A Garden Gnome Morphs Into a Sentient Being, and Mr. Chips Calls for His Close Up

Hoping I might have missed a photo of Mr. Chips, I go though the Lost Box of photos again, pulling apart any that stick together.  I have an idea what era I might have a photograph from, so look for the house I was living in at the time.

I’m tired.  It’s 2 am. There are so many photos. Hundreds and hundreds.  This puzzles me, as they are mostly bad photographs.  I start a stack of pictures to toss.

I root through another bad clump of blurry pics, and see a familiar streak of silver.  I had an Airstream travel trailer.  I don’t ever remember towing it.  I parked it in a pretty spot that looked out over the land, built a little deck, and gardened around its perimeter.  I used the trailer as a summer guest house.

I had Mr. Chips and the trailer at the same time.

Sigh.  Such a bad picture.  I scan it anyway.  A memento of a lost era.

I open the file on my computer, and try to remember that time in my life.  I’d done things like place rubber finger puppets on sticks so they’d poke up above the flowers like hovering birds: silly blue monster heads with wavy arms, shy green monsters peeking through their fingers.  I wanted to have pretty and laughter all at once.  Pink curlers grew in a cultivated row, tucked behind  a fenced off cage of tomatoes.   I was careful: all the flowers were edible and non-toxic.

I stare at the photo of nothing much, wishing it was so much more.

Strange.  I don’t remember having a garden gnome with a peaked hat.  Aren’t garden gnomes green with red hats?  I look closer.

Mr. Chips On Ice

It’s the hottest summer on record.  Yesterday it was 105 degrees.

Day One: Hold funeral for box fan.  I can do this.  I don’t need no stinkin air-conditioning!

Day Two: Standing outside doors of big hardware store at 6:25 am, while it’s still a cool 90 degrees. Open open open!  I need that fan.  6:30 am: hostile clerks hide behind counters: WE ARE OUT OF FANS PLEASE PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE. Do you..? NO WE DON’T KNOW WHERE THERE ARE ANY.  GO AWAY.  How about…? NO AIR CONDITIONERS! HAVE YOU BEEN IN A CAVE?!?

Day Three: Grid is overloading: there are rolling brownouts.  No air-conditioning at work.  We get permission to lose the nylon stockings.  Hallelujah.  It’s Thursday.  Going to the movies tomorrow.  All evening.  Get cool.

Day Four: I lose four pounds sweating at work.  I’m in air-conditioned heaven, watching Star Trek for the third time, with my fingers in my ears and my eyes closed. Only movie in the theater that hadn’t sold out.  I try to sleep.  The theater goes black.  It’s instantly boiling.  Power outage.  I will myself to bear the heat until the stampede for the door subsides.

Day Five: 115 degrees.  Starting to see things.  Pretty shimmery things. Oh.  It’s the heat on the tarmac.  There are black lumps on floors everywhere.  The tarmac is melting and sticking to people’s shoes.  We’re all running from store to store, in search of a balmy 95 degrees to cool off. Overheated cars line the side of the roads.  There’s a run on gallon bottles of water.

I’m worried about the horses.

Mr. Chips Cracks a Secret of The Universe, and Jane Manages to Stay Out of Prison

Image via Wikipedia

I came home from work one day, expecting to find Roz and Mr. Chips in their usual positions, grazing at the lowest end of the pasture, eking out the last possible moments of socializing with the horses next door.  No one’s parents yelled “dinner time!” yet.

Roz was grazing in star-crossed angst, muzzle to muzzle with her favorite gelding. Separated by fencing.  Thank god.  Remove the fence and Roz’ favorite gelding would immediately be beaten to a pulp for looking at her wrong.

Fences.  The difference between dating and marriage.

I drop the grocery bag and run.  If you come home 362 days of the year, and your horses are always in the same spot, on day 363, when one is missing,  you run.

I find Mr. Chips standing in the middle of the pasture, nose nearly to the ground.  He’d been hidden from view by the barn.  He nudges something.  I see a flash of black and white in the sun-burnt grass, and start sniffing for scent.  A dead skunk?

No smell that I can detect.

Oh no.  A live skunk?!

Horses in Opera

First, dedicated to  Halt Near X:

Elmer Fudd sings the Ride of the Valkyries, the original version:

With goamwat’s inspiration, and my odd Mr. Chips/Valkyries experience to under my belt, I hit YouTube with a vengeance: I entered “Horse + Opera” and pressed Search.  I thought we’d ease our way into it.  Here’s a horse singing opera: the Largo al Factorum from “The Barber of Seville”

Next, The Phantom of the Opera is performed on horseback:

Unbelievably, there really IS more…

Mr. Chips and the Valkyries

There was a second work of music that Mr. Chips liked nearly as much as “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”

It’s been driving me crazy that I couldn’t remember the music.

Today I tried to get motivated to clean the house.  And it hit me. Mr. Chips second favorite work of music: The Ride of the Valkyries.

I’m probably the only one of you who couldn’t have guessed Mr. Chips would like this.

I thought it was terrific housecleaning music.  It used to energize me to clean, and motivate me to finish.  Yup, it was energizing. It was also overbearing and irritating.  Perfect!   I cleaned in record time.

Someone must’ve given me a “Classic Works” album of “Great Composers Greatest Hits” for Christmas one year, and that’s how I came to own music I pretty much…hated.

I went looking for it on YouTube, to add it to Mr. Chips Greatest Hits page.  All I knew was the title and the composer.  (This explains the amnesia.  Mental block.  Not a Wagner fan.) Found a good orchestra version. (It’s on his playlist)

I, uh, never did bother to learn anything about Wagner or some famous opera he wrote.  (um, that would be The Ring.  The one that brought us Brunhilde(a)?)

I scrolled down YouTube results a little more, and found an opera version of The Ride of the Valkyries.

Ooooo.  Subtitles.  In English.  Now I’m curious. Here’s my chance to learn what the Valkyrie thing is about!

I sit back and try to relax as a passel of intimidating-looking, designer-gowned, opera divas file out on stage.  Cue the orchestra, and there it is!  The music Chips loved.

Then one woman starts singing.  And the subtitles appear.

What?!?

No flippin way!

Mr. Chips Meets Piano

I was still relying, in that college sort of way, on the backbreaking volunteer labor of my more macho friends. The piano was being delivered, but my friends were going to help me get it in the house, thereby saving me $200, which they desperately hoped I’d spent on beer and snacks. Not being a guy, my brain went more toward tea and cake, but I did manage to come up with the beer and…cookies.

Murphy’s Law was in full force that day, patrolling the streets, escorting my piano up to its new home. There was trouble getting it out of my parents house.  Going into the truck, one of the professional piano movers had  an oops moment, forcing the other professional mover to catch the full weight of the piano. Out went his back. (Piano was a studio upright, sort of the equivalent of a nice 17hh warmblood.  Tall and beefy.) Mover called. It’s on the truck.  I hear moaning in the background. They can haul it up, but will shave off $200 if I can get someone else to get it down the ramp and into the house.

I dialed up the most macho guys I knew, rented a piano dolly, picked it up at the rental place, and met everyone at my house in an hour and a half.

We wait. Nothing.  (Pre-cell phones.)  They were awfully late.   My guys drank a lot of beer, and ate a lot of cookies, making terrible faces at the combination.  Still waiting.

Phone rings.  It’s the radio dispatcher from the moving company.  Truck was late: one mover down, then a flat tire on the freeway: a highway patrol officer pulled over to help – via leaving his bar lights flashing and leaning against his patrol car.  He supervised the healthy guy struggle with a tire on the shoulder of a 12 lane freeway.  Standing there, Officer discovered a broken tail light.  He doled out several tickets (illegal pulling over on a freeway, tail light out, peeling registration tag).  For good measure, he breathalyzed the moaning guy to make sure the moaning wasn’t because he was dead drunk.  The fact that PIANO MOVING was painted on the truck in four-foot high letters didn’t faze him.   He checked the back for stolen goods.  Once cleared to go, an entire day’s pay was effectively used up in the first 20 minutes.  They still had two hours to go.  I’m lucky they did not drive my piano over a cliff.

Mr. Chips Discovers Music

I was a weird kid.  You know the kid you have to drag to the piano bench, plop the sheet music in front of, set the timer on, threaten to ground for all eternity ,and still have to yell at in order to hear sullen plonking on the piano?

That wasn’t me.

The neighbors called.  Would my parents please get me to stop?  No more scales at 1 am?  Could I please not play the piano AT ALL before six in the morning or after 11 at night?

How unreasonable is that?  I was already using the mute pedal half the time.  I did some of my best arpeggios at 3 am.

I was ten.

Mr. Chips: Stealth Ninja

Note: I started calling this series The Shetland Trajectory, because that’s how it felt: one day Roz and I are meandering along, the next I’m rocketing, hanging onto a pony for dear life, somewhat disoriented. Now that I know you like Mr. Chips stories, it seems awkward to start titling things: The Shetland Trajectory: Part 1,065.  Thus the name change.   So we can find the one we like again.

Following Dave’s lopsided departure (he wouldn’t let me drive him home), I had a stern talk with Mr. Chips, locked everything up tight, and ran to the hardware store for lengths of chain and bull snaps.  Extra backup on the gates for when I was home.

At that point, I still hoped to keep a few friends.  This was before I realized Dave could regale the Killer Horse story to mutual friends with aplomb.  Especially if libations were involved.

Aw heck.  Can we blame the guy?  How would you feel if you were using your beloved day off to help a friend rototill, and were attacked in the butt by giant incisors attached to an evil, hairy looking My Little Pony?

My Little Pony, Mr. Chips was not.

In addition to his prolific gate and door opening skills, Mr. Chips had other hidden talents.

The day after the Real Estate Agent Tour of my house, I realized the Victorian mesh handbag that had been my Great Grandmother’s, was missing from its decorative place on the wall.  There was the lonely little hook. It must have gotten knocked off and kicked under something in the Jane Drag-By.  I couldn’t find it.  I also didn’t look very hard.  I had a fence to put up.

Dave had offered to help me section off the smaller portion of the pasture into a pony turn out, to prevent founder come spring.

I think we can all guess what happened to that offer: it drove off with Dave, sitting on a bag of rapidly thawing peas.

I was on my own.  Over the next week, I hot wired the area to cordon it off from nosy equines, set the posts, poured the cement, and let it cure.  Not crooked at all, if I was willing to cock my head slightly to the right.  I can work with that.  Mr. Chips and Roz are both standing on the other side of the hot wire, staring at the new fence posts.  I look at them.  Both their heads are also cocked to the right.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence”, I say.  They both turn their heads questioningly in my direction.  “The fence posts?” I say.  I glance back at the posts.  Cock my head to the right again.  Works.  All better.  I turn around to take down the hot wire, and gather the rest of the materials.  Both Roz and Mr. Chips are staring at the posts again, heads cocked to the right.

Everyone’s a critic.

The Shetland Trajectory: Part 2

note: we’re counting the following as my answer for “Why Horses?” Wednesday!

It did not take long to discover Mr. Chips had many talents.  None of them were related to being an Equine.

There was no door he could not open.  Only keyed locks eluded him. (I’m sure this is because I hid the keys.)  I was thankful I had the foresight to padlock all of the pasture gates.  When I was home, they remained bolted but not padlocked: I was in and out of the pasture too often.  If I left the property it was Lock City.  I was less worried about animal theft, and more worried about a burglar “accidentally” letting Roz and Chips out while trying to see if there was anything worth burgling in my home.  (That would be no.)

Little did I know that Mr. Chips believed he was a ninja.

Dave was coming over to help me rototill my garden.  He arrived early, while I was down in the barn, unloading sacks of feed. Not seeing my truck, he figured he’d unload the tiller, and get it set up while he waited for me to come home.  The padlocks were off the pasture gates, though both were securely latched with sliding horse-proof “drop hook” bolts.  Mr. Chips, who had taken to supervising anything to do with feed, had been imperiously watching me heft bags into stacks.  Really, his name should have been ‘Nero’ or HRH Supreme Dictator.  When I reached for the last bag, Chips was gone.

Odd.

The Shetland Trajectory: Part 1

I’ve had to restrain myself from touching the keyboard, to spare you my enchanting company in the last few days.  (My funny bone buried itself.)

Marissa’s horse Tucker may have partly dug it up in this very funny post, and then handed me the trowel.  I laughed out loud, and it joggled loose a memory of my own.  Which I won’t spare you.

Like many horse owners, I had a dream.  Like most dreams, it was romantically blurry and full of sunlight, flowers, and chirping birds.  My horse would live in my backyard.  Together 24/7.  Bliss.

I was 20-something, had a sturdy little Morgan mare (a rescue) named Roz.  She had been treated as a commodity, and could not comprehend the idea of bonding, or even enjoying a good grooming.  Roz tolerated handling by standing rigidly still, determined to obey by enduring.  I was convinced I could use the Teenager Principle to bring her around.  The Teenager Principle: total immersion for the horse: you are either sitting on the horse, touching the horse, doing something for the horse, or standing nearby thinking about the horse.  (I’d use ground work and riding too.)  I felt the T. P. was exactly what she needed.

I was young enough to mistake a thorough day-dreaming for a logical plan of action.