Where There’s Smoke…

Now, isn’t this a lovely picture. It’s almost one of those doorways back in time, don’t you think? This is Zelda’s livingroom (yes, see there really is a Zelda – all this time you were probably thinking I was making her up). As you can see, Zelda has style, panache – her home is filled with lovely Deco antiques and replicas. Our designer friend, Margarita has spent an enormous amount of time helping Zelda to get things just right, just the way she wanted them, in her home. And a fine job it was/is.

But see there’s a problem…Zelda actually lives there. Don’t get me wrong, I love Zelda, in fact, she’s probably the best friend I’ve ever had but this girl has a talent. A rare and even enviable talent. A talent of having shit happen.

Have I mentioned she was once trapped beneath a giant trash can at 9 o’clock on a Sunday night? The moral to that story was, be careful how much wet sand you put into one giant trash can and watch those bumps as you’re rolling it to the curb. But…I digress.

Zelda is anti-heat. She just doesn’t like it. No if ands or buts, the heat is a baaad thing. Therefore, she has an air conditioner in every room in her house or one of those Sharper Image fancy-schmancy fan thingies. Anyway, last week I think it got up to about 75 degrees and Zelda was sweltering. Now this is really bad because apparently, Zelda has no sweat glands at all. She informed me early in our friendship that she does not sweat. (I wonder if she can get one of those handicap stickers for her car? Do you think it’s an official disease? We must look into that…)

Anyway, okay,  the girl doesn’t sweat, hates the heat, needs air conditioners wherever she goes. The other night, it was hot and she turned on the air conditioner in her livingroom. Well, as you can see, she has these lovely drapes and so forth and lovely as they are, apparently they block the air flow. So the solution, obviously, is to take the lovely drape and stuff it in the lovely lamp (pictured). And so she did.

The phone rang and as Zelda is wont to do, she started chatting it up with a chum. Well, as the time passed and evening started to come upon her, she turned on the lamp. And chatting away she went. After the call she got hungry and went to the kitchen to forage in the fridge. She did this and that, occasionally getting a whiff of something. “Hmmm, ” she thought, “what is that weird smell?” Then she saw a squirrel through the kitchen window and her mind went with it. When she was through watching the squirrel and feeding the pets and foraging in the fridge, her mind returned to that smell. Sniff, sniff, what could it be?

She shrugged and carried her samich and glass of milk to the livingroom, with the intent of settling down in front of the big-screen tv and vegging out for the night. She settled on the sofa and again the smell invaded her senses. It was stronger now. What could it be? She looked left, she looked right, she looked down then…she looked up.

Yikes, the curtain was on fire. I guess some bulbs burn more brightly than others. “Oh shit,” I think were her exact words.

The samich and milk were soon forgotten as she fought to save her drapes. Luckily that particular fabric enjoys a slow burn so there was no need for a fire extinguisher. A mere unstuffing of the drape from the lamp and Zelda blowing on the smolder seemed to do the trick.

The  house was saved but the curtain wasn’t quite so lucky.

I asked her what she was going to do and she said she’d just cut it. I can’t quite figure how cutting it is going to solve the problem or how it will look, but Zelda assures me no one will be the wiser.

Gotta go, time to go shopping with Zelda – she needs some Restoration Hardware tie-backs for the drapes. Now how the heck did we forget to get those? Must have been on the page of the catalogue that the dogs ate.  😉

WC