Tag Archives: Spouse

Garden Party

Every year, my husband and I repeat: “We’re too busy. We’re too old.”

Still, we give our annual garden party.

Unlike the scenario in Ricky Nelson’s song, “Garden Party,” neither Mary Lou, Yoko Ono, nor her walrus show up. Just lots of uninvited guests.

Given our sophisticated attire, you’d think nobody would dare approach our garden without an engraved invitation. I wear an orange T-shirt accidentally bleached with the underwear wash load. Hubby sports his free T-shirt from our 1971 prom, plus trendy ripped jeans. Roomy 20-year-old shorts show off my black-knee look, enhanced by matching black nails. Emitting an elegant fragrance called “Compost,” Hubby and I have dressed in our casual best.

Unfortunately, thistles, with their prickly personalities, crash the party. I’ve nicknamed them “Klingon sticker weeds.” Like the legendary “Star Trek” foes, they aspire to conquer the universe, beginning with our garden.

Grass, which avoids our yard’s bald spots, flourishes alongside its evil ally. Morning glories that rebel against trellises swarm the cucumber patch.

For other boorish invaders, we’re not only their hosts. We’re their refreshments.

Millions of mosquitoes and chiggers view us as a free Golden Corral.

Still, Hubby and I stick to the program, playing garden games cherished for generations:

Lose the Trowel – Did I leave it among the tomato plants? On the freezer? Or (on bad-memory days) in the freezer?

Find the Rake – Gratifying for the spouse who lost it. Not for the unconscious spouse who stepped on it.

Twister – Hubby and I possess twin gallon bottles of Ibuprofen to document our prowess.

Only God, the perfect Host, has given the flawless garden party that might have lasted forever.

Hmm … wasn’t it another pair of humans who spoiled it?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What makes a great garden party?

Help for Gardening Addicts

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Gardening addicts. Never leave them alone at a garden center or nursery, where obliging, devious personnel help them take out a second mortgage to buy the last bougainvillea. This, though the tropical lovelies prefer Argentina over Indiana.

Younger junkies fall victim to buying binges after watching HGTV. However, gardening addiction does its worst damage in women of a certain age.

They should know better than to trust this mad urge to nurture. Most spent decades caring for little humans. They’ve repressed memories of endless feedings — and the waterings with which baby sprouts responded. These women dealt daily with mountains of fertilizer. Eventually wising up, they limited the number of nurturees they’d cultivate.

However, spring gardening regenerates the madness. While spouses are playing golf, the women load up with 35 flats of annuals, 37 bags of potting soil and barrels of pansies, adding just one more hanging basket here. Another there. How can they ignore wilted tomato seedlings? With their TLC, the weaklings will flourish.

Addicts.

With symptoms listed below, I hope to alert family and friends of this malady.

Signs of Gardening Addiction

Early Level

Switching from a regular cart to one the size of a brontosaurus.
Bragging to strangers about how many green beans she grew last year.
Fibbing about extra trips to garden centers.
Claiming kids/grandkids are responsible for dirt in the car.

Second Level

Bragging to strangers about how many zucchinis they forced on friends last year.
Buying seeds by the pound on the Internet.
Claiming proud ownership of 234 flowerpots stacked in the garage.
Delighting in the $1,000 tiller her husband gave her for their anniversary.

Okay, so I filled the brontosaurus-sized cart. If Hubby hadn’t been present, I might have filled five.

Third Level

Hijacking a brontosaurus cart at gunpoint.
Shoplifting bags of manure.
Buying seeds by the barrel.
Claiming proud ownership of 9,781 flowerpots stacked in the garage.
Organizing neighborhood kids for a dandelion-blowing party at a rival’s gardens.

Final Level

Buying an authentic Sweet Juliet Rose. The original plant sold for $15.8 million.

I am proud to inform readers, as well as my spouse, that today, I didn’t brag to a single stranger about green beans or zucchini. I bypassed needy tomato seedlings. I kept my regular cart and made a single purchase.

“Only one?” Hubby blinks in disbelief.

“Only one,” I assure him.

“A rosebush.”

These plants just had to go home with me. Who could resist?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a gardening addict?

Those Calendar Challenges

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Glumly, my spouse and I agree on a date-and-time powwow. We discuss emailed lists of seven grandchildren’s end-of-year activities. We summon our calendars, determined to organize our world and theirs.

Right.

How can we attend a middle school concert, high school track meet and a graduation the same day 250 miles apart?

Lots of T-ball games are on our calendar this spring.

If only science would concentrate less on the ice caps and focus on beaming us to Timmy’s T-ball game on time.

We also review dates for Hubby’s end-of-semester grading and my writing projects. Can we mow the grass monthly and plant our garden before September?

Gaaa!

Woody Allen, expanding on a Yiddish proverb, said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.”

My parents, who were pastors, believed God’s plans rarely matched ours. Why bother with calendars? Even trips for groceries or car repair were interrupted by “divine appointments” with hurting — and annoying, I thought — people. Especially if I’d planned for us to go swimming.

My parents were more interested in God’s planner than theirs.

My dad disliked calendars not only for spiritual reasons, but because he hated whatever cramped his style. My mother, like an unpaid air traffic controller, organized five children’s piano lessons, sports practices and work schedules in her head — along with all church events.

Until I met my future husband, I considered that normal. At his house, however, an unobtrusive calendar with notations of who, what, when and where possessed a Clark Kent superpower: it ran four lives.

Yet, my naïve love and I envisioned harmonious life together. We did show up the same day for our wedding. But how have Hubby and I met additional calendar challenges?

First, beneath Hubby’s conventional exterior dwelt an adventurous spirit. He married me, didn’t he? Second, his career as a country doctor trashed predictability. Babies held zero respect for plans to eat and sleep. People in pain rarely followed office schedules.

Serving on a church staff and running my own launch-’em-and-land-’em household, I began to appreciate calendars. Mom memorized hers, but to be there for the people I loved, I needed a for-real calendar.

Hubby and I still want to be there for family, church and community. What if our calendars — and our lives — showed nothing but white space? Blank evidence that we cared for no one, and no one cared for us?

We’d rather learn to laugh with God.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a calendar fan?

For My True Love

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Have you spent endless hours seeking Christmas gifts for your Numero Uno?

We search stores. Dig through photos, files, and websites for unique gifts that say, “I love you.” Right, guys?

We’re all inspired by “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Mr. True Love went all out to find his sweetheart’s presents. Five gold rings notwithstanding, though, romantic zeal doesn’t always translate to gift-giving know-how.

Our first Christmas together, my true love gave me gloves. Hairy-looking, mottled red and gray gloves, the like of which I had not seen before, nor have since. Later, I learned his mother, terrified her 17-year-old was hurrying into something serious, had suggested a pair.

He should have asked her help.

My future husband’s gift-giving impairment didn’t surprise me, though, because my father was the world’s worst. The oh-is-something-happening-tomorrow? thought never occurred to him before Christmas Eve. Second, penny-pinching Dad comprehended zero about Mom’s preferences.

Around age 10, I noticed their annual conflict.

Dad bought Mom a blue eyelet dress, perfect for running through daisies.

“Pretty!” I cheered. “Like the ones the eighth graders wear!”

Mom grated, “I’m not in eighth grade.”

True. Most eighth graders didn’t have five children. And even I saw the dress was four sizes too small.

The following year, Dad bought her a practical gift. A slip the size of your average city bus.

After 25 years of bombing, he finally welcomed his daughters’ help in choosing Mom’s Christmas gift.

My husband learned much faster. Now he’s so good, he should teach gift-giving lessons. Hubby could have helped the guy who teased his girlfriend one holiday season, insisting he’d give her an iron.

She responded with cute giggles.

He purchased a super-cheap iron, gave it away, and packaged a romantic gift in the box.

She unwrapped it. No cute giggles.

He spent the rest of Christmas trying to persuade her to: Open. The. Box.

If it’s the thought that counts, a traveling salesman’s wife blew that aspect. She gave him a week’s supply of socks, all dotted with her portrait.

Having dissed all these givers, I tried to be fair, asking Hubby, “What Christmas gift for you did I blow?”

He shrugged. “None I remember.”

None? Our relationship has spanned almost five decades.

I threw my arms around him. “You’re so forgiving!”

“Forgetful’s probably the word.”

“At our age, same difference.” I hugged him again.

During the holidays, I often lie awake. Did I buy the teens’ gift cards from stores that will ruin their reputations for life? Are the in-laws allergic to blue? Do little ones’ toys contain kryptonite?

Hubby’s forgiving/forgetting my Christmas miscues is the best present he could give me.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s the best/worst gift your spouse has given you?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Not Everyone’s Martha Stewart

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Lord, amazing that I not only have chosen most of our gifts, but Hubby and I are wrapping them. His packages, with their economic use of paper and perfect creases, could grace a Christmas photo layout. Mine, however, always look bumpy and lumpy. OMG, it is the thought that counts, right? Even if the love looks lopsided?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer

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OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Oh, my God, my nose is red as a rose. Not very poetic and definitely not pretty. But You gave this sneezy, snorty Snuffleupagus a valentine who, like You, sees past my nasty cold. OMG, I heart you both!