Say it with flowers

People are always so happy to see me when I arrive with flowers.

Or if not happy, exactly, relieved, then, because they know that I've come with a gesture of politesse, of enough goodwill to finesse perhaps an awkward evening of unfriendship or downright disagreement.

That said, bearing flowers offers me a fragrant scrim of etiquette when I'm up against the raw fact that I've been invited because they had to.

Ah well, although I'm very well aware that life holds greater terrors, I appreciate flowers for their willingness to be the sacrifice in the bloody wars of petty genteelity.

When the weather turned warmer -- again -- I put my long-suffering cyclamen from Christmas, and the two Christmas cactuses from Thanksgiving, out on the table on my balcony.

Was that a nice thing to do to my trusting house-plants? After all, I did it with a fair degree of "It's time you became truly one with your own mother, Nature." Unfair of me, really, because these are tropical plants whose DNA was not meant to thrive in zenBoulder's high dry up-and-down temperatures, even if the thermometer does say April.

Hey, I try to bloom where I've been planted, too.

Two plants I won't dare put out quite yet are The Girls, my landlord's especial pets.

Andrew's now in law school in Florida, but whenever he shows up and visits to tend to things, he always checks in with them first. He croons and strokes their green fronds. I mean really.

Um ... I think I'm just jealous, the guy is a young Frank Sinatra type, all sinew and young swagger. But he certainly trusts me with his stuff, so grateful to be renting to a responsible adult-type than a pair of CU undergrads.

My lease renewal is a sure thing.

In the spirit of May Day, then, the one for dancing around the May Pole and celebrating spring's flowers, I'm going to give my neighbors some blossoms.

Nothing big, mind you, just a posy of gorgeously patterned-paper origami lilies wrapped around their doorknobs early in the morning before they're up to work or out to take those last final exams.

Beautiful Daughter and I discovered how to make these perfect paper blooms when we started her Brownie Scout Troop in Sofia, and have relished making them, and remembering the memories, ever since.

Say it with a sneak attack of flowers!