Fairies Don’t Sneeze

We’re in the backyard cleaning up the patio flowerbed. This has inspired a game of Pixie Hollow fairies, and I’m informed that I am Rosy, a “garden talent” fairy, and Rilla is my helper, Posy. (She has a deceptively cherubic baby-brother fairy named Cozy, who seems to have a rock-throwing talent.)

Talent notwithstanding, before any gardening can be done it is imperative (so I’m told) that I assume the correct accent for Rosy. “Sort of like Paula Deen,” Rose (not Rosy) coaches me. “Say darlin‘ a lot.”

All right, I can do that. Rose runs off to suck lemons with Beanie and Wonderboy on the sunny side-yard wall, leaving “Posy” and me to cut back the parsley and uproot tiny shoots of clover from the flowerbed. Posy is very nearly as sparkly as a real fairy, so delighted is she to have me all to herself, in the sun, with flowers, for a little while—young master Cozy having been hauled away for a nap by his father, whose talent is toddler-wrangling.

It was every bit as delightful as it sounds—despite the itchysneezy misery I’m grappling with this allergy season (I know, it sounds crazy to call February allergy season, but southern California is a crazy, crazy place). For some inexplicable reason, Claritin (and Zyrtec and Sudafed and everything else I’ve tried) make me unbearably drowsy. This is a new thing, just this year. The whole point of Claritin is it’s supposed to NOT make you drowsy, but it totally knocks me out. I mean, it might as well be Benadryl. So anyway, I’m muddling through without allergy meds and it’s made yard work a bit of a challenge this year. But, you know, burning eyes are a small price to pay for sunshine and flowers in the dead of winter. I only mention it because of the sneezing. Tending the posies with Posy, I got very sneezy and asked her to run into the house for a tissue for me.

While she was gone I sneezed four more times in rapid succession. Things were getting a little desperate when, thank goodness, Posy reappeared.

And handed me a single square of toilet paper.

“That’s a fairy tissue,” she said.

She’ll Probably Name It “Fluffy”

Rose is showing me a series of pictures she has colored in a Dover book of dragons. She flips to one particularly fearsome-looking creature with deadly claws and an evil glare.

“This one is Rilla’s,” she tells me.

“Hi, Sugar,” says Rilla, leaning close to kiss the beast tenderly upon its snarling, dagger-toothed snout. “My little sweetie.”