Day Sixteen

I have hydrangea envy. I drive the streets of Pittsburgh, passing house after house with majestic globes of petals, gently bobbing in the breeze like a brazen girl tossing her hair in the wind, and my left eye begins to twitch. I linger at stoplights. I've circled a block just to look a second time. I feel the lazy blooms of a hydrangea draped about a yard are summer incarnate; sunshine and picnics and firefly ballets.

My hydrangeas are on some other timeline. It's mid-July and the buds of my lovely limelights are just now forming, tiny clusters of clenched fronds, holding their breath, awaiting some secret sign to unfurl their beauty. I've talked with them, watered them, reasoned and begged and threatened to dance for them. (I did draw the line at chicken sacrifice...to date) Perhaps it's the light they get? Are they drama queen hydrangeas? Waiting to make some kind of grand entrance? Did I get the "high altitude" version by mistake? Have I angered them?

Anticipation makes the heart grown fonder...and leaves me thinking of drive-by-hydrangea-napping after dark.