duck diaries; aka mariposa butterfly mama manuscript

A brown duck decided to lay her eggs and nest in the small strip of dirt in front of our apartment that family housing calls a garden, and which many a family--with much care and stewardship--actually makes into one. Our family doesn't. We let the weeds grow and in the fall when they turn brown, with any luck, Tati puts on her dishwashing gloves, grabs a small implement associated with gardening and hacks the weeds into mulch. In the spring and summer they grow back again--taller and more stubbornly rooted in than before.

This spring-summer term, as we were arriving home, Camila (in a pissy mood at the time) commented on how nice our neighbor's garden was, adding offhandedly that ours was less than beautiful-- or hideous or something close to that. It was late, or I would have gotten out our small, futile gardening implements and asked her to do something about it. Instead, as Tati and I were smoking outside later, I suggested we buy some toy or inflatable dinosaurs that we could put in our garden so that our weeds would seem like exotic prehistoric food instead of a family housing eyesore and a cosgrove-calixto-pena embarassment.

But just when you think your grass is not greener, along comes a little new life to make worrying about the relative color of your grass seem irrelevant. Welcome "mariposa butterfly," who has chosen our hideous little garden to hatch a family. More in the next installment of the duckie diaries.