*861 - forty-nine pieces of love

49 roses in my room in an array of vases. Reds, pinks, oranges, the occasional white. All lovingly dried and arranged--a scrapbook of the past year.

The prettiest, deep red one: his first rose to me. A dozen of perhaps the prettiest pink roses I've ever seen: his post-dance performance congratulations for being a na-na-na-diva. Half a dozen vibrant orange roses that deserved a vase of their own: six roses for six months. Etc.

I thought they would last forever and I would some day have wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling masses of lovely dried roses in every color.

Well, they've lasted until a few unnaturally humid (for Ithaca) days ago. They went from brittle to saggy in just a few hours! :( And today, cool and dry, has made them turn brittle again--but now in the same saggy form.

Not all are damaged but ... I'm sad :( How will they make it to Boston with me?