Careful, Da Vinci’s thinking

I PROBABLY WORRY TOO much. For instance, I worry about the increasingly strange color of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hair -- an odd, orange, Popsicle hue. I worry over how much toilet paper our family goes through in a week -- 400 rolls. And that the stuff oozing out from under the car might be blood.

I worry that the sprinklers on the hill behind the house aren’t working right. I watch as the sprinklers cycle through their multiple programs, something every homeowner should do to check for leaks, accompanied by a glass of wine and a $5 cigar. Where there is worry, there is progress. Puff, puff, slurp. . . .

“What’s that smell?” Posh asks from the back doorway.

“Flowers,” I growl.

Yuck, flowers. They can pretty much ruin spring for me. The other day while jogging, I turned the corner and ran right into a wall of fragrance so powerful that I passed out and was mowed over by the last milk truck in America. The big cow. Got morphine?

What a spring. My NCAA bracket is a total disaster. Halfway through, I apparently lost focus and started filling out my T-ball team’s lineup. Then, where I should’ve written in my elite eight, I penned a letter to Time magazine about Schwarzenegger’s troubled hair.

“Like a sugar maple in late October,” I wrote.

Then there’s the problem I’m having with the little German in the garage. I own, apparently, the last coal-powered car in America. The most recent smog check cost me 4,000 bucks. For that, I could’ve seen a movie.

Now there’s that blood pooling ominously beneath the engine, and last week the radio quit working. Time to sell.

“What are you doing out here?” Posh asks as I sit on the patio, smoking a stale cigar.

“Thinking,” I say.

“You?”

We’re still getting acquainted, Posh and I. There are so many things to learn about a person. Apparently, 30 years just aren’t enough. The other night at a party, I overheard her tell friends that she has a very addictive personality.

“Huh?” I said, choking on a meatball.

“Why else would I have stayed with you?” she asked.

Now I have to explain to Posh that I am something of a visionary. Sort of a suburban Da Vinci. I’m always asking, “What if . . . . What if . . . .” Like, what if the kids emptied their own wastebaskets? What if they helped carry groceries from the car to the house?

“How much wine have you had?” Posh asks, when I tell her this visionary stuff.

“Just the one case,” I say.

OK, here’s my latest scheme/vision. Ready for this? Are you sitting down?

Backyard fondue.

That’s right, a big honkin’ fondue pot designed specifically for the patio. Over on the grill, you are firing up the rib-eyes. Meanwhile, over at the fondue pot, guests are cooking up chicken and mushroom appetizers. Or whatever it is you cook in fondue. Honestly, I’m not a fondue expert. I just think outside the pot.

“Interesting,” Posh lies, yawning.

“What’s Dad doing out here?” I hear from the house.

“Thinking,” their mother explains with a giggle.

“Hey, Dad!” the little guy screams. “I’m thinking, too!”

I am in search of five minutes of solitude, that’s all. Five minutes of a stale cigar at dusk while critters (rats?) scamper in the trees (come on, like you don’t have problems with the blasted things).

Our backyard renovation is finally over after two years, and I’m just trying to savor it all for a moment. I recall the hundreds of small battles I fought. How I had to burrow under 3 feet of limestone to put a dinky seven-watt light in the fire pit. The weeks of caulking stuff.

By the way, there has never been a finer home repair product than a simple tube of latex caulk. In fact, we have two bedrooms constructed almost entirely of caulk.

“Ewwwww, that cigar,” the little girl says.

“He’s using it,” her mother explains, “to cover up the stink.”

“What stink?”

“The Easter lilies,” Posh says.

“Well, it’s working,” says the little girl.

“Hey, Dad,” the little guy says.

“Yes?”

“Want to hear a short story?”

“Sure,” I say.

“The end!” the little guy shouts, and laughs until he spits up a little.

Up the stairs and into the house they go, congratulating each other on another successful ambush. Well done, troops. Carry on.

“Be right in,” I say.

First, I’ve got to finish this lousy cigar, puff-puff-puff. And, before I go in, I have to wrestle this fondue project to the ground. I think the pots themselves should be solidly built and vaguely Swedish. Like Ann-Margret. But bigger and easier to clean.

Puff-puff-puff. . . .

I think the fondue sets should have multiple uses: You can make dinner. You can make moonshine. On chilly days, you can stir up a nice corn chowder.

“Hello, IKEA? Da Vinci here. Are you sitting down?”

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Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com. For more columns, see latimes.com/erskine.