Ladies of Spain, hm hm hm hm…
My dad plays Lady of Spain on the banjo. It’s my favorite. I told my mother that, and she said, “Yes, that is pretty funny.”
And I’m, like, “funny? What do you mean?”
And she said, “Honey, it’s a joke. Lady of Spain? On the banjo?”
And I go, “I don’t get it.”
And she’s like, “well…it’s not a song you associate with the banjo, is all.”
And I say, “I don’t see what’s so funny about that.”
I get it now. I guess. Anyhow, this lady of Spain is a large cast metal bust of a lady. From Spain. My grandfather picked it up somewhere and she’s been smirking in my livingroom ever since. When I was a child, her jewelry was touched with different colors of shiny enamel. My grandfather again. He had outbursts of taste and spasms of tacky. A real Renaissance man.
We call her Chastity. I didn’t get that joke for years, either. See, she’s destined to remain chaste. Because…no snootch. Her map doesn’t have the Netherlands on it, know’m saying?
Later, Mother had her bronzed. Turns out, the original casting material was…zinc or something.
Mother didn’t like Chastity. It’s that prim smile. Looks a touch judgmental for her comfort. Mother was no better than she should have been, as the saying goes. She couldn’t afford to have a lot of judgment aimed in her direction.
Chastity gets decorated at Christmas time. The rest of the year, she’s mostly a hat rack. Yep, I’m still Spring cleaning. I have a feeling y’all will get to meet a lot of my stuff.
July 2, 2007 — 3:52 pm
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