Well, there’s been a bit of spiffing up since I last posted this tree. It still lacks focus - too busy with "small energy". The Chinese would look at it and admonish, "Bu xiao qi" - no small energy - similar to Dan Robinson's "Focal Point Bonsai Design" treatise. Some day I might have gotten around to dramatically making something out of it, rather than just slowly moving it forward, but it sold today, so I'm glad I took these photos yesterday. Hope you enjoy the pix.
True story:
A fellow arranged weeks ago to come over today to meet me, see my trees, maybe purchase some since they’re for sale. A quarter century as a shrink, however, has honed my intuition a bit too sharply, unfortunately. Just little things, so minute that no one else would even begin to notice, but they gave me a strong sense, a certainty really, that he’d cancel on me. And do so at the last minute.
Still, in good faith, I held today open for him when other opportunities presented. The past two weeks I tidied up the yard and my trees a bit in preparation. Yesterday I went into town to pick up an assortment of snacks and drinks in case my guest and I got on well enough that he wanted to sit and enjoy the view and/or sunset on the back porch together, looking out over the Hood Canal at the entire spread of the Olympic Mountain range to the west. My wife left before dawn for a twelve hour shift in the emergency room where she works, so she stayed up a bit last night to clean the house for our guest before she slept.
With the first ring of the phone mid-morning, before answering it, I knew the entire conversation: He couldn't make it; his excuse - plausible, I suppose, predictably so; "Maybe in October?" [His question] Yawn. [Mine]
And yet, as luck would have it, some other guy called a short time later! He’d also heard about my trees, asked if he could come by later in the day to meet me and have a look-see. We set it up. My intuition told me he’d be there like he said. He was.
He really liked this tree pictured here. I told him it was a favorite of mine, and that I wouldn’t let it go for anything less than $10, but he said he couldn't pay that much and he just wouldn’t let it alone - he insisted he could only afford to pay $5 for it. We bartered back and forth for the longest time and finally, since I liked the sort of man he was, I offered him a deal: he could have this tree for $5, but only if he paid me another $25 for my entire collection.
He put up a mighty fight over it, but I held firm. Finally - bruised and bloodied from hours of truly vicious bartering - we shook hands: he gave me the $30, and drove off with all my trees.
I went and sat on the back porch with the snacks and drinks, enjoying the view, and marveling at the way things always turn out for the best: you see, now there was no need to waste my time planning anything with that other fellow in October.
The sunset was spectacular!