Chair-fixing, incidentally

It's standard operating procedure for Allen and me* (*correct grammatical usage) to do some farting around (In the words of Kurt Vonnegut) after breakfast on Sunday (which is usually out.)

This morning we meandered across Route 50 to where backroads through the area of St. Margaret's become winding and secretive, opening into surprising little enclaves, or sudden presentations of ill-fitting new tract homes.

Around a bend where hedges and trees obscured visibility, I spied this shingle.

photo credit: Allen Flinchum ; )

"Go back," I said. "Someone there does caning."

Small children are hell on woven chair seats, and I have 2 ladderbacks in the basement which were rendered unusable twice during my small-child years, and remain so. I am sorting, I am choosing. What furniture is useful, and what might I store in the basement in my next, smaller, abode? Not chairs with holes in the sit-zone.

Allen turned the car around and pulled into the drive far enough to snap that shot, at which point we realized that cars were whooshing by behind us at a rate that, combined with the restricted view, made backing up unlikely. So we forwarded.

We forwarded past a house where grinning sculpted gourd-like heads topped fence posts, and shutters were hand painted with stars and vines. There was a 1970 VW Beetle rusting in front of a detached garage/workshop, a wooden rowboat named "Raccoon" up on sawhorses, and a woman looking at us curiously. So we rolled down the window and explained ourselves.

She happily leaned in and started to chat, and we exchanged inquisitiveness and insights about each other (we like to poke around, a VW such as that was my first car, Allen fixes boats. Her father built Raccoon for her when she was five, she will not be able to watch when someone comes for the VW which she has decided to give up, and she does chair seats.)

Chief among attributes which were mutually noted was that Wendy, age 66, and Allen, age 59, both like their projects, and have a goodly number of objects in their lives pertaining thereto.

"I'm trying to get her to move in with me," said Allen, as partial explanation for why he hoped to at least reduce his stockpile, (not mentioning that we plan to circumvent the problem by means of the two contiguous house strategy.)

It was clear that if I would not, then Wendy would. "Oh, you should move in with him," she said, both almost immediately, and as parting words.

And I eventually will in a more thorough way, once some of our housing concerns reach a place of better resolution. I will also bring my ladderbacks to her. Both for repair, and to keep an eye on her.