the bottle lady ups her game

There's an old lady in our neighborhood who collects deposit bottles and cans. I see her at least once a week, carrying a  bag, pushing  a granny cart,  or going through my recyclables bag, separating the deposit bottles from the others. I don't know when she first showed up -- it's possible she was in the neighborhood before us, but I honestly don't know. At any rate, she's a fixture here -- one of the full cast of characters that gives this neighborhood its flavor.

She and I don't talk much -- her English is limited, and my Mandarin* is virtually nonexistant. But we smile at each other and wave hello. Today we had what may have been our most extensive interaction. I was taking the garbage to the curb as she was going through the cans and bottles. I asked if she needed help, since it was about to rain, or a bigger bag. She said "I have" and continued her work. Soon Blair came outside to tell me something, and the bottle lady told us something (I've no idea what) about our tomato plants, and that there are nice people living around here. In particular she pointed to the house across the street.

Most of what I know about the bottle lady I learned from the man in the house across the street. He's kind of the mayor of the block. Anyway, from him I learned that the lady is an immigrant from China, where she grew up in poverty. Now she lives with her daughter's family in the area. The daughter is a high-powered doctor. Or lawyer -- I forget which. And she's kind of embarrassed that her mother goes around collecting bottles and cans for the deposit. The man across the street knows the daughter, or at least has met her. He jokes that he will, one day, show up at her house with a bag of bottles and say "This is for your mom." I laugh at the thought, but I hope he never does it.

We have a friend in the Czech Republic who has visited a few times, staying with us while she does research for her doctoral dissertation. She says that she wants to be the bottle lady when she's old. It seems odd, but I can kind of understand it. She sets her own hours, gets lots of fresh air and exercise, and meets lots of people.

The point of all this is that the bottle lady recently stepped things up and brought us cucumbers that she grew herself. It seemed odd to me, but Blair viewed it as a win-win. She managed to thank us for the bottles, and show pride in her gardening. And we get yummy cucumbers.

I guess you can't beat that.

*Maybe it's Cantonese, I'm not sure. But I think it's Mandarin