Went for a walk this morning as always. I'm NOT the sort of writer who can roll out of bed into the living room and start to type. I get dressed and prowl the neighborhood first, checking things out; then my brain is clear, or as clear as it gets, and I can work. One of the places my walk takes me is a small park. Late-summer yellow dahlias started blooming there in August, the way my pink ones did at Rancho Obsesso. Three weeks ago we had a cold spell, but the dahlias set two new buds anyway. Forget it, I thought, and was tempted to cut them off and bring them inside, where they'd be unlikely to bloom but at least they wouldn't freeze, so maybe. But I didn't. And they made it throught the cold, and a few days ago, damned if those blooms didn't open. And now that it's warmer, the two of them are just beaming in the sun, almost the only two flowers left in the park, much bigger and happier than they'd ever have gotten in my apartment. Which teaches us something, though I'm not sure what.