I was minding my own business yesterday towards one o'clock, when suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
So I go look and it's the lady who manages rent collection. Well, my rent is paid in full, so I opened the door, and she says "the Yards in Bloom people want to judge your balcony."
Huh? I thought Yards in Bloom was looking for "neat" yards, not jungle balconies. But apparently, they went all around the Highrise and figured out every balcony that has flowers, and then they contacted this lady to see if they could come and judge us.
Er... ok, but my yard is a mess! The rent lady came and looked at it, as she's been watching its mad growth from the ground too, and gave me some tips about making it look tidier. Then I had about three hours to get it ready.
It actually did take almost three hours. How can it take three hours to make a balcony look "tidy"? I don't even know. I watered everything, dead-headed (which I never do because I like things to seed themselves), got all the yellow leaves off the morning glories, un-staked and re-staked things to make them neater, spent a lot of time trying to make the nemophilas look vaguely presentable, even though they're long past their prime and the raven trampled all over them in a fit of pique, swept, swept again, and then while I was rearranging things to look their best, I noticed that... the passion fruit seeds I threw in with Peng Dehuai who knows when had sprouted.
Aaaaaaaaaah! Not more plants!!!! I don't even know what kind of tree passion fruits come from. With good reason: they come from vines, not trees. And the last thing I need is more vines. Nonetheless, I transplanted them to the green planter. I'll get you photos later when I'm not too lazy to download my camera.
Ok. That's nothing the Yards in Bloom people need to know about. I'll deal with this problem later.
After about three hours, the balcony looked in fact quite nice. Of course most things are either done blooming or not blooming yet, but the pansies, asters, and some Jungle plants are looking good. Thank you, asters, for doing something for me after all.
Finally the judges come and make me sign some kind of paper and I see that one of the criteria is "has it been done before?" Ok, well, nobody else has a Wall of Insanity, let alone any baobabs, so I'm hoping to get some points for that.
Then they left.
I have no idea when they render their decision.
Well, it got my yard all tidied up. That was good.
