Thursday, 9/21

We have no idea who they came from. But we sure do appreciate it.

When Loraine came home from work yesterday she found these flowers sitting at our front door--

It's a nice container full of yellow mums, which smell great and are currently brightening up our kitchen, sharing a space with the only other plant we have, a Christmas cactus that has defied all attempts to render it lifeless. Attached to the flowers was this card--

If you can't read it it says “Hi, Jim & Loraine. I had an extra mum plant, thought you could use it! From a neighbor”.

That's sweet. That's really, really sweet. Even if we have no idea who that neighbor is.

We have a couple of ideas, but no solid leads. The writing looks like it came from a woman, and whoever wrote it obviously knows that Loraine's name is not spelled the standard way. We also have couple of neighbors who have nice gardens, but it seems to me (admittedly, someone who knows nothing about gardens) that it's kind of late in the year to be buying and planting flowers. All of that plays into the names we threw out as possibilities, but there's no concrete proof as to who gave us the flowers.

Unless, of course, they read this and wanna come clean!

Even if we never find out who gave us the flowers, we still appreciate them. In a world where people treat each other with such venom and/or suspicion on a daily basis, it's nice to know that there are others out there who just decide to do something sweet for people who live around them. Whoever gave them to us did it expecting, I'm guessing, nothing in return, but they did it anyway. How many times does that even happen any more? I don't know if we got lucky, or if this is some kind of payback for something we may have done for someone in the past, but either way it was a nice thing for us to come home to.

So once again, to whomever gave us the mums, thank you. That was a sweet, thoughtful gesture, and we appreciate it.

(jim@wmqt.com)

(ps—don't forget—just one day left to vote on which picture will be on my computer desktop for the next year. Scroll down to Monday's entry to see the nominees!)