The HazMat Lady

Here are some of the ways we amuse ourselves:
1. Watching Lisle drink out of the bird bath.
2. Watching the HazMat lady mow her lawn.
3. Looking at the sunflowers.

I was getting ready for bed and since the dogs use the sheet to wipe their feet, grabbed a clean sheet which had been dried on the line and stored on the shelf, all balled up instead of folded flat (by me). I don't have time to fold sheets. If it served a purpose, I would fold sheets, but once you lie on a sheet, it doesn't matter whether or not it was ever folded. Also, it's a waste of time to eat bread, which is mostly air.

"Help me," I said to Phyllis as I pulled off the dirty sheet, stained with muddy paw prints and feeling like sand paper. I had already taken the blanket to the back yard and shaken much of the hair and dried dirt off that.

We pulled the mattress away from the wall. We ran our hands along the edge of elastic on the clean sheet, looking for the tag so we we would know which corner to start with. Phyllis felt something that crinkled like paper.

"Tag?" I said.

"No."

"Candy wrapper?"

"Leaves." Phyllis cupped the palm-full of crumbled leaves and threw them towards the door. They floated to the carpet and disappeared.

We found the tag and stretched the new sheet over the mattress and then pushed it back to the wall. I hurried to cover it with the blanket before the dogs could wipe their paws on the clean sheet.

When you think of a bird bath, you think of sparrows and robins splashing about, cleaning and cooling. You don't think of a Saint Bernard standing next to it and lapping up a good drink. There is a bucket of clean water in the house where Lisle could drink. This is one example of a dichotomy. You don't think "dog" when you think "bird bath."

The HazMat lady lives across the street. When she mows her yard, she looks like a cross between an Egyptian mummy and a Muslim woman in full burka. We concluded she either has severe allergies, or her yard is loaded with land mines. Her yard is the size of a newspaper and it must take her all morning to spend five minutes mowing, what with having to get in full riot gear first. Her job is also a big secret because she wouldn't tell me where she works. "I'd rather not say," she said, smiling. She works at night, when she leaves the house to go to work. Phyllis thinks she must work for the county, something to do with juvenile delinquents, and she is afraid of recrimination. I believe she is in the witness protection program. The HazMat lady is mysterious, and we love her for that.

The sunflowers are about eight feet tall now. My sister, Kathy, warned us about that. She said that those things are going to get to be six feet, and they have surpassed that. She also warned us that they will have to be pulled out of the ground when they are dead. Still, we like to look at them, and Phyllis did a real good job planting, watering and feeding them. They are clearly the prettiest sunflowers in all of Denver, and the HazMat lady is no doubt envious.