Cool Country Mailboxes

Now, that's bass!

A mailbox is to a house what a vanity plate is to a car; a fun enhancement and form of self-expression. What do you love enough to put out in front of your house? But having a cool mailbox, either be watchful or live on a remote rural road, because you aren't country until your beloved roadside mailbox, even a plain one, has been bludgeoned by a carful of teenagers with baseball bats. This senseless and meaningless act happened to me years ago. The mailboxes of my neighbor and I are black, plain, just ordinary; they didn't even used to have numbers until a carrier complained; I stuck orange reflective tape on them, that's all. After the vandalism, the handyman, Angelo, cleverly built out of two-by-fours a protective frame for our mailboxes, and Angelo's design made such attacks impossible.

I love mailboxes; they're about hope. Everyone hopes for good mail. When I can safely stop the car on rural roads I get out and photograph creative boxes like these that make me smile.

I Never Give Up

Sure the birdbath bowl was badly cracked (see August 30) so I bought a new bowl at a concrete works, and the birds gratefully took baths and drinks, but that old, more artistic bowl, considering I couldn't move it except to flip it over, sat there and I thought, I hate to give up, I hate to give up, so for the fourth time, to the hardware store. I simply confessed to the clerk: "I'm trying to fix a concrete birdbath. Nothing works," and she led me to concrete putty stuff and DAP quick-crete. I patched a big chip at the bowl's rim with the putty stuff. Bet you can't find the patch in the picture! (It's at the 11 o'clock point.) Then all gloved up, with much unskill I laid readymixed QuikCrete on with a trowel and let it dry overnight. The next morning I poured water into it. IT HELD. Glory be! Some spots were not quite perfectly covered. so I applied a second coat just now, with great skill and in five minutes. When it's dry I'll sand it a bit and find somebody to help me lift it onto the pedestal, and it will be just like old days for the birds and me.

The Cure for Cabin Fever

Horribly tempted the last few days, late winter, so tedious, tempted to:

-max out the credit card on bling, spa visits, facelift & lingerie
-max out the credit card in Bali, Java, Belize, etc.
-max out the credit card at Pacific Guns & Archery
-buy a Jaguar and let them repo it in a month or two
-play hooky from everything
-start screaming
-go get checked for Alzheimer’s
-go on a bourbon bender and paint the town red

But then – just yesterday I saw this daffodil, about 2 inches out of the earth. And now I can wait!

The Eight-Year Garage Cleaning

It’s a 2-car garage and 2 cars will fit if I move the 50-lb. bags of potting soil and green sand. 106-lb. me did this by rolling them onto an old shower curtain and dragging the curtain. Tried to move the full-sized wheelbarrow. Couldn’t. And then the old barbell weights, the plastic ones filled with concrete: 350 lbs of those stacked against one wall. But I can’t get to the pile ‘cuz of the chest-high box of jumbled parts for a huge, useless computer table. Not to mention dust, dry leaves, mouse droppings, spiderwebs.

Interesting things I found: Box of short stories written by friend now passed away. A solar-powered calculator. Bag of pink sheets. Dutch door for porch. Brand-new reel still in packaging. That I can use; I got my ’09 Missouri fishing license just last week. Five-gallon leaky red gas can stuck solidly to the garage floor. Bags of concrete mix so old that they are now solid concrete. A hard hat. An inflatable raft. A bluebird house.

A house is about hopes, but a garage is about plans: Gonna. Will. Wanna. Ought to. I’m All Set.