Stage fright

I have spent the last two days helping to stage a home for an open house. It belongs to one of my best friends, the Shepherdess. She is always herding a flock of bleating children with the same phlegmatic calm as an old shepherd, all while looking bright eyed and fresh faced. Amazing. Anyway, we managed to make some good progress, but we needed quite a few accessories for almost no money.
And would you believe it - all this snow has seriously cut down on garage sales. Wimps!
In steps Goodwill and Salvation Army.
I made the Artist come with me because I have an irrational fear of places that smell like other people. It's sort of like walking into a morgue filled with little corpses of vases and clocks and sweaters that someone thought were a good idea at one point.
Now, I don't feel this way about garage sales. Maybe because I can look the owner in the face and see that their garage is not filled with rats nests and fly paper.
I also don't feel this way about antique shops. When something has been dead long enough it is pretty again. Sort of like a mummy.

Oh, shut up, Tapper and get back to the point. What was the point?
Right, back to Goodwill. I found five various throw pillows that had the colors we desperately needed and that were in nice condition. I wish I took a picture, but I didn't. I was distracted by the shame.
I bought a pillow with roosters on it.
I needed the colors and the pattern and they were definitely not your run of the mill roosters.
They had a very hip, trendy glint in their eyes.

The Artist watched me load up my very full arms, roosters and all with a sly smile on his face.
Artist: This is hurting you, isn't it?
Tapper: A little bit, yeah.

So I am posting a picture of our newest piece of art, just because it makes me feel better about having several roosters stashed in my trunk overnight. Wow, I should have opened with that line. The Artist shot this photo in a little town in Maine six years ago. We finally had it transferred to canvas. This picture inspired me so much that I wrote an entire novel set in the village you see in the lantern's reflection. As soon as my novels sound as good as this picture looks, I will be famous!

In the meantime, Shepherdess, don't worry. We made those roosters rock!