Tag Archives: tulips

Changing Roles

When we first met nearly 15 years ago my husband brought me roses. Usually arranged, in a vase. Eventually I ran out of room for vases so he bought me roses I needed to arrange, just at the time I needed to get dinner on the table. He’s allergic to cats so I found him a place 1,000 steps away. I brought over a few key kitchen elements (he only had a lame plastic colander from college days).

Oh, he has clues to make a grilled cheese sandwich but does not cook, at all. OK. He wanted to use all the kitchen machines I had before we met so we have made pancakes with whipped egg whites (he looked up a recipe) and fresh pasta with my hand-crank counter machine.

Both were successful. It would be fun if he can make cranberry or blueberry pancakes with our nephew over the holidays (before he becomes a teenager and stops talking to us)! I can call out the recipe and they can do the work! And clean up. That’s not a strength, the “human tornado” is called that for a reason. The tornado is the husband, not his younger brother’s son.

Yesterday I bought him pink and white tulips. I was running around doing things before he flew home (three hours late, got in after midnight and crashed on the bed after Otis-ing the lame old dog up).

The tulips were on the kitchen counter for 20 minutes or so while I was laundering and running a very loud and long dishwasher. I arranged the tulips, prepared the vase with flower food, cut the stems and voila!

The pink ones sagged but they all reached for the sun this morning so I turned them around. They are technically dead but still responding to food, water and sunlight. Kind of like family in hospice care. There for a week, my dear husband told my mother on her deathbed that he’d take care of me. He told me later, he has and will do so but I take care of him as well.

Sadly, my husband did get in after midnight, has a cold and I got up at five to get our dog out of his way, cover him and have tea and chicken soup ready to go. It’s nearly seven in the morning now and he’s snoring away. That’s the way he likes to deal with colds and flu. It works. If my brother had a cold/flu he could sleep 14 hours straight and awaken well. Whatever works.

Zoe is by my office chair, as always. We’ll let J sleep and see if any of our packages that were supposed to be here yesterday, arrived. Luckily his year’s supply of doc-ordered contacts arrived safely. He was in desperate need of those for work and life. I worry about him always.

He’s sick and is only home two days per week now. I can only hope that sleep, tea, soup, perhaps pizza or St. Louis style ribs will get him well. That is my wish. Dee