Variation on a (Poofy) Theme

I love the crown and tutu combo! You remember Olive in her little woodland fairy version? Here's my sassy niece in her incarnation as Princess Bluebell. Apparently that's me talking. Funny how foreign one's voice always sounds.

Marigold Mystery

(Forgive the terrible cell phone photography!)

I like to walk along this deserted stretch of creosotey beach between my house and the St. Johns Bridge, where I've never seen anyone else except for occasionally one of the quiet hermity types who live in driftwood and tarp houses here and there. And about thirty feet of this beach is regularly strewn, at the high water mark, with flowers. At first it was always marigolds. I imagined Monsoon Wedding taking place on a raft drifting toward the Columbia. Thousands of marigolds, whirling saffron-colored silk, and yellow light from paper lanterns lighting up a September midnight.

Now it is October, and not one weekend walk has found this stretch without fading blossoms. Today it was mostly carnations.

Clearly, all possible explanations are romantic, strange, a little sad, and a testament to the tendency of the human heart toward quirk and beauty.