Happy day

MARK’S ARTICLE – March 29, 2010
“Second best season”

ROOFTOP – Each season has its first roofsit, and this one is spring’s. Spring is a nice season. Of course, it’s not the nicest season. That distinction goes to Fall.

I like Fall the most ‘cause it’s got crunchy leaves, football and two names. Fall and autumn. I don’t know why that is. Between now and the first roofsit of autumn, I’ll try to have an answer for you. Might have to remind me. For now let’s just enjoy the moment.

Do you know what’s particularly great about this moment? It’s the fact that we’re up here, and Kay is at ground level doing stuff like potting plants, digging around in the yard, and talking to birds.

Before I came up here, she commented on a bunch of little birds that were flitting around, getting all excited over the budding trees and the birdbath. The birds weren’t singing or anything, but I could tell they were excited.

I asked Kay what kind of birds they were, but she didn’t know. She called ‘em “little sweet birds.” I think that’s why God let a man name all the animals. -- “Blue-footed Booby.” That’s a man’s name for a gull-like bird. Genius!

What Kay lacks in bird expertise, she more than makes up for in knowledge of plants. Plantimatology. The girl has sap for blood. We went to Home Depot yesterday to pick out flowers and herbs and wedgetables. (I sometimes have trouble with the “vee” sound.) Kay wanted me along just to load stuff for her. She doesn’t want, nor does she accept plant advice from me.

I’ll point out a lovely flower with beautiful blooms and she’ll say, “That’s a creeping trexblat, and needs direct sunlight.” Our yard has few areas that get a lot of direct sunlight. Seems most of the pretty plants like direct sunlight. They’re the ones with cataracts.

Every plant I recommended to Kay was wrong. Just aggravated me no end. I can’t even pick out potting soil. Instead of reading the bag, I read the price tag. That’s a bad selecting indicator for soil. Apparently. And, speaking of manure, Kay prefers sheep over cow. How does anyone stuff like that?

We ended up buying a bunch of flowers and herbs and wedgedable plants. When I saw the tomatoes and bell peppers in the basket, I said, “Does this mean we’re having another garden this year?” It was such a stupid question. It’s like watching someone put on boxing gloves and asking, “Are we getting ready to have a fight?”

I reminded Kay about how much trouble I went through with last year’s garden. Only ended up with five tomatoes. She said, “That’s because it was a bad year.” No joke. I thought it was because I over tilled.

So, tomorrow I’ll be digging out another garden plot. Tomatoes and bell peppers. No carrots, though. I only mention that, because of what happened last night. Kay and I had just gotten into bed after a long day of weed pulling and the like. I was about to roll over for my goodnight kiss when she said, “Did you know that when the ground is 40 degrees it takes a carrot seed 50 days to germinate?”

For a second I thought I might’ve climbed into bed with a pod person. I was going to turn on the light, but realized that you can’t tell a pod person simply by looking. So, I did the next thing that came to mind. I started laughing. Laughed big time. That got Kay to laughing, which was refreshing ‘cause pod people don’t laugh.

I don’t know exactly what Kay was laughing at, but I imagine her carrot news eventually hit her about the same as it hit me. Thirty-eight years of marriage and at bedtime one of us brings up the germination period of a carrot seed in cold soil. And, get this. And we’re not even planting carrots! It’s good when you end up laughing at bedtime. Sets the stage for the next day.

So, like I say, the girl who shared the carrot germination info with me is down there working like a Turk. Spring shows up and Kay becomes one with the soil. Me, I much prefer becoming one with a lawn chair at rooftop. More relaxing.

So, what say we sit back and watch all the little sweet birds? Not their official name, but cute. Wonder what Kay would’ve called a Blue-footed Booby. A Wading Cutie Pie would be my guess. You know, something like that can ruin an entire specie.

END