The Certainty of Fences, Death, & Dirty Dishes

The temperatures have been mild enough here to be outside at least sometimes so that's exactly where I've been, cleaning up the little backyard space I call Healing Hz Forest and tending Pondering Pool, the tiny koi and frog pond. In fact, it's been warm enough that the koi have roused a bit below. I've seen each of them. I try not to think about the great loss last year at the pond that I was responsible for. Sigh. The day before yesterday I saw Frank, one of the regular pond frogs, near the Kami Koi murti, then, not a ten inches away, I saw Bob, he of the dark mood recently, then directly behind Bob, Carol. I didn't let on I had seen anything. Just the same, since then, I've only seen Frank. I can only imagine what it means.

Yesterday I set up Fairy Falls to the right of the Ganesha murti, so that's up and running. Rippling Rock fountain is in place but not working yet and I put out the pagoda fountain in the front yard, though, it'll be the last I connect.

I was out earlier, as I will be often for a bit, being a little butch with my mini chainsaw and hand saw dealing with weedy saplings, etc. on the property line where, hopefully, there will be a fence this spring or summer. This afternoon another man came out to measure and give us an estimate.

Doug was, he said, "in his late sixties". First I noted his big feet but, in a rare moment of triumph for The Observer, I stopped myself from asking what size shoe he wore. He had big hands, too. Thinning skin over bluing veins but still at least a foot long, his hand, I swear. He looked like a cross between actors Craig T. Nelson and Peter Graves. He's been doing this for forty years, he said, and has lived all over the country.

After I assisted him in measuring the yard, he came in to do numbers on his laptop. He collected his computer from the car. On the way in he says he hopes we have dogs and I'm sorry to disappoint him. He entered our front door like it was his first speaking role and he was going to nail it, dramatically so.

"WHOAaaaa", he said, "look at how clean it is!"

I'm sure this is meant to be a compliment but its delivery is so extreme it makes me question his authenticity. And, since I know the house isn't that clean, it also feels like enabling a lie.

He asks who tends the plants and we sit at the dining table so he can work up an estimate. Finished with that, he says he needs to take a few pictures of the yard. I tell him he can take the side door to the yard and I lead the way through the tiny kitchen. Behind me, Doug, at our kitchen sink, has raised both of his arms, in a grand opera stage bow sort of way and again, exclaims, "how clean it is!"

"Doug," I say, "please stop, you're embarrassing us both. I can see from here the stove is dirty."

He informed me I was a "a funny man" and went on about stacked dirty dishes and messes at his own home. He said he had lost his wife. He retained an adult daughter. He said it was hard cleaning up just after himself. I told him that the difficulty in cooking small meals made sense to me but being hard to clean up after yourself was "patently ridiculous". "When you use something, replace it; dirty it, wash it; set the next person up for success with your consideration,” I said stupidly, as if he hadn't just said there wasn't another person to consider now.

For the second time during our short visit he said, "You're a funny man."

"What's funny? What? You didn't teach your own kids the same kind of values?", I asked.

Doug took his pictures. Since he had mentioned he needed to load his dishwasher, I felt compelled to tell him we didn't have one.

"What?!", he asked, alarmed. "Oh, that's even harder," he said, shaking his head. There's nearly a world or at least a lifetime of knowledge Doug has that I never will but I do know that I've faced sinks full of dirty dishes before and likely won't again because I avoid them one dish at a time.

I don't know that I can say I was "well behaved" but better and better is good, maybe even good enough, laughing together instead of alone always counts as better.

-pdk