house and garden

Yesterday while sitting in the clinic waiting for a mammogram, I was browsing through a House and Garden magazine and came across this picture of a living room that stopped my random page-turning. Along two walls made almost entirely of glass sat two chrome-legged minimalist modern white couches, and two coffee tables, maybe cherry. Maybe plastic. The tables were very rectangular, very shiny, very stark. One had nothing but a huge clear glass vase on it, a sphere resting on the smallest of area, holding two long oak tree branches sitting in water that filled what I'm sure was a mathematical two thirds of the vase. On the other coffee table were two art books, stacked just oh so slightly off-center.

There was no sign of life.

I couldn't help but wonder who could possibly use a room like this. I compared it to my own living room, where the coffee table is the main depository for assorted magazines, videotapes, DVDs, partly-read books, half-eaten bowls of popcorn, and on which the main attraction is a basket of coasters lifted from local restaurants and bars. Not to mention the one leg that the male cat likes to use as a scratching post when we're not looking. Or when he even thinks we're not looking.

I kept staring at that vase, wondering how long it would take our youngest cat to pull out the tree branches, drink the water, and knock the whole arrangement on the floor.