So, yesterday I wrote about this mystery rose that appeared in my backyard. It’s pretty, but it looked stupid next to my red brick house. I contemplated moving it out to the side of the garden shed, but that would require me to actually think about backyard landscaping, which I’m just not ready to do yet. It’s all I can do just to get the stupid vegetable garden going.

Today, I was working in my front yard, and saw Sick Neighbors (formerly known as Bad Neighbors) working in theirs. The two sisters were planting things, so I yelled a hello, and asked what they were up to. Apparently, they were on a tear about planting things because their mother is in the hospital (lung cancer, among other things). Mom requested that they plant roses, and Kathy, the sister who is fighting breast cancer, said they were going to hunt for—you guessed it—a red climbing rose. They hadn’t been able to find one anywhere yet, so I volunteered my wayward freak rose to the cause. I dug it out, while they in theory were digging a new hole for it.

Yeah. Apparently, I have some mad hole digging skills, because by the time I’d wrestled red rose out of its place and over to its new home, Sharon, the sister with back problems, was still standing on the shovel, not able to make a dent. I thought maybe the soil was hard, but no. I dug them a new hole, mixed in some peat moss and sand, and put that red rose in the ground in no time.

So there. Red rose problem is no longer mine. The sisters asked what they could do for me, and I told them the universe would take care of it, which they liked very much…