Wind Chimes

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Today I am grateful for wind chimes.  I have a very small patio that gets almost no sun, so instead of hanging as many cumbersome, touchy plants, which have great demands like water, like we used to, we now have more wind chimes decorating the space. 

We also don’t get gale winds.  At our last house the wind was always so strong when I hung wind chimes I woke up every morning to so much bell-ringing that every day felt like a new pope had been declared.  I prefer the light, tinkly sound of piccolo and bells, rather than the full out percussion of a marching band.

My favorite experience with wind chimes was in Matamoros, Mexico.  My husband was nearly finished working at a long-term consulting job in Texas.  I was to go down to help him pack up, rent a small truck and we’d drive it home together.  Prior to this he had told me and our friend, David, that the company he was working with could use some team building and diversity training.  Okay!  They agreed to meet with David and me to hear our proposal.  So while I was in Texas with John, David flew in, we made the proposal and waited.  This is not a good thing.  David and I are like Lucy and Ethel.

Over dinner and wine, we got to talking about what to do with the left-over time before John was done working and David would fly home.  David and I would like to blame John for this next part and when he tells the story he blames us, but the gist of it is. . .Since we had to rent a truck to take John’s stuff home anyway, and because it had unlimited mileage on it anyway, maybe David and I could drive it down to Mexico to see if we could get some great Mexican pottery to add to the Indonesia stuff we already had.  (Another story.  Stick with me this week.)  We all laughed and thought what a funny thing that would be to do.  Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

The next day John went to work.  When he got home the truck was there and we were packed to drive to Mexico with it the next day.  “It’s so big,” John said.  “I only have a few small pieces of furniture and some decorations to haul home.  I thought we’d rent the tiny truck.”

”Yeah, it’s a little bigger because they didn’t have the smaller one but they gave us a deal on the rental because it will cost more for gas and so David and I are driving to Mexico tomorrow to look for a few pieces of pottery but I think it will be okay, don’t you?”  Fast talking and run-on sentences are my forte.  I’m surprised my husband doesn’t have vertigo from shaking his head at the ideas David and I can come up with, but he just gets it.  I don’t know many other men who would, but I’m sure glad he does.

So off we go in a monster truck.  To Mexico.  Driving.  Totally clueless.   We did find some pottery, then wandered into a great, huge shop with furniture and a billion wind chimes hanging overhead like slow moving clouds. The business card of Las 2 Republicas, reads “The most unique cocktail lounge in northern Mexico.  Home of the famous margaritas!”  Swell. Eduardo Melguizo plopped a huge margarita into our hands the minute we walked in the door.  David and I sat in his furniture, sipping our drinks, discussing how great it was that we had a truck in Mexico.  Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

“We could buy some of this furniture,” one of us said, I don’t remember who. “We could just throw it in the back of the truck and away we go,” another said.  Clinking glasses, jokes about how our spouses wouldn’t even be surprised.  Yuks all around.

When our drinks were empty,  Eduardo would raise his arm and wave it through dozens of the overhead wind chimes.  A minion would appear with another margarita.  Drink gone?  Wind chimes tinkle in a cacophony of noise.  New drink.

So that’s why I’m grateful for wind chimes today.  I can’t tell you how many times the chimes rang that day great day in Mexico, but we had a blast!  The only problem is whenever I hear wind chimes, even on my own patio, I expect a minion to plop a huge, dripping, margarita into my hand.