possible flower arrangement to go on the mantle - a glass vase filled with cranberries and water into which flower X should be placed -- I moaned to my friend "How do they do this? And why did you invite me to come decorate?" Well it turns out we all have our talents. They made me hammer girl. I got to hammer in the nails and hang up the wreath/ornament/whatever. Not such an easy task in such an old house. You never know quite what you're going to be hammering into. When the hammering jobs were done I sat sipping wine and marveling at this wizardry taking place before my eyes. "Oh it's nothing!" they laughed. "Just some greens..."
Thank goodness for them. Thank goodness for hubby who can cook. Thank goodness for my friends who paint and garden. Thank goodness for my barefoot friend and her Camel cigarettes. The aesthetic wonderland they create around me gives me the fortitude and inspiration to create the words I need for work and play -- the words that flow onto a letter that might be the difference between someone getting housing or not, words that zing back and forth daily with a handful of conservatives that I at least try to get to see the world differently, words that become a short story for submission, words that might one day make themselves into a book that may or may not ever get published. We all do these things whether we get paid for doing it or not. We do it because we have to.
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