Flowers

The long mild winter is over. I'm spoiled. I couldn't have had a better winter for my return to Chicago, almost no snow and no deep freeze. Next year when I'm up to my ass in snow and my nose hairs are frozen solid, I'll feel compelled to whine like every other Chicagoan. But to hell with that, it's springtime and I planted flowers. Over the winter I built a set of flower boxes for under the frontchroom[1] windows. Out on the front stoop[2] I planted yellow daffodils in the planter, and even put some geraniums in my neighbor's planter. I hope they appreciate them and don't use it as an ash tray. Mark and I did have a bit of an argument over the flowers in the window box. I thought that since I had built them, I got to pick out what went in there. I was wrong.

"We have to go to Home Depot and get some more pots to go in that window box." Mark told me.

"I am not going shopping. I am not going to waste good weather like this by going shopping with you at Home Depot. If you want to go shopping, you know where the keys to the car are. You know where Home Depot is." I screamed back at him. Rude, yes, but I was really tired of shopping. I hate shopping. Anyway, Mark got the keys and off he went. About an hour later Mark returned. He came marching out of the garage with a gigantic fern in his arms. He went to get flower pots to put in the window box, and came home with a fern. That's why I hate shopping with him.

"Where are the flower pots? You couldn't go to the store without getting something you don't need, could you?"

"They're in the car." Mark snipped, while breezing past me with his fern.

So after all the drama, Mark and I planted the flowers in the window boxes together. I have to admit, Mark's design is better than what I was going to do. I wanted a big cluster of blooms, all the same color, and all bunched up together. Sometimes I just need to shut up and let him go about his business. But I still hate shopping with him. That's not going to change.

[1] Chicago speak for the living room, or the front room.

[2] This is what Chicagoans call their front porch.