It was January, my first year in Seattle, when I dreamed about a rhododendron putting up pink out-of-season blossoms. "Stop!" I told the rhododendron. "Don't bloom now. You won't bloom when it's time." The rhododendrons will bloom before I get to Seattle, I fretted. Deeply sleeping, I didn't realize that I was in Seattle already.A day or two later, I passed this small rhododendron sending out blossoms: not as many as in this picture, but a few riveting pale pink clusters.
A few years have passed... I hesitated for a long minute before selecting this particular rhododendron as my Squidoo avatar, but only because this particular rhododendron is there no longer. They removed the lovely little shrub, pulled it out by the roots -- this one and its partner, the other blooms-out-of-season rhododendron that used to regale a parking lot up near Safeway. Ah, where are you now? Do you blossom yet?
