Trying For Something Good

by Margie Senechal

The news is so depressing lately--rapists getting slapped on the wrist, terror hate crimes, Toxic Trump, heat wave in the SW--seriously, 120 degrees??? I decided it was time for some good news. Or just some happy pics, we'll see what develops.

Yesterday I went out to my yard, did some weeding, and transplanted my lavender. Have you ever noticed that what looks big in a planter, seems to dwarf as soon as you put it in the ground? That's kind of how I feel when I go out into the world. At home, I forget how short I am, and then I get around non-hobbity people and I'm like, "Oh, right..."

Back to the gardening, I had the Disney Pandora station in my headphones and I sat on my new garden/porch swing which is positioned under my apple trees. It began to rain and I realized that I can sit on my canopied swing under the tree and not get wet. Win-win. Swinging in the rain.

When I was in sixth grade, on the way to an early orthodontist appointment,my mom and I passed a dead opossum who was pregnant and her stomach was moving. Mom stopped by our grade school and told my teachers, who went and rescued the babies. Then our classroom raised those babies and on the last day of school, the babies--four or five of them--were up for grabs. They were gone before I got a chance to request one and when I was disappointed my dad said, "That's okay, I would've killed it if you'd brought it home." Because we had chickens and opossums eat chickens.

Fast forward some forty years and I'm pretty sure we have a opossum den in the back yard. Jordan is positive. She's seen it skulk across the yard when she takes Moxie out at night. And she's seen it eat my raspberries on the patio. And I don't have chickens.