The night the lotus fell

Maybe it just wanted to break out for some fresh air. Maybe it wanted to end it all. Maybe it thought it was an Asian stock index, crashing at 4 a.m. our time.

Whatever the reason (I suspect it was a misrated "75-pound" picture hanger), Alicia's big pasteled lotus came down with one hell of a bang-and-shatter in the hours before dawn.

You can't imagine the shards, hundreds of them, and countless bits of glass grit. I took care -- only two cuts! -- but the cleanup still took most of the morning. Pick up big pieces, vacuum up the sparkly dust, damp-wipe the floor -- and even after three passes, the cloth was covered with minuscule sequins, or tiny stars glinted in the carpet.

So, a quick call to Alicia and then out to Art Mart on Stock Island, where they remembered framing it -- and later seeing it with our red "sold" sticker on the wall at Mangia Mangia. They're going to check with her to see if plexiglas will be safe (its static can pull pastel off paper, but she should know whether that's still a danger after a few years' curing). They asked me if I wanted the nicks fixed, but . . . nix. A few scars show character.

Whether plexi or glass, it should be hanging on a very secure nail by week's end: I found a burly header for the pocket door behind the failure point.