NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Four new brown Adirondack chairs are arranged on a bed of mulch in the shade of the crabapple tree behind Diddlie’s carport. A laurel bush, two hydrangeas and a serviceberry, will partly screen them from the street, until fall.
Diddlie comes out of her kitchen door walking towards me.
“Hi Fred, have you come over to try out my new chairs?”
“Ah, I didn’t know you had them.”
“So, what did you come over for?”
“I saw Lou working back here as I walked by the carport and thought I would check on our lunch date, Wednesday.”
“You mean you didn’t come on my property to see me at all?”
“Diddlie, I am always glad to see you.”
“Well, that’s more like it!”
We walk over to the new chairs.
“See, no paving, just mulch.”
“Well done, let the rain soak in.”
Lou looks up as he takes off his gloves and throws them into the empty wheelbarrow, recently full of mulch. “She has an ‘all-natural’ patio’!
Diddlie is holding the chair info sheet she pulled from the pile of cardboard flatpack the chairs came in.
“Fred, these chairs are made of high-density polyethylene.”
“All natural, Lou?”
“No Fred, the mulch and shade are.”
“True enough, no umbrellas no awning.”
Lou brushes some mulch off his jeans. “Natural shade for this famous fake wood!”
Two crows fly over us spreading their caws to anyone with ears. They settle in a willow oak next door, in Jake Trips’ yard, keeping up a low-pitched commentary among themselves.
Diddlie gathers some mulch from the lawn with the side of her pink and yellow SnazE ‘SuperFlex’ slip-on walking shoe. “It hasn’t rained for over a month.”
Lou pushes the wheelbarrow out of the way of the chairs. “We got a few drops last week”
“Right, enough to wet dry leaves and soak my jeans when I brushed past the hydrangea on the way to my compost heap.”
Lou is still trying to get the last of the mulch off his jeans.”
“It often rains all around us, but not here.”
“I know, it is the ‘DC Distortion Zone’.”
“What is that, Fred?”
“Political pressure.”
“Is that barometric?”
“Only if you have a political barometer.”
Diddlie folds up her info sheet.
“I saw one for sale online!”
“How much Did.?”
“I think the subscription was thirty bucks a month with exclusives!”
“Did you buy it?”
“No, I don’t have time to read that stuff.”
“Look, even the violet’s leaves are drying out and floppy and folded over.”
Diddlie contemplates her new chairs.
A jet passes over. Its roar changes pitch to a whistle as it descends toward Calvin Coolidge National Airport. The crows fly off and the disturbance subsides.
Lou’s yellow DeWalt drill with Phillips head screwdriver lies on the wide arm of a chair.
“You up for lunch, Fred?”
“I thought it was tomorrow.”
“It was. You got time today?”
Diddlie pulls on Lou’s sleeve but looks at me.
“Why don’t you guys try out my new chairs?”
Lou picks up his drill and shows me the magnetized Philips head as he wipes off some metal particles. “I don’t know what those screws were made of, but they must have a little ferric materiel in them.”
“It might be zinc. That’s what my patio screen is fastened with.”
Lou puts it in the wheelbarrow on top of his gloves.
“The last part of that chair job required three hands.”
“Lou, I told you I could help.”
“Diddlie, you were making bird bread for the parrot, remember?”
“Well, the Red Queen’s food was running low.”
“Anyway, I don’t know anyone with more than two hands.”
“Okay Lou, I am sorry, okay?”
“No problem Diddlie.”
“I am trying to balance Queenie’s diet with more legumes.”
“This sun still has plenty of heat in it.”
We sit down in the mottled shade. A leaf shadow plays on Diddlie’s face opposite me and her eyes appear to flash.
“So, am I invited to this lunch of yours?”
Lou looks at me and I at him.
“Oh, my! Gentlemen, is this decision so hard?”
“We are still discussing which day, Did.”
“Well, okay Fred, I am buying for the guy who assembled my chairs.”
“So, have you got time today, like about now?”
“Sure, Lou.”
“Diddlie, how about you?”
“Oh, I have plenty of time, today or tomorrow.”
Lou gets up and grabs the wheelbarrow handles but turns back to us. “I need to shower first.”
“Okay, Fred and I will meet you down at the H bar in a while.”
“Give me half an hour.”
He takes the barrow back to the carport.
“Fred, you are sitting on old milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles and other trash.”
“What a nightmare!”
“What do you mean it isn’t in a landfill, at least!”
“We need to stop making that stuff.”
Diddlie, looks up into the trees, saying nothing. High clouds obscure the sun and the radiant heat ceases as if it had been switched off.
“Fred.”
“Yes.”
“Do you like my new chairs?”
“Yes, very comfortable.”
“Don’t you like the backs high enough to rest your head against?”
I lean back to enjoy the benefit and close my eyes hearing the faint sound of a distant gas-powered lawnmower.
“Ah, Fred, have I put you to sleep?”
“No, your new chair might, if it quiets down around here.”
“Okay, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Diddlie watches a crow on the power lines as it makes three calls.
There’s a passing buzz in my ear and open my eyes to see a visiting yellow jacket on my knee. Then I brush something off my head. Diddlie yells and gets up slapping her neck.
“I am getting stung!”
She runs toward the house, and I follow, getting stung on my wrist by the one I tried to brush off.
We stand in the kitchen looking through the protective screen door.
“Vote candy, eat dates”
The Red Queen calls from the living room.
“Is she doing political commentary, now?”
“I don’t know where she got that from.”
“Polly ticks Polly Tocks”
“She is into timing, that’s my guess.”
“Relate, debate, candy vote dates.”
A yellow jacket crawls up the screen with its striped pointed back dragging in the gaps.
“There must be a nest by the chairs somewhere.”
“They probably enjoy the fallen apples, Fred.”
“What took them so long to come after us?”
“Maybe they were buried in mulch.”
Diddlie turns away and soon returns with a spray bottle of Windex and sprays the insect which falls away in the ammonia fumes.
“That takes care of one of those little stingers!”
She stands pressing against me with her finger on the bottle trigger.”
“Look at those things, Fred!”
Large black-backed bees are climbing in and out of the roses of Sharon’s violet bells over by the compost heap.
“Those are carpenter bees.”
“Well, I don’t want to get stung by one of those monsters!”
“They didn’t sting us. I think they are on a mission.”
“I know Fred, it was wasps but look at the size of those things!”
“Did, your HDPE chairs are safe!”
“I know, they only drill into wood.”
“Let’s get going Did.”
