A bed and toilet seats

Mike may not qualify for sainthood, but close.  When he left last trip, I gave him my adjustable bed frame--thinking that it would be too high for my antique bed.  Within days, I regretted it--so he brought it back this trip and spent today redesigning it to fit the double bed.  I can hardly wait to go to bed with a good book: Syllabus, by Lynda Barry, the cartoonist.   I feel like Little Red Riding Hood: now my bed is "just right."

On our way to dinner, we stopped at the Toilet Seat Museum around the corner--one of the quirkiest places in town.  Barney Smith, a retired 94-year-old plumber has been working on his project for fifty years and has a story for every one of his painted/collaged toilet seats.   Mike, lover of stories and quirky things, enjoyed every minute of it.

I asked Barney if he had a favorite and he went straight to "When Earth's Last Picture is Painted"--a poem he recited in church as a child.  He recited the Rudyard Kipling poem to us in full:

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew
And those that were good shall be happy
They'll sit in a golden chair
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
With brushes of comet's hair
They'll find real saints to draw from
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul
They'll work for an age at a sitting
And never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are!