Weekend Plans Post: The Garden Gnomes That Weren’t There
When I was a little kid, my mom had a cabinet that had several owl statuettes in it. Somewhere between 4 and 6 inches tall, made out of different kinds of glass or porcelain or plaster. Different styles, different species. I asked her “Why do you have those?” and she sighed heavily and said “I carelessly said that I liked owls once.”
I have about 40 garden gnomes. I have never purchased a single one. When we bought the house back in 2005, we noticed that there was a porch in the back that was about six feet by eight feet with no stairs down to the ground. It was just a little dinky porch appropriate for two people to sit on or two or three to stand and smoke on. I made a joke that it was a little Mussolini porch. “I could give speeches to my garden gnomes!”, I carelessly joked.
Soon thereafter, people started buying me garden gnomes. “Saw this, thought of you”, that sort of thing. We went to visit friends up in Denver and they asked us to meet them at a particular lunch place and they met up with us and Maribou gave them a big hug and a small gift of a pack of candy cigarettes that we had gotten at the recent State Fair. “OH THANKS!”, one of them said. “LET ME GO PUT THIS IN MY CAR!” and she scurried off and the rest of us sat down and ordered sandwiches and she came back 20 minutes later, flushed, and said “wow, we parked farther away than I thought!”
I thought nothing of it.
And then, after a lovely meal, we walked back down to the car and there were 33 garden gnomes in it, strewn about. How my friends laughed and laughed. “They were on sale!”, they told me. “Three for five bucks! We had to get all of them!” The pack of candy cigarettes? That had the key to the car in it. Of course it did.
When the neighborhood kids would mow the back yard, they asked if they could arrange the garden gnomes and, of course, we said they could. They regularly set up speech circles and mini battles and goodness knows what.
Then friends who got garden gnomes as presents from their family just started giving them to us. “Hey, we know you collect garden gnomes.”
I ended up with a bunch of themed ones. Here’s a statuette of a cat eating garden gnomes. We had that one in our front garden. Here’s one of a recreation of Kirk’s fight against the Gorn. We had that in our front garden too. We also had this epic garden gnome dragon fight.
Let me restate: We never purchased nor even ever expressed a desire for garden gnomes. We just sort of started getting them.
Well, one day a couple of weeks ago, I was walking from the car to the house past our little garden in the front and… our garden gnomes were gone. I found myself vaguely confused. I mean… who would take a garden gnome out of a garden? Sure, they were novelty versions. But they were still, you know, *NOT THEIRS*.
And so these little garden gnomes that I had never purchased nor asked for that ended up in the front of the house are now gone.
What is the world coming to.
This weekend, I will spend time contemplating the transitory nature of everything. Also, since Maribou is visiting friends away (on her first trip in a good long while), I will also be batching it. And since this last week was a whole bunch of 12 hour days putting out the fire that didn’t go out over Christmas break, I’m even actively looking forward to it.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is the Dragon Attack Garden Gnome Statue.)
What’s on my docket? Well, I’m going garden gnome shopping, of course…Report
Are you sure the gnomes aren’t just on an around-the-world tour? You might start getting photos of their exploits in the mail…
My weekend is going to be boxing stuff up and moving it to the storage unit; I decided to go all-in on house renovation. Of course, I still have to find a trustworthy general contractor but I’m telling myself that’s future me’s problem, now I have to bung books and fabric into boxes and move it out. (The eventual carrot to get me to keep doing this is both a renovated kitchen and the chance to paint my sewing room a pretty color once I get a little drywall repair sorted)Report
The gnomes departed last month. I’ve checked the mail every day (excepting Sundays and Holidays) since.
They have not yet written.Report
I picture some health official trying to jam a swab into their plaster noses.Report
They’re in Alaska.Report
Covid outbreak in my son’s preschool so we are on lockdown until we can get him a PCR test Monday. I will spend the day praying it doesn’t end with me in one of those dumb viral videos where the kids interrupt a zoom call. At least there is legit snow to play in for the first time in years. Also it will be a good excuse to stream the new Ghostbusters movie tomorrow.Report
“dumb viral videos”
We just call it work now.Report
Any time the camera turns off I assume it’s because there’s a toddler running around with scissors or a spouse wrapped in a towl whipping eggs or something like that.Report
Today’s the last day of my old-school self imposed ten day isolation. I’m still not sure I had covid, but whatever it was, it was mild and it’s largely passed. Saturday I’m thinking of doing all kinds of stuff outdoors, like…go outdoors. Also, not eat delivered pizza. You have no idea how exotic that sounds.
There’s an age for themed gifts. About 8-10 for boys, 11-13 for girls. After that, you’ve probably got more than one interest.Report
Dang, I will have to help resupply you with the weird garden gnomes again.Report
Hoping there’s a weird(er) neighbor who has them in a cage with a Saruman statue looking over them…
Went with my middle son to a firearm safety course specifically for CCW… that’s the UVA junior who just turned 21 (for those keeping score at home). He’s been accepted into Marine OCS this summer and wanted to get his CCW permit prior to that (which would make the course moot). I already have mine, but figured nothing wrong with a refresher and maybe will learn a thing or two about the changing laws. Turns out the only thing they won’t discuss are the changing laws — other than to point out where you can read them, what they are in the broadest non-legal-advice kinda way, and sternly admonish us to know them and obey them. But hey, refresher on safety and a newer Cert in case I need it in the future with all the changing laws…
The mildly interesting cultural phenomenon out here in Red McRedville was that despite every possible cultural marker for MAGA enthusiast (the class was at his home) — and I mean *all* of them plus a few new ones — he didn’t make a single political comment or reference or shade or nuthin’ — even though it was 1/6 too. His professionalism was extreme, except for the part where he pulled off his belt to show us the *very best gun belt* and had to unzip his pants to put everything back together again… but that was just guy stuff of a certain SES.
Rest of the weekend is probably just keeping the fire stoked as our corporate bonus time ends and I’m back into the politics and strife we call B2B Tech Sales.Report
I mean, they’ve gotta be in walking distance from me, right?
But they can’t use them in the front yard. They have to be in the back yard. And if you only look at them yourself, you know “I stole these. They aren’t mine.” And so every time you see the Gnome and the Gorn, you know that you failed the test.
I don’t understand it.Report
It’s odd too because garden gnomes are like $10 on ebay… so not some sort of ??? profit scheme either.
Unlike my dad who bought my mother an expensive German Christmas plate every year they have been married… only to discover via the miracle of ebay that everyone in the world bought the exact same ‘collectible’ Christmas plates… so 50-years of marriage has a German Open Market value of about $500 – which is probably about 10% the price he paid in non-inflation-adjusted dollars. Think about it… Apple and Microsoft stocks WERE RIGHT THERE.Report
Always keep an open mind about an ‘I teach the CCW class’ tier gun dude. Not that we’re really afforded niceties like CCW up this way (may issue is really more like maybe issue, if you’re a former cop, and even then…), but the classes exist and different classes are required now for a license to buy a handgun. My experience is that the people teaching really do not want to talk politics. At least in Blue McBlueville I think there’s a sense among them of needing as many friends as they can get.
Contrast that with a lot of the shop owners on the other hand who are to a fault disdainful of everyone. No matter who you are, what your politics, whether you have that anti-Martin O’Malley t-shirt they all sell, you are an amateur, a perpetual beginner, who has invaded their rec room with your newb incompetence.Report
“who are to a fault disdainful of everyone”
This is so true. We go to a mom-n-pop hardware store that has the nicest possible people helping you with all your rural needs — the exact opposite of Lowes/Home Depot — but the guy at the gun counter? Total dick.
I’ve converted my son to an external hammer double/single guy (actually all my firearms have external hammers) — and nothing makes the gun counter guy more disdainful than asking for an out of fashion firearm (that isn’t a 1911). So we went back home did our research and came back with a hard-copy of the item we were looking for including the SKU. He said it would be impossible to get… all his suppliers were tapped, blah, blah, blah. So we showed him the paper and said it was a pity we’ll have to order online and pick it up at some other place. Turns out there were plenty in stock via his supplier… had it in less than a week.
Regarding the instructor… yeah, that is my baseline assumption too… and if we’d met at some neutral location where a lot of these courses are offered I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. At his home? Whelp, it’s good to know how to code switch.Report
Dude that’s too funny. There used to be a store owner with a place a little more towards Baltimore who was a notorious a-hole (I think he has since closed up). I would see him at the Dulles show just cleaning up on grossly inflated transfer fees but treating everyone like garbage. It’s even more astounding because all of those people he’s interacting with are going to have to come pick their items up from his store where he was going to have a chance to sell them stuff. He lost my business after being particularly dickish when I asked him a pretty innocuous question about the uppers he had.
I’m totally with you on the external hammer DA/SA (to the extent I am anything with handguns it is a Sig Sauer enthusiast, love my P220). Sometimes I feel like the odd man out with all these glock people but whatever.Report
Yeah, if they’d had a P229 in stock the first time we’d’ve walked out with one.Report
My grandmother was given an otter statuette by a good friend so she set it out for her friend to see. Soon all her friends were giving her otters. I gave her one for Christmas once. There were eighty or so on the still of an oriel window. It wasn’t till after she died that my aunt told me how much grandmommy hated otters. She valued the gesture and displayed them out of duty and a desire to please her friends but knew that each birthday or Christmas meant four or five more.Report
The last time I saw a garden gnome up close is when a coworker brought one to a meeting in Zurich.Report