I know you’ve all been pining for an update about Ernest and Mabel, the two marble lions that my husband Jay bought in a mad moment in Vietnam. (Click here to read that post if you missed it.)
When last seen, they were standing among a forest of other white marble flora and fauna (not forgetting the odd Venus or cherub) in the showroom of the marble factory in Da Nang. We took it on faith that they would indeed be sent to us via freighter. And in December, we finally got word that they were in…Los Angeles.
But, said the man, we’ll be trucking them over to you as soon as we can. It was the day before we left for the Panama Canal and Peru that the call came through…from Arizona.
They’re here, said the man. In Arizona, we asked. “
No that’s just my cell phone. They’re in Boston, and we can deliver them soon.”
“Not today then?” asked Jay hopefully.
“No, but we can do it next week,” said the man. Luckily we had Fred and Bertie still at home before they returned to their respective studies. Jay briefed them on where the lions should go and we left for points south.
It wasn’t long before we started receiving irritated emails from Fred (and he insists I quote these word for word, because he’s not impressed by my (occasional) lapses into poetic license. (I don’t know what he means.)
“Firstly, the lions. No one has contacted us about them yet. Either on the home phone or one of our cell phones. I thought they were supposed to have done so by now. We have no means for contacting these people, so if you do, maybe you could pass it along to us.”
I suggested he leave it for a couple of days. A couple of days later:
“The freight people… want to bring the lions in on a tractor-trailer. Which Bertie and I are both skeptical about. We don’t think the vehicle will be able to safely get down the driveway and back out again without hitting trees, rocks or some other obstacle. If I remember correctly the cab is 12′ and the trailer is 48′.” (And Fred always remembers correctly…)
A day later:
“The lions are evidently in two separate crates on a single skid. The skid weighs a total of 800 lbs. We assume the crates are about 400 lbs each. Making them probably unmovable by us. The person I spoke with today suggested we could meet them somewhere and they could put them in our truck. I’m not really sure, so I thought I’d see what you thought.”
I suggested the freight people might have a fork lift on the back of the truck. Jay suggested they back down the quarter mile distance from the main road to our house (with a bend in the road).
All the suggestions failed, and eventually Fred threw up his hands in disgust (figuratively, Fred).  We arrived home from our travels to find a message waiting for us from the freight man. He was about to charge us for storing the lions, since we hadn’t arranged for delivery. Jay soon sorted him out.
And the lions arrived. When I first saw them, they were standing in their wooden cage listing drunkenly to one side exactly where the snowplough would hit them. (Luckily snow has been rather thin on the ground, literally, this winter.) Jay had phoned our snow-ploughing guy, Matt, who was looking for work, since there wasn’t any ploughing to do, and Matt was due to arrive within hours to unpack and place the lions where we wanted them.
Jay paced around the outside of the house, trying to decide where to put them. Finally he called me outside to see what I thought.
“What about here?” he asked, pointing to the spot where they were already standing. I wondered whether to let them be run over by the snow plough. But I knew they meant a lot to Jay, so I hinted that perhaps they should be closer to the house.
“There,” said Jay, pointing to the path closer to the house.
“I think they might block the path unless we turn them sideways. How about on the porch?” I suggested. “Then they’d be out of the rain.” (As if that would do them any damage…)
We agreed on the porch, and Matt and his team of three muscly guys managed to get them there. Here’s the picture to prove it.

There is one thing, though. Jay decided we should name the lions something other than Ernest and Mabel. That was fine with me. I’d only been joking about the names.
“How about Leo and Lucy?” he suggested. “Or Lenny and Louise?”
I was looking at the lions as he said this and a sudden thought occurred to me. You’ve probably spotted it already. Both our lions are boys. I pointed this out.
“Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure two gay lions would be great for our Chi.”
They still don’t have names.