海角大神

When we first bought our house, there were only so many options for paint colors. You could have white 鈥� or green, yellow, gray, or blue, with white trim. Paint was not about making a statement.

Call us rebels, but we were determined to jazz things up. That meant three colors. Two of them were gray 鈥� and nobody but us needed to know that one of those was called 鈥淔andango.鈥� But then, all sly, we slid in a claret red. The neighborhood, correctly suspecting this might be a gateway color for eventual chromatic anarchy, arched a collective eyebrow and then went back to watching 鈥淐harlie鈥檚 Angels.鈥�

We were emboldened. The next time we needed to paint, we threw caution to the winds and jewel tones on the clapboards. We bought several sample colors and tested them on a north wall. My husband laid in some malachite green and ruby red and then began to stroke on a strip of the teal blue that was all the rage at the time.聽

鈥淣ope!鈥� I hollered, standing back. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not working.鈥�

He kept painting.

鈥淪top! What are you doing?鈥�

He sent an evil smirk over his shoulder. 鈥淭his is just to scare the neighbors,鈥� he said.

Nobody scares that easily anymore.

Forty years ago, the commercial street owed its ambiance to plywood, razor wire, and window bars. Now the shops try to out-art each other. Murals gallop down the alleys. People paint sunflowers and dragons right on the street. Our place, once considered daring, now looks like the home of the fuddy-duddies. I decided to paint our rental house, which is right next door, something a little brighter.

I knew I wasn鈥檛 going to get any grief from our neighbors to the south. Inside and out, their house is decked out in colors you could actually hear if their dog ever piped down. It鈥檚 grand. They come by it naturally; they鈥檙e celebrating their Cuban heritage. They even keep parrots. All I have for inspiration is the one cat in basic black. If I were going to come up with a thrilling paint scheme, I鈥檇 have to dig deep.

So I started with a rambunctious, retina-rocking chartreuse. It鈥檚 called 鈥淎lways Lime,鈥� and it would be fine if it really was always lime, but sometimes the sun hits it just right and it becomes 鈥淎tomic Blast Lemon.鈥� If you tossed one of those neon tennis balls in front of it, a dog wouldn鈥檛 be able to track it.聽

Observers are either appalled or enthusiastic. I did get an early thumbs up from a pedestrian, lavishly tattooed. Other people strolled by shading their cellphones. A team of bicyclists in vivid spandex outfits briefly disappeared as they rolled past. Spiders quivered in their webs with all eight eyes squeezed shut.

So far, so good.

The 鈥淏lack Leather鈥� trim settled the Lime down nicely, so I revived the scheme with another trim in 鈥淭omato Bisque鈥� and anchored it all with a dark-green foundation, 鈥淟incoln Park.鈥� There鈥檚 still room on the porch for turquoise. It鈥檚 called 鈥淛aded Janet.鈥� We will assume Janet was the poor soul in charge of coming up with names for 150 increments between blue and green, and it had been a very long week for her.

I think it turned out well. The neighborhood is getting used to it 鈥� which is good, because the shipment of sequins should arrive any day.