Last night really was a perfect summer evening in Seattle.  It was the kind of warm soft evening that encourages us to spend as much time outdoors as possible before the long gray clouds descend once more.

Lazing in that idyll with a neighbor we were startled to see a man and woman pick a bunch of flowers from the traffic circle that we maintain.  Now, this isn’t a complete surprise as each spring we catch a few people harvesting the daffodils when they bloom.  

What did surprise me is that the couple felt quite entitled to pick flowers from neighbors yards too, as they walked back to a house on 20th Ave E. 

This year we’ve noticed that people have been picking flowers from our yard also, leaving behind bare and mangled plants in their wake and robbing us of the pleasure of their blooms just as they are reaching their peak

After this latest incident we sighed, set aside our disappointment and  watched the setting sun.  Only thirty minutes later I went inside and, as I looked out at the street, I spotted two women...