Just Another Day

Last year at this time, I was miserable with shingles. Thank heaven, they didn't revisit while I was working on the garden the last few weeks -- I was afraid they would

About the only bright spot this holiday was that our son came to spend two nights so we could catch up on how he is doing -- phone calls aren't really enough sometimes.

Memorial Day -- or Decoration Day as it was sometimes called by people older than me, was a very patriotic holiday when I was a kid. Military bands, heroes in convertibles, a long but heartfelt ceremony in the cemetery near our house, and the walk home, slowed by sidetracked paths to admire the living flowers on the graves. We would have planted geraniums, ageratums and petunias on my grandfather's grave on the previous Saturday in a time-honored order only my father remembered.

If it was warm enough, there would be a family picnic in the backyard that afternoon, the first of three every summer.

Time and geography and circumstances make all those things just memories. I can't set aside the disappointments I feel about Korea, Viet Nam and now Iraq, which have taken the starch out of my childhood patriotism, and dulls the tones of patriotic speeches. Perhaps it is just the disillusionment of old age. I'd give anything to not have this emptiness in my heart.

Husband's Last Laundry

I know I should be charitable, after all, tomorrow is Mother's Day, and Husband was just trying to be nice. But it's been a rough week and I'm on my last nerve.

I loaned my dark red, two-pieced dress to a friend who had to have something to wear to her father's funeral and was far, far from home. It was all I could do to keep her from washing it or sending it to the cleaners before she returned it. And Husband, looking for something to do on a Saturday morning when I was off at the quilt store, decided that it wouldn't be any chore to throw the dress in with, say, my good long skirt, my favorite purple blouse (a veteran of many washings) and my intimate and semi-intimate apparel -- including my EPIC T-shirt which is a souvenir of the 2003 conference in Tampa.

Granted, when I got home, he made a full confession of his misdeed and offered as retribution five bags of candy from the Dollar General store -- all heavily leaning toward chocolate. But I now have three pairs of pink ankle socks and three pair of "Fruities" to match. The lizard on my EPIC T-shirt is wearing pink-framed sunglasses (the Tampa cigar in his mouth was unaffected).

I don't know if it is just Husband or if all men are so anxious to Do Something that they go forward blithely without reading instructions or the slightest inclination to ask for advice, consent or directions. But after this, I'm keeping my dark red dress under lock and key.

And on second thought, I'm not so sure the purchase of the aforementioned chocolate wasn't purchased prior to Husband's realization of his faux pas. Hmmm....this will take further thought. And further chocolate.

Things Are Looking Up

Since we had a late killing frost, I've been depressed. The garden has suffered not only from the frost, but from my bout with shingles last summer, and before that, a car ended up upside down in our yard, clipping a power pole and occasioning the frying of some of my favorite plants the fall before that.

But as of today, there is much more hope. We actually have a couple of our favorite irises blooming, and the phlox that I planted just to use up a packet of seeds last year have taken over a hitherto dull corner of the garden. For Mother's day I've gotten two hydrangeas -- a blue one and a pink "flying saucer" one. They seem to like where we planted them.

but what restores my faith that my efforts of planting annuals, biennials, perennials, shrubs and herbs is that we discovered new shoots on two of our rose bushes today -- on the climbing Queen Elizabeth and the climbing Peace. Maybe the other will survive, too, with some tender, loving care.