They'll all be wilted in a day or two, but for now my kitchen is full of dahlias.
They are left-overs from the table arrangements for the fund-raising dinner this past weekend. Originally I was going to tie simple bunches of bamboo together with raffia and go with that, but then some kind soul donated the flowers from THEIR fundraiser the night before. Bamboo and dahlias go suprisingly well together. :)
The flowers have now thrice been recycled...and then they will go on to become gorgeous compost.
The picture of the dahlias and the porch above were taken in Vancouver last fall. I was walking with a friend through her old neighbourhood and she pointed out a house with a pumpkin-bedecked porch. An elderly woman had recently died there, and the new owners had held an estate sale which my friend had attended.
She said the house had the most intense, angry feeling in it. It was oppressive and hard to ignore. She wondered if perhaps the old woman's spirit was annoyed at the new owners making fun of her posessions. Kim said she'd never been to a sale like that where the recently departed were so loudly disrespected.
I'm sure I'd be annoyed too, if after I was dead people were trooping through my living-room making fun of my taste in table-lamps and knick-knacks. That's when being a poltergeist would be particularly satisfying.
Estate-sale person: "Good lord, what a tacky piece of art! Ha ha! This dead person had ludicrously bad taste."
Spider Girl's Peeved Ghost: *hurls random bric-a-brac at churlish person's head*
Kim: "See? What did I tell ya? She said she'd be annoyed if you insulted her stuff..."
9 comments:
Someone's passing should be respected. And their possessions certainly shouldn't become a laughing matter. I wonder why her own family didn't dispose of or divide up the estate among themselves.
You can haunt me, Spider...in fact, I believe I'd be rather insulted if you didn't!
I promise, though, I won't laugh at your stuff.
(well, I mean...you will get rid of that old couch before you kick off, right?)
That dahlia looks like a beached sea anenome… ananome… anenome… anemone... spiky thingy?
I can never remember flower names. My mother walks around the garden with me, pointing out what she planted, but do I remember? No. I recognise the words when I hear them again, but I can’t tell you what it looks like. I can spell them. I can’t spell sea creatures, but I can spell flower names. Chrysanthemum, Rhododendron (sounds like a geometric shape to me), and Poinsettia.
The only flowers I know by sight are roses, dandelions, pansies and violets, and poinsettias. But that’s by association, not a particular intelligence on my part.
But the dahlia is pretty... and very, very spiky! I like the spikiness!
My grandparents house always felt angry to me. I never felt comfortable in their house, which was bad beacuse sometimes when I was a kid I would spend entire summers there. Nothing ever happened, but I did feel "menaced" at times. Maybe it just hated kids, I am sure I was pretty obnoxious.
I wonder if it's possible to imbue objects with your spirit. If it is, I recommend a steady diet of death metal and primal scream therapy. That should leave some rough vibes on the old homestead.
If I ever became a ghost, you betcha I wouldn't be a nice one.
What's the point of being well behaved if you're dead?
"A Happy Phantom chasing nuns out in the yard!"
do you recognize it? Nish probably will..... Tori Amos had a fun sense of ghosts.
EEEEEEE! I was going to use that quote! Now I have to pick another!
"When the cities are on fire
With the burning flesh of men,
Just remember
That Death is not the End!"
Nick Cave doesn't sing about ghosts, persay, but he celebrates mortality in a most delicious way! :)
Oh fresh flowers in the kitchen.. is there anything lovelier? (barring carnations of course.. why do Husbands and Children seem to be hopelessly drawn to carnations??? ick!)...
As for your ghost, I'll have to remember that when I'm clearing out my MIL's house after she dies.. it'll be quite hard to find nice things to say about the gnomes and 6 sets of dishes... I'll start making a list of possible compliments now!
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