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There.  It took an hour to get set up and to put a coat of my super-mixed paint on my new aluminum fence.  I am happy to report that the color is perfect!  I couldn’t have picked one out of a paint card lineup and done any better.  The color blends well with the dirt (a big coordination plus in the desert) and contrasts beautifully with the blue sky above the fence as it sets off anything that still happens to be growing green.

I had the opportunity to notice very specifically how fast a person can cycle through the five states I mentioned in today’s earlier posts.  There I was, carefully adjusting my upside-down plastic five gallon ex-pickle pails, making sure they were as firmly planted in the uneven dirt as I could manage so I could perch on tiptoe to reach the top fence line and not fall over.  Down the corrugation I flicked my sloppy 1/3 water logged paint, getting my rhythm as I watched for the inevitable paint drips leaking down from the screws I so carefully put into the fence yesterday.

But that’s the problem with getting your rhythm, finding your beat.  You can lose it.  But I guess if you never find your beat in the first place you don’t even notice!

Fortunately I was near the end of the fence when I went to readjust my pail-stands a little bit further to my right, holding the greasy wet paint bucket by its side.  OOPS!  Wet bucket, slippery wet fake latex gloves (I guess Latex is a new endangered species) — and the bucket went flying — down, of course.

Enter my emotional reaction.  No more “Gee I am content spending an hour doing this job.  I sure am glad the sun finally came up so I could get at it.”

No more “Gee I sure am happy with this color!”

Just as the bucket left my hands and even before it hit the ground (and spilled all over my overturned pail-stools):

ANGER – “Linda!  Now look at what you’ve done!  Obviously you should have been holding onto the paint bucket handle not its sides!”  Too late at the moment for that admonishment based on wisdom.

FEAR:  “Oh, Gosh!  There goes the paint all over the ground” as I reached as fast as possible to pick up the bucket and right it.  “Is there any paint left?”

SADNESS:  “What a loss and what a waste of paint!”  That was true.

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Then, as I flicked paint off of the overturned pickle pail to swipe it onto the fence as fast as I could before it all ran off into the dirt, “Gee, I could stand on that now burnt-orange pail again, get paint all over the bottom of my shoes, and walk around my yard leaving fancy footprints!  How cool would that be?”  Made me smile, though I denied myself that footprinting treat.

Silly is good.  Humorous is good…..

At the same time I sure was glad, though, that I only lost half of what I had started with instead of all the paint because I was so far down the fence line when my ‘accident’ happened.  Had ALL the remaining paint spilled, and had I no more to finish my job, my resiliency would not have been so resplendent.  Of that fact I am quite certain.

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