I was up and at it very early this morning and hotfooted out the door at 7:00 a.m. hoping to make up for the lackluster miles logged the past few days. On WJR they were touting today as “Compliment Your Mirror Day” … I had to chuckle over that proclamation – a little narcissistic, eh? The humidity was already in the mid-90s when I shut the door so I felt “fresh as a daisy” for about five minutes because soon little sweat rivulets were causing curly tendrils at my temples and neck. Well, just a few more miles to go and the mirror would not be paying me too many compliments by the time I returned. (Smile)

Today I walked in three cities! I didn’t plan to do that but I headed first to the Ecorse/Lincoln Park borderline, then double-backed and walked parallel to Council Point Park, then kept walking and turned down Emmons Boulevard to the Wyandotte/Lincoln Park border and finally headed home. Whew!! Four miles and I hope I don’t pay for it tomorrow with shin splints.

Back to the subject of daisies … I passed a tri-corner perennial garden brimming full of waist-high Coneflowers and Black-eyed Susans. I realize all the heat and humidity have boosted their growth, but when I returned home, I inspected my own Coneflowers and Susans and they are not yet in bud. Hmmmmmmm. Better karma on Buckingham Street? Remember making daisy chains when you were a little girl and plopping them on your head like a crown? Or maybe you picked petals off a daisy à la “he loves me, he loves me not?” I wonder if young girls today still fill their hours with such simple pastimes?

Most all the perennials I passed this morning were humongous and unusually full of blooms for this early in the season. I saw many gardens where bright-white Yucca plants resembled a tall church spire and grew out of spiky bases. There was the most-gargantuan group of Empress Hostas with leaves that were easily bigger than an elephant’s ear.

My travels by foot or car often take me past a house which was finally condemned last year and the occupants are now long gone. The house and yard were a pigsty and the garage door had been defaced with graffiti and kicked in and hanging haphazardly off the tracks for months. The house remains vacant, yet a vine, chock-full of lavender blooms, twines and winds along and through the chain-link fence. These morning glories are the only sign of life amidst the pile of rubble that still remains in the backyard, no doubt a horror story to the neighbors. These perky little blossoms seem to wink and call out “Good Morning Glory”, as that greeting goes, as I amble by. I have never ceased to marvel at the many homes in Lincoln Park, that are empty and evidently abandoned. Drapes and curtains hang raggedly or venetian blinds are cockeyed, slats missing or simply torn and tattered and hanging on a cord across filthy dirty windows. Sometimes grass and weeds are so overgrown they rise to meet those windows. It is sad to think of the circumstances that befell the homeowner to just ditch their digs which were once their pride and joy. One such house I pass has a magnificent climbing rosebush which continues to climb and wrap itself around and over a dilapidated trellis. Just imagine the tenacity of this rosebush, solo and unloved, still blooming and thriving, thorns clawing the bricks to keep just ramblin’ along.