The Birds Eye View

This afternoon, Mike-san dropped off the oil painting that Plotnik and Ducknik brought back from Antigua. Mike is an old friend who has his picture framing shop on his houseboat. He is leaving for Japan tomorrow, but managed to find the time to frame the painting despite endless work for the BrainDead Caribbeans, in advance of Opening Day next week.

Now the story begins: where to hang it? Plotnik holds it up in the parlor. "No," says Ducknik. The living room. "No." The dining room. "No." Duck's office. ".....hmmm. That looks pretty good."

The truth is that the Plotniks are running out of walls. They're already using the stairway bannister for the Guatemalan manteles and the pool table for the Peruvian weaving and the Turkish rug is folded over an arm of the sofa in the parlor.

The painting is a birds-eye view of men and women picking coffee. It was painted by a man named Gilberto from the village of San Juan de la Laguna on Lake Atitlan. It'll look great on that long wall.

Right now Gilberto's painting is the Plotniks' favorite. Or maybe it's just the newest.