My relentlessly Marian yard

You want to know real tragedy? Real tragedy is that, not too long ago, we had a used bathtub in our possession, and we brought it to the dump. We did not save it and make one of those spectacularly awful Mary on the Half-Shell shrines for our front yard.

Happily, my parents happened to have an old washing machine drum just hanging around unappreciated. Whenever I say, “Want to hear my stupid idea?” my husband says, “Yes,” almost like he means it. This time, here’s what it won him:

[img attachment=”108797″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”mary shrine” /]

Behold, my relentlessly Marian rock garden washer tub shrine thingy.

It . . . might need an upgrade. There are actually plenty of flowers in the back yard, and I could have found a nice spot for the statue there; but I really wanted our front yard to scream, “WARNING: HERE BE CATHOLICS.” So front yard it is. The two sad marigolds are the only flowers I happen to have; and the sticks behind, propping the statue up, I’m going to call a trellis. Please don’t argue. I’m feeling very fragile right now. Go fund me, why don’t you?

The drum has two giant rocks and a bunch of soil inside, and the statue is wedged inside a flower pot which is filled with soil; and there are more rocks holding it down, as you can see. And the, the, the trellis.

Between the overall classiness of the statue itself, the careful placement of the finest rocks, and the overall blinginess of the galvanized steel, I think I’ve achieved my first goal of grabbing eyeballs in a relentlessly Catholic way. Anyone who chooses to continue and enter our house will get exactly what they should certainly expect.

Now I need tips for how to achieve my second goal, to wit: making it look less like I hired a devout chimpanzee to put it together. What would you do? Roses? Sparklers? Dead doves?

My other issue is that this is the whitest indigenous Our Lady of Guadalupe I ever saw.

[img attachment=”108795″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”mary face” /]

Our Lady of Duxbury, Vt, reporting for duty, as soon as she finds some sunblock.

But when I was looking at statues (I had a credit to spend), I thought, “If we’re going to have a statue of Mary in the front of our house, I want people to notice it. I want the kids to remember it. And I want to remember, ‘Am I not your mother?'” So we went for gaudily evocative, if relentlessly Caucasian.

[img attachment=”108796″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”angel face” /]

Also, I await my trophy for not saying anything offensive to our Italian or Hispanic or French Canadian friends in regards to their lawn-decorating habits, because that would be wrong.

Am I not your blogger? Am I not?

Oh, you’re relentless! I’m sorry I asked.

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