Category Archives: Musings

Suburban wilderness

Musings, The Great Outdoors

So last night was bookgroup. This month’s book was The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. It’s good, although I’m not quite finished with it yet.

This month’s meeting was in Kensington at Karen’s house and I thought I knew how to get to her house, but I ended up parking several blocks away. Luckily I ran into another member, also wandering around the neighborhood, wondering where the house was. We finally found it and all was good.

While I was wandering around the neighborhood alone I disturbed a rabbit who scampered across the road. I also thought I saw a larger animal on the other side of a hedge in someone’s side yard. I first thought it was a dog, but it didn’t bark and seemed almost ghostlike in its movements. I dismissed it as my imagination or maybe a large scrap of paper being blown by the strong breeze.

After the meeting as I drove down a side street, back to the main road that would take me home, a large animal crossed in front of me and this time I could not dismiss it as paper or my imagination. I think it was a small deer. Then, back on Cedar Lane, the main drag through this part of Kensington, a red fox crossed in front of me and ran into the trees.

Now that I think about it — I’m not surprised to see wildlife in Kensington. After all, Rock Creek Park runs along the western and southern boundries of this town, and I was within blocks of it when I saw the animals. Still, it was an unusual thing for me to see. I still wonder what the apparation was that I saw before book group.

Mr. Monk fixes my drainpipe

Musings, People

A few weeks ago we realized our sink was leaking. Dean tried his darnedest to fix it, but finally admitted that he wasn’t equipped for major plumbing repair, so he called a plumber (incidentally the day plumbers were taken into the surreal realm).

The plumber arrived early for his 4:30 scheduled appointment. I was working in the attic and didn’t hear the doorbell ring, which turns out to be broken too. Anyway, I ran downstairs and opened the door to John the Plumber. Even though John had done work for us before, I was taken aback when I saw him. I expected a man in a work clothes — perhaps with his name sewn on the pocket. What I opened the door to was a man, impeccably dressed in a button down denim shirt and dress slacks. He didn’t say he was the plumber, but I let him in anyway because I was fairly certain that Adrian Monk was standing in front of me. Granted, this man was dressed casually for Mr. Monk, but in every other respect, he was Adrian Monk.

He took a look at the problem, diagnosed it within seconds (I could almost hear him saying. “Here’s the thing,” and “Here’s what happened.”) His work area was neat and when he left the kitchen was cleaner than before he got there.

I figure that since the TV program, Monk, is on vacation, his character is moonilghting as a plumber. Stranger things have happened.

Secret Garden

Musings, Obsessions

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You know about me and fairies, don’t you? How I really believe they exist and all? So much that I use improper grammar when blogging about them?

Well, a few years ago I bought a fairy garden for Clare. She liked it. It grew. It died and then Dean threw away all the stuff that went with it.

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Recently Clare’s been thinking about that fairy garden. I saw a version of it, but it wasn’t the same — it had no house. Then, one day at an art store (of course) we found the identical fairy garden from her past and bought it, even though it was the same price as a huge canvas she needed for school (which, by the way is STILL in my trunk). (Don’t encourage your kids to get into art — it’s expensive! And messy!)

Clare planted the garden that evening and we thought it would be fun to do a time-lapse film of it growing.

It grew fast. And I think the fairies have settled in…