The Friday Five from fridayfive.org:

1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Let's see, on my mom's side there's a lot of English names, as well as some Russian. On my dad's side there's German and English...I'd really have to do more looking into this for a good answer.

2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit? England. Even if I didn't have ancestors from there, I've always wanted to visit England, especially Yorkshire.

3. Which would you least like to visit? I've never really had much of a desire to visit Germany. Nothing personal. I have this thing about being able to communicate, and I'm afraid of going to a country where I don't know the language. Thing is, I only know English. But I do know that well, at least. I'm not very cosmopolitan, LOL.

4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
I love good German potato salad and sauerkraut, but I don't do anything to mark my heritage -- I'm too much of a mish-mash mutt to single any one ethnicity out.

5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
Somewhere up in the great, great, great, great...We're not Mayflower people, but we've been here a while. ;)

I found a neat personality quiz just now, thanks to a link in the Neat Net Tricks newsletter. It's the Color Quiz, and it purports to report your current emotional state by examining your choices of colors presented to you. It was actually very accurate in telling my current state of mind. I guess it makes sense...Fast food chains and marketers long ago figured out that certain colors affect people in certain ways. The person who developed this test interviewed thousands of people guaging their emotional state first, then having them rank several colors in descending order. It made sense, he said, to do the opposite then: to have people pick colors and then tell them what their choices say about their current emotional state. I think they explain it a lot better than I do -- So just check out the link, will ya?

Woooo hooooo! I got the camera today. I didn't even realize the UPS guy had dropped it off until I went to their website to check on its status. The driver had left the package in front of our garage door in the driveway, for Pete's sake. If my DH hadn't already left for work, he might have run over the box as he backed the car out of the garage. I sent feedback to UPS via their website, including a link to a picture of our house (hey, I'm visual) and asking they tell the local drivers it is not acceptable for packages to be left in the driveway by the garage. Within an hour, I had an e-mail reply apologizing for the bad experience and promising they'd forwarded the info to the local UPS hub. And within two hours after that, a man called from the local hub and left a message on our machine. He said he'd spoken to the driver and the guy told him he thought it would be the best place for us to be able to see it. He saw a small porch up in front of the house, but the item wouldn't have been any more protected there. Of course, the driver who did this was was filling in on our route for the regular guy. Ever notice how it's never the regular driver who does the screw-up? ;) Well, I'm just thankful the box didn't get smashed by our car tires, and I'm happy to have the camera a day earlier than the tracking info had indicated.

The zoom on this thing is great - equivalent to a 35mm camera's 38-380mm. Here's an example. I took these shots of our sycamore tree while standing on our patio, about 30' away from the base of the trunk. The tree is probably 75' tall, if not taller, and she's a grand old dame. :) Click the below thumbnail to enlarge.



I need to get use to a couple things, one of which is the fact that the flash is a pop-up type and does not go off unless you manually flip the little switch that makes it pop up. You have to watch the display for a flashing lightning bolt icon - that indicates a flash is needed - and either adjust your exposure or flip up the flash. Otherwise, the camera still fires, but with no flash...And the pictures turn out underexposed. The controls and menus are similar to the ones on the C-2040z we had, though, so the learning curve won't be too steep. It's mainly getting used to the zoom's various focusing ranges and that flash thingie that I need to do.

Well, today we got a call from the pound. A lady called them asking if they'd received a male beagle because her sister's beagle was lost here when she visited from Cincinnati. The pound gave her our number and when she called, Howie quizzed her a little about the dog. When she said he was a neutered male, his heart sunk. She came out to our house to see the beagle.

And she said he wasn't the same dog. Her sister's beagle is bigger than this one. Wooooo! Howie told me that, at first, he was wanting the lady to be his owner. But when she turned out not to be, he was really happy. He told her about the local radio stations' websites and the lost-and-found listings on them, and she's put ads up on both. It turns out her sister's dog wasn't lost until Saturday, which is three days after we saw Buddy. Nice to know it's definitely not the sister's dog!

Get this - an official at the dog pound told Howie the only way we could legally claim him would be if we turn him in at the pound, wait the 72-hour waiting period, then adopt him. WHY on earth would we make him live in those conditions for three days just so we could pay them a $50 adoption fee? No thanks! I know it's not their fault there are so many homeless animals, but I still wouldn't want to leave any animal there unless I had to.

Whadd ya think...Doesn't it look like they've broken each other in well? We're really attached to this little guy. He is so laid-back and...Every bit a little guy, just a happy-go-lucky little fella. He has matched Emma tumble for tumble, nip for nip, yip for yip, a worthy playmate. She really needed someone to roughhouse with, too. She and Sarah are buddies, but Sarah's no spring chicken and can only take so much from Emma before snarling a 10-second warning at her. More pics soon! ;)

Here I am doing leftovers again. These are the Sunday Stumpers, which I found at Joan's blog, aka -- are you ready for this title -- {Hairy Toes and the Lemonade Rhino}. Gotta find out about that name! :D

1) What's the most selfish thing you've ever wished for and gotten? And, was it worth it?
Wow...I think that would have to be someone I dated for a while back in high school. I was totally the pursuer, and we finally did date a brief while. But as soon as I had the quarry in my talons, it didn't interest my any more. It was not worth it, no. But it was good preparation to realize priorities in life!

2) Is it acceptable to seek a new companion/relationship/significant other while you're still in a relationship - regardless of the state of the current relationship?
Ooooh, wow. If married, definitely no. I don't see any grey areas on that one. But if dating....Hmmmmm. I think it's rotten to sneak around behind anyone's back. I wouldn't want someone to do that to me, after all. If a person's seeking other companionship, he or she needs to just be up front, get out of their current relationship, and pursue whatever it is they're looking for. It's not fair to their SO otherwise in my opinion.

3) Behavior - dictated by nature or nurture?
Both. I have friends who are identical twins, and they've seen enough nature-related traits to go with the obviously nurtured ones. But there is much that's shaped by nurture, too. The studies of twins separated at birth and raised in totally different environments always have fascinated me because they show both sides of it. My friends were raised together, so they only see glimpses of what these others have been blown away to find years later.

4) What's one of the more embarrassing moments in your dating history?
Whoooo. Being on a field trip in 7th grade with my class and having the boy I kind of liked run into the educational film we were watching at the museum exhibit and yell "SPERM!" at the top of his lungs. I could have crawled under my seat. I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know him....LOL.

5) Red hot dogs - communist threat or patriotic symbol?
You ain't seen nuttin' 'til you've seen the ORANGE ones at this one refreshment stand we stopped at in a Tennessee state park. I mean, I know the Volunteers' color is orange, but c'mon! What is it, that southern clay??

By the way, we ordered the new digital camera on eBay in the wee hours Friday morning. It's the Olympus C-2100uz, and it is to replace the Olympus C-2040z we own now. The latter is being bought by some friends (wooo - no rolls of film to load, Amy! wink, wink). We hope to see the new one by Wednesday since the seller is sending it by UPS 3-Day service from NYC.

We'll be trading off a faster f1.8 lens for a f2.8, and we won't be gaining any megapixels since the new one is also a 2.11mp camera. However, we will be stepping up from a 3x optical zoom to a 10x optical zoom. That's equivalent to a 38mm wide - 380mm telephoto on a 35mm camera, and a better telephoto lens than the best zoom we had for the Canon Rebel G and lenses we sold on eBay in anticipation of this purchase.

One really cool thing about the C-2100uz is the image stabilization the lens has, which will let me shoot without a tripod in lower light than I normally could. Also, it has a low-light assistance light which helps the camera focus in very low light conditions, something which the C-2040z really stinks at. It also does movie clips with sound, while our old camera only did the video.

I think it's a fair trade-off, feature for feature, and I can't wait to get it so I can play with it for a few days before I have my surgery August 7! We're having some friends from Dave's Garden spend the night Friday night and eat lunch with us Saturday before they head back to Tennessee, so it will be fun having the new camera to get more candid shots from discreet distances (wicked laugh!).

Yeah, Baby! Okay, I admit my guilty pleasure...We saw Goldmember tonight with our buddy Jeff. I know, I know...Sophomoric, bathroom humor. But Mike Myers makes me howl with mirth. And the cameo appearances of various celebrities in Goldmember were great fun. Mike Myers has little competition for my yuks. Nobody but Eddie Murphy can play so many characters in one movie and get away with it. Well, okay, maybe Dana Carvey can, but I've not seen his new movie The Master of Disguise yet. Yet...

I think it would be wonderful to be an actress. I guess I am one already, but I haven't done any real gigs. I've always loved doing immitations and making up accents and characters, though. It's such a kicker to make people laugh and forget their troubles for a while. I don't think I'd enjoy the lack of privacy in a Hollywood life, though. No, I know I wouldn't. Still...Wonder what would have happened if I'd gone out there in the world and tried it...way back when...

(Insert harp music here).

I tried out for Grease in High School. I was totally unprepared for the audition (gee, some things never change, huh?) and grabbed an accompaniment tape I had, plus a little play whose title escapes me now, lo these 18 years later. I sang Sandi Patti's "Because of Who You Are", realizing as I sang it that it was truthfully beyond my highest range. What a track to choose, huh?!

The bit I read from the play was kind of fun, and quite a departure from that sweet little Sandi Patti tune. Like I said, I don't remember the play's title at all - It was just one of the paperbound playbooks the director had ready for those who, like me, were unprepared. All I remember was, the scene involved a very angry, sarcastic woman grabbing her husband's mail off the table and flipping through it to see who the letters were from. She had a comment about several of the envelopes. I really got into it, and had fun!

The director must have heard an alto voice in my screeching, and she must have thought I had the sarcastic delivery she wanted, because she chose me for the part of Rizzo. Oooh, I could just see how fun it would be playing that hard-nosed, wise-cracking, bubblegum hood!

I chickened out. I mean before the first rehearsal, even.

I don't know if it was commitment, fear of failure, fear of success....But for whatever reason, I never did it. And I'll tell you what, it's going to be one of those deathbed regrets. I've always wondered how things might have been different had I followed through and done that. My peers might have seen me for something other than the motorhead partier who was wallowing her way out of that mire and into a decent life. I might have continued on to try other theatrical stufff. I might have....Well, what's the point in wondering, right?

In college I again tried out for a play, this one being part of Romulus Linney's "Sand Mountain". I was offered one of the leads, the part of Mary. Nope, you guessed it. I didn't go through with it, either. That time I actually had a reason. I was a very gung-ho new believer at the time, seeing things very black and white, and there were some things in the play which offended me as a Christian once I read more of the play. I'd not read it through before auditioning, you see. That was silly of me, but as I recall, it was a last-minute decision to even try out. I remember how terribly I wanted to act in that play, and how excited I was go get the part...And the sick feeling I got in the pit of my stomach as I read the rest of the play and realized I had some serious inner conflicts with its contents. It's true, even now I would still turn it down -- but I wish I'd read the thing through so I wouldn't have tried out and gotten all excited over being chosen. Ugh.

I did sing in the University Chorus at campus, though, and really enjoyed that. Our director was a super lady who really taught us good methods to bring out the best in our voices. I loved the more complicated works by Bach and Mozart, which made us all mindful to work together and learn good dynamics and blending. During that time, I sang in our church's worship team and, again, loved that blending of voices. I used to do quite a bit of singing in churches and in some weddings, but it's been years. To tell the truth, I don't even want to do church music that much anymore. What I'd love to sing is big band and standards. That's my real musical love. But I digress...

It's ironic that I would have such a desire to do something with the characters, dialogues and music in my head, but be so lacking in self-discipline that I don't want to have to go to rehearsals, isn't it? I guess if I were pulling in 20-million for a movie, I might be a bit more motivated. I just don't want any part of the hard knocks it takes to get there. I read and watch biographies....Noooo way, thanks. I guess I'll just dabble in different things, make my friends laugh, sing a few songs, and remain a frustrated artist.

Last night I started an awful headache which morphed into a migraine. Noooo fun. Helpful hint: If you want the same effect as Excedrin Migraine, take 2 aspirin, 2 acetominophen, and drink a cup of strong coffee or drink a coke. As long as I keep up with this concoction today, I can function. As soon as I let it go too far, though, the headache starts sneaking back in. Ugh. It's a heck of a lot better than it was last night and this morning, though!

A bit late, here is my response to the The Friday Five, which I yoinked from Busgirlie's site:

Friday Five (.org)
Answer the following five questions in your own weblog. Make sure you leave a comment here with a link to your post or just leave your answers in this post's comments section.

1. How long have you had a weblog?
Ummmm....What's a weblog? Sorry couldn't resist. That's a question I've heard repeatedly since starting mine on Friday, May 24. Before that all my epiphanies were noted via e-mail to a few friends. Now I tell most folks to read my blog if they want to know what's in my head, LOL.

2. What was your first post about?
It was all about appeasing my pal Angie, who'd lit the blog fire beneath my butt and gotten me to do this. That first post also revealed what inanimate object I am.

3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one?
I've always called it Gardenwife's Plot. I just realized as I typed that how the name is a double entendre. Wow. I originally called it Gardenwife's Plot in reference to a plot being a piece of land that you work and grow. However, the cool thing is that a plot is also a storyline. This is so cool -- Wish I'd done that on purpose! Okay, anyway, I started out having this hosted at Prodigy.net, our old ISP. They don't support a lot of cgi script stuff, though, and some things I wanted to do wouldn't work. So, I ended up using the domain I'd registered and had it hosted at Newfield.net -- A decision with which I am very happy.

4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else?
I am using YACCS, part of the Rate Your Music site. I'd been trying to get signed up for a couple weeks, but due to the limited availability to new members, I always missed out. They'd accept 25 new members every 12 hours, and I never managed to get signed on. They did let me be a beta tester for their new FTP version, however, and now I'm a happy camper. The only thing on my wish list for YACCS is e-mail notification. The site's creator, Hossein Sharifi, did clue me in to a news feed service which would let me receive notifications of comment updates via pop-up windows. I'm not sure whether I'll go for that or not. Anyone know how to modify a YACCS template so it automatically spawns an e-mail to me whenever a comment's left? Purty please?

5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place?
I'm not sure what the difference is between a journal and a weblog. To me, they're one in the same. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to the difference. I have my favorite folks' blogs in their own favorites folder, and I make my rounds almost daily. I just haven't gotten around to linking to them all yet.

Okay, your turn! :)

Buddy seems to be what he answers to, or at least notices, so that's what we call him. Not my first choice in names, but since we were saying it in a general way, why not? He slept on the bed all night, and this morning I noticed he and Emma were asleep facing each other, a tangle of paws on both short and long dog legs between them. Buddy also endeared himself to us by coming up to the head of the bed and putting his cold nose by my ear to wake me up. He had to go out. Boy, am I glad he's a conscientious little fella and woke me instead of just finding a corner of the bedroom -- or bed! -- to relieve himself.

DH called the dog pound this morning, and no one has reported any male beagles missing. Yay! There's no listings for any in the paper, either. Double-yay!

For now, we're calling him Buddy. Here he is, in all his stubby little Beagle glory. ;) Man, he has big paws for a dog his size. They're stubby and wide, just like my DH's feet.

Well, it's my birthday today. I'm 35 now, as opposed to 34.99 - LOL. I figure if little kids can round their ages up to the next half, why can't I express mine in retail terms? I shall spend my birthday afternoon at the surgeon's office, finding out whether I will have inpatient or outpatient surgery, and when, and all that good stuff.

I saw this pretty little beagle wandering around our neighborhood for two days, collarless and with no ID. Yesterday, he tried to get in the postman's truck when the man got back in it at the nearby school. He looked so sad when the truck pulled away, taking a few steps after it. Then this morning, I passed him on a fairly busy road as I was going on an errand. When I came back from the errand, he was at the corner of our street. I pulled over and opened my car door, calling him. He trotted right up and got in the car with me! :) :)

When I got home, I knocked on the door rather than just walking in with him with the dogs loose. You should have seen Howie's face when he opened the front door to find me standing there with this little fella. His face broke out into a huge grin and he said "aaaaaaaaaaaw, he's so cute!".

Howie's always wanted a beagle.

This fella's neutered already (good thing, seeing how Emma's in heat, huh?) obviously loves people and gets along with cats and dogs alike. His teeth are clean and pretty white, so he's probably a fairly young dog.

Our two curious girls overwhelmed him at first, and he came and put his paws up on my knees as if to say "help! protect me!". After the initial introductions, though, he acted as if he's lived here all his life! Howie gave him a bath to make sure he had no fleas, and he didn't see any. Emma loves to play with him, and he puts up with her rambunctiousness like a saint.

Seeing how well they all got along and afraid to leave him out loose when I was out, I put him in the huge crate with Sarah and Emma when I went to the doctor's. When I came back, they were all sound asleep and didn't stir until I clomped down the basement stairs and opened the rec room door - That's never happened before, LOL.

We're watching the lost and found ads in the newspaper and local radio stations. If no one wants him bad enough to call and place a free "lost pet" ad or hang up a few posters, they must not want him. I suspect he was dumped by someone.

I was ready to give him to my mom if nobody claims him, thinking Howie might not want a third dog. Howie said he wants to keep him if that's the case, though -- :D Yippee!!

Pictures soon......

Oh, yes...One other thing. Today our little girl became a woman. Our puppy is officially a bitch. As you can see, she doesn't look too thrilled to be wearing her sanitary belt, but the alternative to this is....unthinkable. Anyone want to take her for a week or three?



We budgeted money for her spay for August, but she surprised us. Oh, joy! No more carefree romps, Emma dear. We learned several weeks ago she has a hankering to run, so she's never out without a leash now. She's gotten loose from us twice, but it was by accident. She is NOT easy to catch when she does get loose, either. It's all a really fun, endless game for her --- Dash up to mommy, fake to the right and run left! Whip by daddy, tail held high!

The first time she got loose, my hubby came stomping into the house ticked off as could be. "It's your turn!" he intoned, "I've HAD IT. I can't catch her!" So out I went, walking through the school parking lot behind our yard. DH said she'd even been running in the middle of the road -- Oh, Lordy! Finally, though, I found her near the doghouse of a neighbor's dog, right next to the large schoolyard field. If it hadn't been for the flash of white in the moonlight, I'd never have found her.

She was silent and sneaky, watching me search and hearing my call and the rattle of her treats bag. As soon as she realized I'd found her, she began her mad dashes around me. Despite my having a bag of her treats, despite my crouching on the ground in the middle of the field, she would not come to me. She's a beautiful dog, and to see her run unchecked is to see fluid poetry in action. But not at 1:30am. Not when you're sore and tired.

Behold! Here came DH riding up on his bicycle, intending to herd the wayward puppy toward me.

What does a puppy do when she sees something she's never before encountered? Does she care that it is the wee hours of the morning? No! She barks and exclaims "what the HECK is that thing!? Ohmygosh it's big, but it could be fun!" She advances, then skitters back, then advances again, barking. It's all such great fun! Plan A is a dismal failure, so DH turns his bike toward the school's exit to our road and starts toward home.

Something I can only liken to the Pied Piper Effect occurs: Emma follows him, trotting behind the bike with her tail held high, like she's done it a thousand times. She docilly and quietly tailed him all the way up the road and right into the garage, where he nabbed her.

The next (and last) time she got loose, slipping her collar, I joined the search looking like a metro housing reject. It was that bad. I'd been doing some cooking and was just chillin' at home that afternoon. No bra. Tomato-stained white t-shirt. Shorts. Hairy legs. Messy hair.

Of course, Emma was back behind the same neighbor's house, trying to engage their English sheepdog in play. Poor Lucky, said dog, is shy and was a reluctant playmate. As soon as Emma saw me, the chase was on again. This time, she grabbed something from the ground in her mouth -- a wad of red socks from the look of it -- and pranced around carrying it like a great banner. Then she ran back to Lucky's domain. And back out again to get the sock thing and strut. I could see people moving around inside the house belonging to Lucky girl. By the time my hubby met me at the scene of the crime, the neighbor had exited his house and walked up toward us. He was smiling. This was a good sign!

Once he stooped to pet his own dog, Emma couldn't stand it. She had to run up and get attention, too. Her saving grace is her love-sponge nature, yes. Howie hooked her back into her collar and thanked the neighbor as I crossed my arms over my chest and smiled broadly, hoping my smile would be a bright decoy and distract him from the rest of me. I hope he didn't notice how trashy his dog-crazy neighbor looked, but if he did....Oh, well. :)

No more solo runs, doggie girl, especially now.

I was so touched today by the arrival of the most beautiful birthday card I've ever received, from a dear gardening friend I've yet to meet "in person". I have had a lot of pain today for some reason and was really feeling down for a while, but getting that card really perked my spirits! You just never know how some little thing like that can make such a big difference. Another happy thing was I heard from a friend with whom I've been out of touch for a while. It was such a cool drink of water to see an e-mail from her, and it was good news I read in there. So I've been blessed both by snail and e-mail this day. :)

Yesterday I had the treat of seeing the caterpillars of tiger swallowtail butterflies on a stand of Queen Anne's Lace in a friend's field. I had decided to sit and wait with Howie while the group at a cookout took a short walk to let dinner settle. Thanks to Teresa for telling me they were there and showing me just the plant where the group saw them! I was so excited to get more pictures having to do with these flying jewels. :)

The cookout I mentioned was a really nice time. Several of my hubby's coworkers are gardeners, and they decided earlier this year that each would have the others over for a cookout during the summer. So, this first cookout was held at Rick and Susan's, and we so liked just sitting back and enjoying the gardens at their place. They have some cool and unique stone sculptures, including a bench made of huge slabs of stone. They told us the stone had been carved from giant bolders; the company which sells the stone has the boulders brought into the facility on railroad cars, then slices through them with giant saws. That must really be something to see!

They put the bench in their garden in memory of a good friend who died a few years ago; he used to visit and loved to wander their property and enjoy the land. I think that's a marvelous tribute. I told Susan it reminded me of the piece Robert Fulghum wrote about a bench he saw at a cemetary. I'll find an excerpt sometime and post it here. In the meantime, you can pick a copy of the book its from up at Amazon.com for 75 cents (used).

I am so excited! Today I got a second chance at some butterfly pictures, and this time the butterfly stuck around. It wasn't the pretty black one today, but rather a tiger swallowtail. He let me get within 6" of him and take shot after shot. Those echinacea must have been awfully tasty to keep him still for so long. They pictures came out great and I'm really happy with them. Until I get them on my site, I've posted them in this journal entry at Dave's Garden. Enjoy, and feel free to poke around the other entries there. The site's my second home. :)

Emma, our greyhound-mix puppy, has a small brown splotch on the white portion of her forehead. This is not a natural splotch. When I mentioned it, Howie said "Oh, I spilled coffee on her." Yes, our dog is a carpet. I took her coffee-stained head in my hands and kissed her nose, crying "we can't have a white dog any more than we can have a white shirts, for the stains!" Poor puppy, I must wash her head.

Uh, oh....Maybe my family is right. I just learned I am 65% Internet Addict

I am pretty addicted, but there is hope. I think I'm just well connected to the internet and technology, but it's really a start of a drug-like addiction. I must act now! Unplug this computer!

Take the Internet Addict Test at fuali.com

Oh yeah? So take the test yourself! ;o)

My DH designed his own logo for his webpage. It really looks like him - I love it! It just doesn't reduce well, as you can see. If you click this thumbnail and see the full-size image, it's okay. Is this because the graphic is saved as a GIF file?

I'm beta testing YACCS's comments service. So, I'd appreciate it if you would leave a comment today.

I stayed up until nearly 7:00am today, editing photographs, working on my website, and just puttering around. I just wasn't tired, so I figured I would enjoy the night. When I finally did sleep, it was the sleep of the dead. I slept straight through until 4:00pm, and it felt wonderful. I feel no guilt for sleeping in at all, because that's the first really good night's (or day's, but who's counting) sleep I've had in weeks and my body and mind both feel refreshed. Aaaaaaaaah.

When I looked out the front window this afternoon, I saw a pretty black butterfly noshing on one of our pink delight buddleia. I dashed inside and got the camera and strode toward the door as I turned it on and set it to its macro mode. I opened the front door just in time to see that butterfly flitting toward the back yard. Still, even without a butterfly, it was overcast, but bright light and I took some shots of the perennials out front. Thunder rolled, and the sky turned very grey. Oh, God, I thought, please let us get a good rain. It was then that one of those rare and cool weather things happened; I heard the rain start pouring a ways off, then saw it come slashing down out of the sky, but it was down the hill from me. As I watched, it came rushing toward our house in a torrent, covering the yards between us like a forest fire licking through dry grass. I fled for the porch and, once inside the front door, turned to look back outside.

The butterfly alighted on the porch rail, four feet from me. And then the rain came, and he skipped away in the raindrops.

What a tease.