And Your Little Dog Too

So... back to the continuing saga of the weirdness that surrounds me. I'm starting to think I've inadvertently traded my Pollyanna-sunshine-rose-colored-glasses for a special pair of Ripley's Believe It Or Not shades.

I was born with those Pollyanna glasses, people. And I want them back.

On the outside I still have the counselor face. You know, the face from Lake Placid. The face you could confess anything to and still bask in its approving and not-judgmental glow. There's a "hmm... how did that work for you?" just tripping off my tongue at every turn.

But on the inside, I am freaking out. Gurgle. Take a breath.

Oddity Update Number One:
The extra children we entertained last week? Their mom is recovered from her medical emergency but is now having a custody dispute with their dad over their brother. Just the brother, mind you. Maybe more on that later if I can think of a way to write about it without, you know, crying or throwing up. The Little Boy Lost from the week before continues to do well, thanks for asking. He's the proud recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in hide-n-seek, never has to play again, I'm told. I'm still invited to the quilting retreat, more importantly.

Oddity Update Number Two:
And I do mean Number Two. In the midst of our nation's stock market, mortgage and real estate foreclosure crises, I am still inexplicably a real estate broker. I don't think much about it except to use it as a special torchlight of minor insight into the way we got here as a society. I thought about it quite a bit more last week as I began four separate real estate transactions. To put this in perspective, I haven't had four active deals in a year, and now that I'm juggling four kids and homeschool and a farm and an extra house and extra help at my husband's office... I don't know, I just don't find myself to be the same salesgirl I once was. My fantasies of returning to the traditional workforce had a lot more to do with returning to hard news journalism and virtually nothing to do with selling houses. Again, God, with the sense of humor.

Oddity Update Number Three:
The boundary dispute that visited my front door in the guise of a sweet elderly neighbor lady is apparently resolved. Go me! (To tell the truth: GO HUSBAND! I didn't have anything to do with the resolution other than entertaining the genteel great-grandmother while the menfolk dug for the incontrovertible evidence of property pins.) I don't think anyone stole any of her pasture. I don't know what she thinks, but I'm sure all her yard is still there too. This one I truly wish I could tell you ALL ABOUT, because it was hilarious in a Twilight Zone way, but the nice neighbor lady doesn't want anyone gossiping about the creeping boundary. (Envision the bushes with cartoon feet sort of sneaking a little bit closer to her house, just inches a month.) Maybe more on that later when I can appropriately rename the cast of characters and change it around in case Great Granny's got internet access. Or, for goodness sakes, what if the ADVERSE POSSESSION/ HOSTILE TAKEOVER neighbor has internet access? Crikey. I'd better be quiet now.

Anyhow.

That episode in its confidentiality and spunkiness brought to mind this little old lady I used to know who has now gone to heaven (in order that I can tell you this story). Delia was 98 when she passed away, just one year following her husband of more than 70 years. They had a huge extended family and a beautiful legacy of love.

She spent the last four years of her life guarding her coffee table.

It was a nice coffee table.

As I remember it, the table featured several varieties of hand-carved hardwoods. The legs were three (sort of gruesome) Bald Eagles. They must have been half scale or something, because they held up the table portion of the event with their wingspans, and I think I know that Bald Eagles have six-foot wingspans. The fact checker will let us know if I'm wrong.

The eagles' beaks were a different wood than the rest of their carved bald heads. Their legs were knobbly Rosewood. They faced center as though earnestly conferencing on how to hold up the glass-and-wood top.

(Don't you hate when people just make a verb like that? Conference. People (and Eagles, I'm sure) confer, they don't conference. I'm slipping, everyone. It's the practice of real estate dumbing me down. Someone grab me quick before I slide into the Abyss of Ain't.)

So the eagle table was one-of-a-kind, unique in every way. I had never seen one like it before and have never seen one like it since. Frankly I tried not to look at it because it was a little creepy.

Delia, on the other hand, wouldn't take her eyes off it.

Some unguarded night, before she became vigilant, someone stole her coffee table and replaced it with one that was remarkably similar, but different in ways that Delia alone could recognize. No amount of rational talk would convince this otherwise reasonable great-great-grandma that her original coffee table remained in her home. It was a difference only she could see.

This is what I worry about with the Pollyanna glasses.

I have to get them back.

Now that I think of it, this weekend everything appeared normal. After showing property, of course, I enjoyed a gorgeous sunny Saturday afternoon and an unseasonably warm Sunday. After church the girls and I planted seeds: butter crunch lettuce, kale, chard, cabbage, broccoli. My husband built a cold frame for the kitchen garden. He used one of my vintage windows. We took a walk with the jogging stroller. I stayed on the paved road and my hip behaved itself.

Everything was basically rose-colored.