Mysterious Marigolds

My Mom has this thing about flowers. She also used to be an insomniac... the stories about her running around in the night in the neighborhood where I grew up --pruning other peoples' hedges and edging their grass, too -- are sorta legendary. Up til now they've only been told in limited circles.

Well, here's her latest tricky move -- many marigolds.

The city planted them all along the road through town, and the landscaping in the backyard of my apartment building is sparse. My Mom deadheaded a bunch from along the road and sowed the seeds in the soil in several places in the backyard.

The part that makes this sneaky and funny is that there's this 70-something year old woman who lives in my building who putters about all day long here watching everything that happens. She has a watch post set up at her window on the third floor so she can see everything that happens on that side of our little hamlet. It faces away from our yard. She's helpful -- but her watching me all the time makes me a little nuts, actually. Nothing escapes her opinions and gaze. She rehangs my laundry so it's done "right." She has commentary on just about everything -- how and when I come and go, the condition of Mufasa's coat, how often he walks, my housesitters, how I use the laundry machine... everything. Fortunately I only understands bits and pieces of it.

And now she is stymied -- she cannot figure out where all these marigolds came from!

"Rebecca," she called in her booming Italian voice one day, "Guardi!" Look!, she said. She explained her theory -- she thinks the seeds were in her compost. We'll let her believe that and see what Mom wants to plant next...

Interesting also to note that this time last year everything was covered in snow and had been, I think, for weeks. I don't even need a coat.

*Be sure to check out Mom's comment...