July has been a very expensive month and there are still another ten days to go. A $320 visit to the vet (ear infection), a broken washing machine (needed new pump) and now the hot water heater is on the fritz. I have no idea how old the water heater is; it was here when I bought the house three years ago. At the time I was so star-struck about moving in that I wasn’t paying close attention to the house’s central nervous system—heaters and circuitry, plumbing and thermostats. I knew they were OK, but that’s all I knew. And now, as if someone has flipped a switch—a faulty switch—things are breaking down right and left. Everything in this old house seems held together with dental floss and good intentions. That moody, murmuring toilet upstairs? It’s been trying to tell me something. This house keeps me bendin’ and spendin’.
I need some time to absorb this latest blow. At the moment all I can do is stare out the window. Half of me is thinking about how I’m going to find the magic beans for a new hot water heater, the other half is admiring the new redbud tree I recently planted in the backyard, a saucy Cercis Flame Thrower®. It’s surprising how tender and protective I feel towards this little sapling. Can you have a crush on a tree? A tree crush? I have one.
In his memoir, A Movable Feast, about living in Paris in the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway recalled this advice from Gertrude Stein, the eccentric, expatriate writer:
“You can either buy clothes or buy pictures. It’s that simple. No one who is not very rich can do both.”
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