Two weeks ago one evening, AdRi jumped from her chair in the living room and out the front door. Two boys had ridden their bikes through our front Garden, and not carefully, either. Of course they didn't stop when she called out to them, and the fritillaria that was preparing to bloom was toppled and smashed, plowed over by their flying-through-the-air BMX bikes. She brought in the blooms and they've been slowly opening in a vase on the kitchen counter.

Fast forward to last evening.

We were working in the garden, and heard the familiar sound of a lawnmower being pushed down the street. Two kids were offering their services, door to door, for mowing lawns. Funny thing, they seemed to not be coming up to our house with a sales pitch. Hell yes I want someone to mow the exterior of our house: it's a pain. We live on a corner, and beyond the garden, the only grass besides a small backyard patch is the unwieldy green mane in the front and side along the sidewalk. Being Spring in Portland, it grows about 5 inches a week. And I'm not overstating that. "$20?" they offered. "$10" AdRi countered. And they had a deal.

After they finished, they may have been asked if they were the same boys who had ridden their bikes through our garden. They may have looked stunned and like two deer caught in the headlights of a car at midnight on a dark country highway. They may have said of course it wasn't them. We may have known it was exactly them. And we may or may not have two BMX bikes smash through our garden again. We'll see.