My sister-in-law is a talented, clever girl who's always thinking. She notices the small things, ya know, that most people don't. Nothing gets by her. And what a memory that woman has. Yikes. In any case, I must have said something once about yard or lawn art and the plethora of it in the retirement village her parents used live in. And I do remember that I was talking to her about a book idea about an equally clever woman from Louisville who brightens up the desert at a New Mexico field school with plastic pink flamingos along the trail to the outhouse.

From that conversation many years ago, she must have decided that MMMMMM has a thing for plastic pink flamingos as she sent me a cake decoration flamingo once for my birthday. I stuck it among the pebbles in the top of a jar fountain in the backyard, for everyone knows that flamingos are water-loving birds. During one of the huge windstorms of last winter it blew or flew off to hide beneath the broad branches of the adjacent rock rose. I found it in the spring when I was cleaning out the dead leaves and put it back on the fountain. It was discovered by a couple of friends who hadn't noticed it previously and they seemed rather stunned by its appearance in my garden.

I heard from the sissy-in-law today regards a prezzie for an upcoming birthday. And she even sent me a link to the seller's website so that I might have a preview. There appears to be six of them with whirling wings. And pink plastic bodies on long wire legs. Ohmygod. Flamingos. Which makes one wonder . . . where does one lucky brithday girl plant such beauties in the garden of her life?

Mmmmmmmmmmmelinda