I couldn’t figure it out at first…
Apparently, Maria, our beloved, devout Catholic, long suffering housekeeper of over twenty years, who has tolerated, but WILL NOT touch, move, or dust our collection of nudes, or fish with tits—has somehow, just learned the word FUCK.
And since, as a friend of mine observed, our house is an actual fuck store, Maria is APPALLED—as evidenced by her silent protest which I’ve immortalized on my Insta page — @jbertolus.
Mia Culpa dear Maria
All of this reminded me of her backstory, a viewer favorite from 2017.
xox
Enjoy!
Our house is a maze of contradictions so, how can I blame Maria for being confused?
Maria is a our once-a-week housekeeper.
She came along with all the motorcycles, cars and dogs; in other words, the menagerie that was my husband’s dowry of sorts when we got married.
Now, after all these years of cleaning my toilet, and going through my medicine cabinet, and that drawer next to the bed—Maria qualifies as family.
She has to be. She is the keeper of all of our secrets.
And like any self respecting family member, she screws up and I want to kill her—here’s why: For the life of her, she cannot tell the difference between trash and a treasure.
I collect little pieces of nature which I’m lucky enough to find all around our property. Assorted nests, abandoned beehives in the eaves, fallen branches filled with hummingbird nests, heart shaped rocks, found scraps of paper, and even dollar bills with cryptic messages scrawled on them that I’m sure are just for me. I’ve stumbled upon old skeleton keys, petrified tree pods, pinecones, old worm wood, even animal skulls, bones and teeth.
Then I go out to flea markets and various other secret haunts to deliberately look for this kinda stuff. Afterwards, I cart home my finds to live among the seashells and rocks, beach glass and mermaids.
I also collect cool, rusty old metal mermaids.
And shiny. I can’t resist sparkly, shine stuff.
A sparkly mermaid would render me speechless with joy.
Then I go about artistically displaying all of my found treasures around the house on tables and bookshelves—as art.
I found them, I love, them, and I want to look at them everyday.
Saturday is the day Maria comes. It is a day of bittersweet agony.
The house smells of lemon pledge, Murphy’s oil soap and all things holy. It is spick and span’d within an inch of it’s life.
THAT is the sweet.
Now for the bitter.
Maria does not appreciate my taste in art. The woman is convinced I am batshit crazy.
For instance, I have the most realistic looking pair of ceramic fortune cookies displayed in my kitchen. I used to move them around at will. Sometimes they lived on the shelf next to the cookbooks, other times over by the oils and salts next to the stove.
Then, one Saturday night, I noticed they were missing. Did she break them? She has broken so many things—irreplaceable, expensive things—yet, she remains—because she’s family. Her habit, after she breaks something into a million pieces, is to put all the bits on a napkin, or if at all possible, prop it up, waiting to be discovered. In other words, she doesn’t dispose of it.
Still, my instincts told me to check the trash. There they were, outside in the black bin, my ceramic fortune cookies completely intact at the bottom of a plastic Gap Bag filled with vacuum cleaner hazarai .
When I asked her in my broken Spanish about it the following week, she looked at me as if I were wearing an Iguana as a hat, and carefully chose two words: STALE. TRASH.
For weeks she threw them away, until I finally was able to convince her they were…art.
My sweet Maria tries so hard to grasp this concept.
I get it. Nests, (even thought I’ve sprayed them with clear polyurethane) are hard to dust, animal skulls are supposed to be buried, and crumpled paper with sociopathic looking scrawl on it—well that’s just trash!
She has even put the five or six cryptic dollar bills I’ve collected IN MY WALLET. Where I’ve pulled them out and almost tipped a valet—with my own treasured art.
Last spring in Santa Barbara, I found an abandoned, giant bird’s nest. It is a masterpiece. A gift from God. Stiff with shellac, yet extremely delicate, I have it displayed in a place of prominence—as art. Nature’s art.
As many times as I’ve asked her not to, begged her to just skip over it; I know she picks it up and dusts because I find pieces of it which look suspiciously like random twigs, in the trash.
“It’s okay” I tell her, “Please don’t touch this, I’ll live with a little dust”.
But she cannot help herself—it’s not art to her, it’s a table full of dirty wood. And so the nest—my treasure—is dwindling away.
My collectables have confused her to the point that she leaves crumpled paper (legitimate trash) right where she finds it, and asks if she can throw away an overripe peach. I just have to laugh.
I have to mention the real art. The nudes. I collect vintage and current photographs and paintings of female (and one male) nudes.
To her that is Not art. It is pornography.
She does not go near them. She cannot bring herself to touch them, I can tell by the inch of dust they accumulate until I get around to dusting them.
And by-the-way, a mermaid is an abomination. It is topless fish. A dusty fish with tits.
To Maria, one thing is clear. I’m an iguana wearing pervert, who likes to collect trash, pornography, bones that should be buried, and stale food—and call it art.
And while I am certain she owns a Jesus painted on black velvet, that makes it easier to forgive her. Becuase art is subjective.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Carry on,
xox
