My Week 252: Outdoor Living, Jason Says Goodbye

Recently Ken and I had our 29th anniversary, and we decided to buy some outdoor furniture for the porch Ken is putting on the front of the house. It’s almost finished and it looks great, but if we’re going to use it, we need somewhere to sit. And here’s the first thing I discovered—patio furniture is REALLY f*cking expensive. Apparently, they’re all made of some kind of weird resin now that are supposed to last forever and costs a fortune. Well, if I’m not going to be buried with it, I really don’t see the point. The second thing I discovered is that Ken has no sense of humour, because whenever we’re in a store and the salesperson asked if we need help, I say, in an Irish accent, “I’m looking for Paddy. Paddy O’Furniture” and Ken never even cracks a smile. I mean, who WOULDN’T find that funny? The salespeople always laugh VERY heartily as they try to offload their outrageously costly goods onto us. On Saturday afternoon, Ken and I went out to see if there were any sales on:

Ken: I really don’t see the point in spending exuberant amounts of money on porch furniture.
Me: I think you mean ‘exorbitant’.
Ken: Huh?
Me: It’s not ‘exuberant’. That means, like, REALLY happy.
Ken: OK, but if you did decide to spend that much on patio furniture, you’d have to be pretty happy about it.
Me: HERE IS ALL MY MONEY! WHEEE!! Ah, I see what you mean.

We made our way to Lowes, where they were having a terrific sale, and then we met Roger, who sweetened the deal by allowing us a ‘scratch and save’ card even though the furniture we wanted was on clearance. We ended up getting a very good deal, so while it wasn’t exorbitant, it WAS exuberant.

And it seems like everyone is trying to spruce up their property right now, which brings me to the point of this seemingly mundane exploration of a particular Saturday morning in the hell that is a Canadian summer. 32 degrees Celsius, 45 with the humidex as the weather experts like to remind us. (Saturday was also K’s 21st birthday, so we all went out to an outdoor paintball place with the lovely V and her family, which is how you should ALWAYS spend three hours in extremely hot weather. I did not ‘paintball’—I was the official photographer, and I was still on the verge of heatstroke. But Happy Birthday, K—you’re the best child a mother could ask for.)

Anyway, as I’ve been driving around town, I’ve had the chance to notice some of the strange lawn ornaments that people like to decorate their yards with. Personally, I love garden statuary, and we have a few around the property, but it’s a full acre so they’re not overwhelming like some places I’ve seen where there’s a gnome every two feet. Here are a few things that I’ve seen lately though that really generate more questions than answers:

1) The Godfather Flower Bed

Let me make you an offer you can’t refuse.

I mean, what kind of horse farm IS this? Can you imagine the conversation that must have inspired this particular outdoor motif?

Horse Dude: Hey, I was thinking about the best way to advertise our horse farm.
Horse Lady: A statue of a horse?
Horse Dude: No. Just the head. People will know we mean business.
Horse Woman: Eccellente!

2) The Ozzy Osbourne Collection

Is that a bat or a dove?

I saw a woman buying one of these at Home Depot. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t it look like she’s about to bite the head off that bird?! And like she’s already done it a few times already? Put her next to the horse head—she’ll be right at home.

3) The Rainbow Rooster

Cock-a-doodle-doo.

We saw this 6 foot tall fellow outside a house on a back country road. What would possess someone to put the Kellogg’s Corn Flake Rooster on their lawn? I like cereal as much as the next person, but I certainly have no interest in having a giant leprechaun greet our visitors. But if I DID have a giant leprechaun, guess what I would name him? That’s right. Paddy. Paddy O’Furniture. Man, that never gets old.

As I said, Ken and I have several pieces of garden statuary around the property: there’s Harry the Heron, who stands by our back door, a statue of Bottom from A Midsummer Night’s Dream underneath a shaded arbour in the back, and a small black cat, curled up and sleeping, that we put on the bench over Raven’s grave. But I think my favourite piece of garden art is definitely “Dog in a Box”:

 

Jason Says Goodbye

You may remember a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Jason Momoa and how his cardboard likeness had been watching over us at our secret location. But now it seems that maybe Aquaman himself was responsible for all the water mishaps we’d been having  because last Wednesday, the skies opened, and a torrential rain flooded the building. We literally had to evacuate over 800 people because water was shooting up like geysers out of the drains and it was dangerously close to all the electrical stuff. In addition, the parking lot flooded and my car was one aisle over from floating away. We put Jason up on a table out of harm’s way, where he stood watching us enigmatically. Or was it SMUGLY, like a god toying with his creations? At any rate, the next day, my colleague came in, quietly packed Jason into his box and took him home. Personally, I’ll miss his calm presence, but I won’t miss his watery antics.

 

48 thoughts on “My Week 252: Outdoor Living, Jason Says Goodbye”

  3. I love your dog in a box garden decor! Hey I’m starting to think that Ken doesn’t have a sense of humor because Paddy O’Furniture is freaking hilarious! That horse head is kind of disturbing and yet I’m jealous that I didn’t think of it first, lol.

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  5. You lose all credibility criticizing other people’s lawn statuary when you admit you have one of Bottom in your garden. Not only is his name one a juvenile Ozzy Osborne, or an adult Angus Youbg, would consider quite naughty, but he has the head of an ass. Although you gain back all credibility with Dog In A Box.
    I just hope y’all all find a way to stay cool.

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    • It’s a beautiful statue though—I’ll have to post a pic. But I agree that Dog in a Box is much more dignified. The heat broke here last night—it’s a gorgeous Sunday. Hope it’s done the same for you!

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  6. I was with you until you expressed your opinion about the 6 foot rooster. My life for the foreseeable future will be spent in the pursuit of one to place right outside my front door in the hopes that it will make the Fed Ex driver’s day that much more whimsical. Or terrifying.

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  10. Ieronimo di Maltibella says:

    Where I used to live, there was a guy that had a giant fiberglass/resin rooster that he used to move randomly.The property was several acres so you never knew where it would be. Freaked me out the first time I saw it in a different place, because it had been up by the house and then it was right by the road looking over the fence. Made me want something more obnoxious and offensive than a chicken to position towards a crabby, complaining neighbor’s property, like a daggy resin sheep or something.

    Bye, Jason :/

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  14. We need to go to a wax museum… possibly with a senior citizen tour group because any senior citizen on a tour is cool! Then we will insist on renaming all wax figures, don’t worry the seniors will back us, (this is why I suggested them) and then we can put name tags on the wax people, and Trigger the horse. ‘Hello, my name is…)’ guess what just went on my bucket list!😊🌷😉

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  19. Clearly there’s a movie here about failed Robert Langdon protégé Paddy O’Furniture (exuberantly) decoding all the arcane clues hiding in plain sight in our everyday garden sculptures on a quest to find the fabled Fountain of Youth!

    Happy anniversary, you two kids! Twenty-nine years ain’t nothin’ to scoff at!

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