November 8, 2008: Little Old Ladies

EG, of Engineered Garden fame, is always giving me a bad time on the GardenWeb Square Foot Gardening forum. This morning, just because I accused him of being a 12-year-old, he said "Oh well, you know what 12 year olds are good for....helping little old ladies cross the street." Which immediately reminded me of this:

One day last winter, we were getting ready to go into town to do some shopping when I noticed one of my cacti had dropped a large fruit. None of these had blossomed for me before, so I hadn't seen a cactus fruit up close. I reached down and picked it up, not knowing it was covered with tiny spines like the cactus itself. I ended up with a hand full of those fine stickers, but Mr. H was in a hurry to get going so I jumped in the Ranger and drove off.

Well, those stickers hurt so bad I couldn't hardly hold on to the steering wheel, so I told Mr. H we'd have to make our first stop the drug store to buy some tweezers. We did just that, and once the tweezers were paid for I went out the door and opened up the package, took out the tweezers and proceeded to the edge of the sidewalk where I could see the tiny stickers in the sunshine. I'm standing there, head kind of bent down to look at my hand while pulling out stickers, when I feel a hand on my shoulder and hear a voice saying "Dear, do you need help crossing the street? I can help you." My jaw must have dropped a mile, as I looked up at the lady (fortyish), and I very rudely said "Honey, I could probably CARRY you across that street!" I felt badly afterward, as I know she was being kind....but I really don't think of myself being OLD!!! I don't feel old. And just the day before I had climbed our mountain, so it was a shock to think I looked as though I actually needed help crossing the street.

We have quite a few "little old ladies" down here in Arizona who have no problem crossing streets or climbing mountains. That's me on the left, my friends Mickey, Alverna and Mel, atop Black Mountain (we call it Bouse Mountain). The red arrow at the far left is pointing to where our hike began.

A short rest before our descent

A spot of beauty on the trail, Scorpionweed or Desert Bluebell

I never saw my new $9 tweezers again after that day. I hope I didn't leave them sticking out of that nice lady's back.