Long slender fingers with long nails. Perhaps a pianist or flautist in bud stage. Little shell ears; reprieve from the famiy curse. Sweet little baby wrapped in flowered jammies and plush pink blankets.

She looks just like her mama.

Empty cans grouped in sticky clusters. Walkway with cleaned brushes drying in the morning sun. Paint roller the diameter of a half dollar on a wand six feet long. Taupe, deep red, lemon yellow, white and chrome.

Splintered wood, bent nails, mounds of dirt; new fence. Soiled rugs peeled and rolled; dumpster roiling.

“FOR RENT”

“Well,” I respond, “I had a picture of what could be. It was vibrant, colorful, blooming and happy. I did not mean to let you sit in the heat wave until you became so forlorn. I feel bad but I cannot change what was. Besides, human life comes before plant life.”

Forget opening the window if it was hot outside. Four kinds of music played all at once. I guess it beat the previous home next door to a very throaty rooster.

When we moved here we could not sleep. It was too quiet. We learned to cope.

The diesel fumes make him nauseous and his legs are tired from standing up so long. No one offers him a seat. They are too busy looking out of the window, watching the world go by.

He is brave. He gets off at the next stop.

So much remain the same — your name, your identity, your DNA — but everything is now experienced through a new set of filters.  Friends become enemies. Effortless becomes impossible.  Fullness becomes emptiness.

Looking before you leap won’t help.  It may pounce on you anyway, like a monster in a video game.  But still we move; we have no choice.

Don’t mistake me – I am not a member of the Down With Donuts party. Far from it. But we choose best when we choose wisely, knowing a thing for what it is.

So I choose knowledge, and pastry in moderation. Or sometimes the reverse.

I wasn’t born with a green thumb; it took me years to overcome my ignorance. Now I sow with confidence, knowing almost to the day when the plants will emerge. I follow them through their life cycle, harvest their seeds for next year, and dispose of the dried husks once the flower-souls have flown south.

Gardening has taught me to appreciate everyday miracles.

What Panda wanted most was out. He would spend hours trying to climb up and force the lid of his cage. His out-of-prison visits with us only intensified his desire.

Panda finally got his wish. We found him on the floor next to the dogs’ beds. We’ll never know what killed him: the five-foot fall from his cage, or the urgent instincts of our other pets.

Beware of getting what you always wanted.