Three Things

All I could see were faint strokes, or flashes of white on a flat blue canvas, so I squinted to see more. I wanted to know the optics behind my near-sighted eyes were not lying.

There’s a scene in “Mary Poppins” when Mary magically puts away the playthings of Jane and Michael Banks without touching them. Yeah, you remember “Let’s Tidy up the Nursery,” right? I didn’t actually witness it, but I believe a similar phenomenon happened in my girlfriend’s kitchen Saturday afternoon.  After Joyce’s friend Christine helped me unload beds, bureaus and tables, I proceeded to assemble the 3 beds (My “main priority” as Joyce put it, but really I just wanted to ensure the units were properly assembled to meet local safety and noise ordinances…) upstairs and down. As I descended the spiral, the mess of boxes obscuring the kitchen told me we’d me at this awhile.

After about ten minutes and with the last bed assembled, I climbed the corkscrew and saw Christine mixing cocktails. A short exchange went something like this:

Me: “Where’s all the kitchen stuff?”
Christine: “It’s all put away.”
Me: “And the boxes?”
Christine: “Out in the recycling.”
Me:  “Just a moment, Christine. What is the meaning of this outrage?”
Christine:  “I beg your pardon?”
Me: “Will you be good enough to explain all this? “
Christine: “First of all, I would like to make one thing quite clear.”
Me: “Yes?”
Christine: “I never explain anything.”
[exits]

I sipped my lemonade and vodka without an explanation of what happened…

“Will you take me to the consignment shops? We need to get a couch.” Now this was in Joyce’s top 3 “things to do” on the weekend itinerary, so the question was more rhetoric than inquiry, and my Monday response options were three, “Yes,” “Absolutely,” and “I’ve been looking forward to that all weekend.” In another magic moment, she walked into a shop and said, “I like that couch, do you?” Thirty minutes later for just a $30 delivery fee, we were sitting on it in her living room…

After about twenty minutes I looked out and saw the white flashes again. Now they were closer and I could see they were shiny wet and just hinting of summer color to come.  I watched and eventually made my way up to the other bright white of her smile as she exited the crystal water of her kettle pond. I had been watching her live her dream as another “top 3” was checked off the list.

And it was sweet.