Lost time

            

I’m looking behind the cushions and out in the garden.  In the meantime, Linda took this in the rain last Thursday.

Goose’s new duds

My head is unworkable at the moment.  So is my sister’s.  She actually said to me, tonight, “Seventy year old mothers!?”, and she’s ten years younger than I am.  

This run up to school compares well to slogging through a black tunnel of crispy, crunching, crackly cellophane.  Can you believe a TI something calculator costs $118.00!  I have paid so many school fees I conclude pay to play has morphed to pay to learn, and what the heck are they spending my 53 mills of school tax dollars for.

I got new clothes for Goose, and wanted to take Laura and Emily with me to Linda’s to try them on, but just couldn’t work around new student orientation, open house, well child appointments with the doctor, Linda’s show schedule, my work schedule.  That doesn't include learning how to set up school accounts on-line and figuring out the Progress Book, where teachers post student stuff on line.

I did what any seventy year old mother would do.  I went to Linda’s, and we spent the afternoon visiting, drinking coffee, having peppers and cucumbers for lunch.  A great time.  When it was time to leave we helped Goose right out of that bikini and put a back to school outfit on her.

We made sure her rain gear fit.

Then Alberta took a picture of Linda and me, and I got home before the girls and in time to hear what they did in school today. Some Saturday, before the band gets on the bus to go to a football game, I’ll take Emily and Laura to Linda’s to see the new Goose.

Old man tree

I went to visit Linda last week, and had my camera ready, just in case Goose had a new outfit.  But, she doesn't.

The little patch of daisies is still in bloom by the gate post, across from Goose.

Alberta’s garden is lovely.  Linda says actually it is so dense in there footing is treacherous.  Nevertheless, we had stuffed peppers and cucumbers for lunch.

But, I really had my eye on her neighbor’s tree.  I’ve wanted  its picture for some time, and Saturday was beautiful.  I went over and sat on a low wall.  The dogs of the house came over and kept me company.  A yellow lab and a black lab.  The yellow laid on my feet; the black leaned on my knee.  I think the tree was amused. 

Spring has sprung, the grass is ris; she wonders where the beaches is

With apologies to Annonymous.

I saw this on E-Bay.  I confess, I went looking.  As she said, Linda has not spent a penny outfitting Goose.  I called her and tried to describe Goose’s new outfit.  It would be her outfit—I made sure I would not be outbid.  But, I couldn’t describe it.  I was laughing so hard I had to hold the phone far away and attempt composure.  I started again:  visualize Maxine.  No luck.  I was, as they tweet, ROFLMAO.  Think I got that right.  Well, Goose’s box arrived Saturday, but I couldn’t go until today.

I met such a pristine and sparkly Goose in the drive.  Her feathers are crisp, white, and all in place.

We had to help her into the new, itsy, bitsy, teeny weeny.  She had to shimmy and shake like your sister Sue, and hop ever so delicately inside the swim tube, but was it worth it?  After the hat and sunglasses for protection, absolutely YES!

Goose proliferation

I met a concrete goose back in the 1990’s, at my friend Linda’s home in New York.  I’d seen a lot of them on front stoops, but never met one face to face.  These were geese of substance back then.  Concrete, as I’ve mentioned; they moved about on hand trucks.  They were part of a silly wave of decorating that involved lots of cutesy and even more fussy. 

Yard ornaments go tastefully back in history as statuary, but in the Midwest escalated to pink flamingos, yard jockeys and bath tub shrines.  I’ve lived next door to a yard jockey for more than twenty years.  Concrete statuary is a relatively inexpensive substitute for granite or marble, whimsical to garish and available along country roadsides.  I’ve lived up the road for more than twenty years to a family that pours concrete figures and has them for sale.  I’ve even shopped there with Ann for a tasteful bench and bird bath to memorialize one of their memorable dogs.   She’s still looking for the naked cherub filling the pond.  That may be one step up from concrete.

In a burst of American entrepreneurism, sales of concrete geese moved from back country roads to streets around art shows.  A secondary industry sprang up, making clothing for the concrete geese.  With little fanfare the geese waddled east and west, north and south, followed by the garment sewers.  Only in America could there be a market for a cottage industry sewing goose clothes. Then I met Linda’s Goose.  Goose clothes went on my radar and I could send Ann or Beth twenty blocks out, to the craft show, to bring home goose clothes.  And giant bubble makers for my grandchildren.  

I’ve told a couple amusing stories about Linda’s Goose, and she called me and told me the rest of the story.  Actually, there is another Goose.  Maybelle’s Goose.  Maybelle is Linda’s BFF.  Maybelle changed her name from Mabel so her mother, Mabel, wouldn’t open her mail.  Oh, what I know about Maybelle.  But it’s enough for you to know she must be Linda’s BFF.

Linda lived in central New York State between living in Ohio twice, not too far from Maybelle.  Linda and her husband were driving to a show and just before arriving, there were the geese.  Linda decided Maybelle needed one of those for the cottage at the lake.  So, they stopped and bought Maybelle a big concrete goose.  Because it was the lake, they added some rain gear.

The next weekend Linda was so envious of Maybelle’s goose, she stopped for another one for her back stoop in New York.  The impetus for this industry should now be obvious; it feeds on itself.  You can just hear the men in the back room:  Pour more geese, Jack.  We need to keep up with the demand.  And, when they go home at night:  Make more goose clothes, dear.  There’s quite a market.

When Maybelle’s son was married at the cottage at the lake, Maybelle’s goose wore a rose with her lace.

Goose dressing

Dressing a friend’s goose is the get out of jail card for a left brained person.  There never would be a goose in my yard, although I do confess to a pig, a lamb and a toad.  But a goose in my wild and crazy right brained friend’s yard is open season.

The first winter I sent Goose a green velvet dress for the Christmas parties, and an ermine jacket and muff to keep warm.  Goose needed them badly; it snows so much in upstate New York we identified Goose’s frigid body by her ermine wrap.

When Linda moved her studio to from New York to Ohio in 2003, Goose came, too.  Six Mayflower trucks backed down her street to unload; one thirty pound concrete goose tucked into a corner.  Goose lives in the driveway of the new house.  I once sent Goose an outfit addressed to Goose in the Driveway.  The postman put it in the box.  Either he was short on humor or there are rules.  I suppose these are completely identical.

Many people keep Goose attired.  Linda says goose clothes even arrive anonymously.  When Emily was three years old and lived here she bounced up and down on the back seat all the way to Linda’s.  She had a witch costume to put on Goose for Halloween.

We have an obligation to keep Goose looking her best every day.  A lovely woman on Linda’s street had a stroke two years ago.  Every day the weather is fit she walks on her husband’s arm, two blocks down and two blocks back to see what Goose is wearing.  Last Sunday it rained on and off.  Goose was up for it.

The jig is up

Jan and I spent a long weekend at Linda’s one spring when she still lived in New York State, hanging out, working jigsaw puzzles.  That's where we met Goose.  Concrete geese as lawn ornaments were already past their prime when Linda had to have one; nevertheless, she felt such a need that one came home in her van.    

Very old goose

Everything old is new again.  A 1920's goose.

Back then the geese actually were made of concrete, in size extra large.  Those geese moved about on hand carts.  They must have come unpainted, too, because when we first encountered Goose, Linda was negotiating with her daughter to have it painted.  Before we left that weekend, Goose had a lovely white body, a yellow beak, and yellow feet with green grass under them. 

While Cara and her boyfriend put several careful coats of paint on Goose, Jan, Linda and I worked on a complex new puzzle.  In truth, I did little; jig saw puzzles make me crazy.  Jan and Linda, however, have a knack and an obsession.  The last morning I got up much earlier than those two, who had spent the wee hours bent over the puzzle. 

I brushed my teeth and washed my face with a washcloth I found in a cupboard, and fitted maybe half a dozen little pieces when the two of them put in an appearance.  Linda dangled my morning wash cloth off the end of her finger and said just one cupboard over were towels and washcloths; why did I pick an old rag from the rag cupboard.  Over the course of the day, probably also due to my puzzle ineptitude, Linda teased me a whole lot about washing up with a rag.  When it was time to leave, I made sure that rag was tucked away in my suitcase.

Zipping down the New York Thruway going home I told Jan I not only had nicked that rag, I would figure out how to do something with it she couldn’t throw away, or put in the rag bag.  We were tossing a couple of ideas around the front seat when the phone rang in the back seat.  This was 1997, those phones were big and loud.  I jumped a foot, unfastened my seat belt and dug around the back seat while it kept on ringing.

“Hello.”  (No caller ID back then.)

“The jig is up!”

I almost dropped the phone or threw it up in the air on my way back into my seat.  How did she know I took that washcloth!?

“What jig?  What are you talking about?”

“I just put the last piece in the puzzle; the jig is up,” Linda said.

Well, it was sort of funny.  We chatted a couple more minutes and hung up.

“She’s in for it now,” I told Jan.  I stitched a goose on that ratty wash cloth.  Then I had it framed.  In gilt.  The frame shop really didn’t get it; when I picked the piece up they had tucked in the six inch long raggedy ripped off edge.  But they couldn’t hide thin and seer, or the hole.  It really was a fun weekend, and that goose is hanging in her Ohio bathroom now.