Mom on the Run: Her gnomes like to roam

I’m standing, arms crossed, looking at my front porch. It’s sad, really; really sad, how awful my flower beds look. Both small flower beds, on either side of the path to the front door, full of weeds and leaves and straggles. Yuck.

My pumpkin looks pretty good, though. I just got it today -early, yes, but right now the grocery store selection is bountiful and beautiful, and cheap. I placed my perfect orange globe on my stoop, in my standard pumpkin place, and that’s what brought me to this moment of front-porch assessment.

I take a step back and look left, at the hanging basket of purple flowers. Well, it was a basket of purple flowers. Now, after chilly nights and hot days, after floods and drought and even an earthquake, despite my careful caretaking it’s a bucket of limp, yellowing vines, dotted with a paltry few blackening blooms.

Oh, it’s dismal, the floral transition from summer to fall. In a few weeks it will be gorgeous, with the deep burgundy mums and the gold and auburn maple tree, plus my perfect orange pumpkin. But that’s then, and this is now, and currently, it’s a dump, here at my front door, plants half-alive and half-dead. At least, I think, my gnomes liven up the place. I smile down at my main gnome, who is cheerfully surveying the street, then look right, just by the pumpkin, where … hey! Where’s my pot of gold gnome?

I step over the leggy, desperate marigolds to get closer, and bend down to check. Sure enough, the pot of gold gnome is gone. He hasn’t fallen over into the mulch, or been hidden by the budding mum, or tipped against the house. He’s just gone. Dang it!

I turn around, cross back over the marigolds, and bear right, passing the main gnome, who I silently thank for staying home. I bend down, peer under the hanging basket: OK, reading gnome and napping gnome are still there too. Just pot of gold gnome gone this time.

This is getting ridiculous, I think irritably. Seriously? We’re still playing this game? With MY gnomes? My friend Karen showed me the eHow site after Main Gnome and Pot of Gold Gnome disappeared the first time, in July. “How to Go Gnoming,” the site advised, and, aside from keeping the gnomes longer than the recommended 24 hours, the July gnome-nappers followed the instructions well. They returned my gnomes in perfect condition, with pictures of them all around Manassas, enjoying the delights of summer. My gnomes really got around!

The second time, in late August, Main Gnome disappeared with a new traveling buddy: Mini Gnome, a 2” collectible who was previously content, I thought, on the bookcase in the living room. Main Gnome returned home stowed away in the back of my minivan, after traipsing all around my daughter’s college (what a coincidence! They were there together?!) with Mini Gnome. Photos turned up on Facebook: Main Gnome in the elevator, in the dorm refrigerator, supervising a chess match. Mini Gnome clearly preferred to visit people, and was photographed with local celebrities: the Resident Assistant, a waiter, a college DJ -and even behind my own back! Such sass!

And as I stand and look at my yard, and think about the summer, and wonder about Pot of Gold Gnome, I start to smile, and then to laugh. I look again at my yard, and see it all very differently. My front porch isn’t weedy and neglected. No, in fact, it’s fairy tale-like, with twisted, dried vines and earnest baby maples, marigolds and begonias stretching towards the sun, shadowy hidey-holes for bugs and toads … and gnomes, who go wandering and have adventures, but always seem to find their way home. With pictures!

Lianne Wilkens lives with her family in Manassas. Reach her at liannewilkens@hotmail.com, or follow her on Tw itter@MessengerMOTR.