Years and years and years ago Dad planted a rosebush in front of the duplex. He and Mom lived here at the time and his mother had always had a rose garden. She grew all the altar flowers for the parish church a mile from the farm and getting up early to help cut the flowers and take them to the church in galvanized buckets was one of my favorite things to do with her when I was a kid. Dad's rose is deep red and it smells like a rose, not faintly but with gusto like roses used to before they got hybridized into blandness, and it blooms off and on all season. It doesn't need much special care, I give it a little fertilizer if I think of it and I cut down the canes in the spring when it starts to send out shoots, but I don't mulch it and it survives. It's hardy, old-fashioned, and it makes me smile deep inside. Thanks for blooming today right outside my window, Dad's rose, I needed it.
August 11--Vestvagoy Island, Norway. Gala rolled to her side trying to ease the strain on her shoulders. Having her wrists tied behind her was torture. She almost wished that her captor would tie her to the cot she lay on but she still hoped that she would be able to slide her hands down below her bottom and pull them under her legs. She knew if she got her wrists to the front she would be able to gnaw off the tape. She knew she was near the sea; she could hear the water lapping and the seagulls' cries. The steps of the man who brought her food made the crunching sound of sand on floors that was so familiar to one who had spent summers at the seaside. Her shoulders aches and her hands had been numb for hours but she bent her spine and forced the knot of her hands down her back, struggling to slide through the loop of her linked arms. Pray to god she didn't get stuck.
Oh, the sun just came out. Maybe the fog will go away after all.
--Barbara
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