I can’t say a word when Nicky comes home filthy from work, as I know I should just be glad that he’s actually working.  He was fired from the nursery where he was working, apparently due to a highly unnecessary union mind-set.  I told him I was shocked and appalled by his behaviour, because when I worked in the fruit stand, you worked whenever you had to, not around a schedule.  He said words to the effect of ‘too bad’, albeit not quite that nicely.

So today when he arrived home black from head to toe from construction labouring, I kept my lip zipped.  As much as possible, that is.  I had to squeak out a “don’t touch the shower curtain, I just washed it.”  I suppose few people would bother with a snow white fabric shower curtain with accompanying white plastic curtain, but there it is.

It must be that I decided that though surrounded by filthy males, I would pretend that I was alone in a cottage in the forest.  I bought only pure-white linens, and decorated with floral wallpaper.  A neighbour marveled at my perseverance even as the old tarped flatbed truck distracted the eye from my nearby container of annuals.  A pile of garbage is always lovingly kept by Denis beside a small garden of hostas.

In the spring, Denis likes to rake into my beds, tearing out tender perennials.  I’ve begged him to stop ‘helping’ me.  Last week he chopped down so much shrubbery in front of the living room window that I now look down onto the ugly road.  While he was doing it, I casually sauntered over, and asked what in the name of God in Heaven he was doing.  However, by then it was too late, and he was saying something about getting light into that corner, to which I replied, “I wonder how my shade plants are going to like it?

Luke will have his Level C welding ticket next Friday, his last day of class.  He has to find a job out of it, but plans to go to Calgary to seek his fame and fortune.  Is this too obvious?  I asked him, “Do you want me to buy you a suitcase?”  It seems horrible, after having given birth to them and all, but at some point the mother animal actually sometimes has to chase the offspring away.

Along with the suitcase, I also have a rosebush on my shopping list.  I finally gave up on a large poppy and am digging it out.  It blooms so briefly, then the plant is cut right down to the ground, exposing huge bare areas.  Some gardeners actually seem to be able to tolerate bare ground, but that’s the one thing I won’t put up with.

So aside from weeping as I re-wash the white shower curtain due to the humungous muddy handprint on it, I focus on the fact that I may actually have one of them launched fairly soon.  I’m not going to celebrate yet, though, as I’ve been burned by that before.