Saturday, December 11, 2010

Peacocks, Santa Bosoms & Parakeets

At the grocery store today a woman spontaneously said to me: "I love this music! And I don't even celebrate Christmas!" She was a breath of fresh air as she snatched up a bag of yellow onions and deposited them in her cart.

At the pet store, a man disguised as Santa was available for "Pet Portraits with Santa". When he stood up, his belt, which bisected his well-stuffed torso, cut him in half horizontally and he appeared to be sporting some very generous bosoms.

At the craft aka crap store, I saw a wreath made out of peacock feathers. There was one that was blue/green/black, and then one that was in shades of red. Uh, red peacocks? I think not. They literally stopped me, silenced me, they were exquisitely beautiful. But I just couldn't bring myself to buy one, dead peacocks et al.

I wandered the aisles (trying hard not to do a peacock call) amidst the chaos of artificial Christmas, in search of candle holders, but came up short. I think I'll carve some out of red apples -- I've done this before, the only trick is getting the hole the right size so the candle doesn't wobble. I'll level each apple with a neat trim across the bottom, et voila! Bingo. Candle holders. Compostable candle holders.

The only small animals at the pet store were mice, rats, Guinea pigs and ferrets, so I lingered in front of the aquariums for a long time. I've never had fish save for the odd goldfish which, for some reason, upon its certain death, got flushed down the toilet, but I was so taken with these lovely shimmery critters that I actually looked at aquarium hardware. Too much work, though, I think.

The parakeets were equally lovely, particularly an-almost completely white one with blue underpinnings. Again, too much work.

As a child I spent a lot of time in the pet department of our local W.T.Grant store, which was an easy walk from my house. It's been an age since I looked at fish and birds, and I don't know exactly what compelled me to do this today, but it was the perfect antidote to the rain, the Saturday traffic, the holiday frenzy.

(When I mentioned to Paul that I didn't buy the wreath because all I could think of was dead peacocks, he said, "well, maybe they, you know, just fell off....") Hmm. I might have to make a trek back to the crap store and get one tomorrow. And, if I get tired of it as a wreath it could easily double as a hat.)

6 comments:

  1. We used to have a pair of Peacocks, and were always told that to have their feathers indoors was 'Bad Luck'. We did it anyway!

    Well done for your compostable apple candle-holders. I might well do the same thing... thanks for the idea.

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  2. It is my understanding that this birds shed their feathers with some regularity, and that killing them is not necessary. We have quite a few farm hereabout that raise them, along with the goats, sheep and cattle. They can be noisy buggers.

    Their feathers are so very pretty. When I was a child, we would buy them at the San Diego Zoo.

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  3. The eye of the Peacock feathers are bad luck! Don't have them indoors, ever. Beautiful, yes. I believe the bad luck thing because the day my sister got some and put in her house, it burned to the ground, true! Adoring them from afar is best!

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  4. Although the peacock feathers are beautiful objects from nature, and the living caged parakeets are beautiful to see, it's not necessary to own either one of them. But I would like to know, How could Santa Clause be in the pacific NW, when I just saw him/her down here yesterday? sp

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  5. Sometimes its just hard to go with the flow isn't it. Love the apple candle holders, will definitely do that.

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  6. Love the apple candle holder idea, too, T. Thanks. We will make some here and light a candle with you in mind.

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