the yard

my landlady lacks most of what i perceive would be the qualities needed to own & maintain property. we'll leave that for the moment.
but she is a NINJA when it comes to gardening. things seem to grow when she just looks in their direction, so much so that i sometimes picture her (against my will, mind you) wearing chiffon pantaloons and exposed-belly top a la I Dream Of Jeannie and tossing her top-of-the-head ponytail at the garden to make it grow. Then i have to rub my eyes because in fact, she is pretty lame and doesn't really have those powers.
in any case, she compulsively adds food to the bird feeders, which now is attracting AMERICAN ROBINS and 3 DARK-EYED JUNCOS, as well as the usual other marauders and now, i think i am seeing GOLDFINCHES but i'm not sure that's what they are because they're so dull with winter plumage. Maybe they'll molt--or maybe I'm just wrong.
I brought Stella out on her harness and leash this afternoon. We had a pretty funny moment with a man so handsome it was bordering on Ricardo Montalban's level. Well, maybe a couple notches below Ricardo Montalban, but he had a dachsund and a terrier on two leashes and they were flirting with Orbit, our downstairs neighbor's dog, who has an inferiority complex and loves cats and smaller dogs. Ricardo made kissing sounds at his dogs, but in a weirdly manly way, and coaxed them away, until he noticed i had my cat on a leash, at which point he felt the need to explain the situation to his dogs. I felt like this was his way of having a conversation with me, and had the distinct sense that he OFTEN interacts with strangers in this way: "Look guys! It's a cat! It's on its leash too!" "SHE," I said to Ricardo's dogs. "SHE's on HER leash. This is Stella." Ricardo glared at the ground and did not reply. Look, buddy, I was thinking. Either you think of your pets as people, in which case you get to talk to them like people in public, which means you also have to acknowledge other people's pets as people too, or you don't, which means you act NORMAL and address other humans DIRECTLY if you wish to communicate. Geez.