A Mirror Up to Nature

The Prince brings home a great deal of trash. Sadly, he won an award from the city based in part on his compulsive scavenging.

And once anything is in his clutches, he can't let go. This is why an ancient and crappy and partially dismantled (don't ask) upright piano has been occupying a third of the back porch for the past six weeks -- the old hulk is worth something, right? Ivory keys?

Unfortunately the garage is too full for it to fit. As is a friend's garage that he borrowed some years ago, and the basement, and I won't even mention the attic because hauling a piano through a hatch in the linen closet is not feasible, even if there was space. Baby's Gameboy, circa 1990, will be worth something someday, even if the front of the case is cracked and the battery hatch is...somewhere.Won't it?

But sometimes he drags home something happy-making. Like the  frameless oval mirror that leaned against the piano for a week or so before I had my eureka moment.

Nah, truth be, there was no eureka moment. There was a moment of utter frustration when I was about to toss a brick through it (oops) but instead stuck it in the back of a garden border, leaning against the wall and found that it prettily reflected the flowers and foliage, obscured an unsightly tangle of vine, and created a day dreamy hole in my universe....a through the looking glass world (where the porch wicker is not heaped high to accommodate a musical corpse and the ceiling fan functions -- that's number twenty on the to-do list).

But how can I be bitter when ANOTHER large mirror appeared the other day, offering another escapist opportunity. (Rarely is there ever too much of a good thing, I say).  So here is the facing border, which happens to be undergoing a dark and unsightly period until the elephant ear emerges to fill a yawning gap.

Instead of a bare fence covered in a straggle of honeysuckle and ivy, the new/old mirror reflects a coleus and a red hibiscus (that is doing surprisingly well considering the dearth of sunshine in this particular spot), and a mammoth hydrangea (which has decided to be blue instead of pink this year).

Quite the improvement, thank you dear, she says, contemplating an oops moment for the damn piano.