Microwave Mansion

I’m just back from Christie’s, where I attended the sale of Impressionist and Modern art in the hopes of picking up something nice to spruce up the parlor. I’m a bit ashamed to say I was caught up in the enthusiasm over the big-ticket Monet painting, ‘The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil,’ and bid past my means for a work I don’t even consider to be the best Monet railroad/bridge/Argenteuil picture out there:

Take the painting on sale: Too many boats. And who are those people in front? Get out of the way. I’m trying to admire a bridge.
	Cute, but worth $40 million?

Now take this other Monet r/b/A painting. Getting better–he has at least covered up the people with a muscular shrub-topped hillock. But still, there’s another winky-dinky sailboat flitting around, just daring to be stuck in your eye like a cinder.
	Have to love that hillock.

Here. Finally Monet got it right. No boats, no people, just a train on a bridge. Perfect. It even has the added bonus of being dimly lit, which does nothing but encourage a connoisseur’s nap, which is highly appropriate for the parlor, I think you’ll agree.
	Perfect for napping.

Alas, his best bridge painting wasn’t for sale (probably in some auction-house bargain bin somewhere), and the one that was on sale sold for $41.4 million, which at least saved me the embarrassment of coming up short on my promised $900 bid.

Anyway, as I returned from the auction, I realized our parlor is in no shape to be decorated by Impressionist masterworks; the peeling wallpaper, exposed beams in the ceiling, and all-around funk demand quite a bit of fixing-up, and for the time being seem more appropriate an environment for this dingy old favorite I unpacked from my trunk. Tyrone thinks it’s a little too “Precious Moments.” But I like the big clay jug. It reminds me that we haven’t fixed the bathroom yet.