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I'VE GOT MY OWN PERSONAL GUINNESS RECORD to relate. Calm down, Reader Dear. Yesterday I may have mentioned (just in passing) the sipping of mint juleps, but I haven't taken up any head-tilted-back, gulping-and-belching guzzling of beer just yet. I'm referring to the Guinness Book--you know, the one with all the superlatives.


A few days ago my daughter of the prolific garden came toting an enormous armload of her red zinnias. "I brought you a bouquet," she said with a laugh.
I was aghast. "Why ever did you do that?!"
"Oh," she said, "the eggplants need some room to grow."

Thus I got quite the biggest bouquet ever--personally speaking, of course.


























"Throw them away if you want," my daughter said, when I pondered what on earth I was going to do with them. She deposited them gently on the porch and returned to the garden. Throw them away?! Now THAT I found impossible! These long-stemmed beauties had the lengthiest stems I'd ever seen on any Zinnia. Come to think of it, they were the longest-stemmed flowers I've ever been given*( That's the second entry for my Guinness book.)






With a lot of trimming, a little ingenuity, a plastic trash bag and an empty planter, I got the flowers corralled into a fantastic bunch--not so tidily arranged, but impressive for their mass.




Later, when the weather threatened to storm on my largest-ever bouquet, I brought it indoors, where those flowers seem to sit expectantly, waiting for some grand event to take place.



"This is it!" I explain each morning when I come downstairs. "The earth is still spinning in space! There's still hope for the human race!" And they seem to lift their pretty red faces and smile in understanding.




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