Sunday, October 10, 2010

Love

spider lilies blooming in the backyard

My husband is not the romantic type. His attitude for the most part is "I told you I loved you some time or another and I'll get back to you if that changes." Once when we were on a cruise I saw that there was a ceremony being held for couples who wanted to renew their vows. When I asked hubby if he wanted us to renew our vows he did not even look up from his coffee as he asked in bewilderment, "Why, have they expired?"

What hubby is is the practical type.  When I locked my key in my car twice in one month, hubby drove thirty miles round trip each time to unlock the car with his spare key. Then he bought me a magnetic key holder to put under my bumper. When my son had an ambitious science project to complete that required simulating a beach in a kiddy swimming pool, hubby borrowed a pickup truck and drove to a sand pit in the rain to buy sand. When I had surgery on my foot, hubby helped me wrap my foot in plastic bags and get on and off my shower chair for weeks until I finally got the bandages off.


Not to mention that he does most of the housework and half the cooking.


Even so, occasionally I am moved to remark that it's nice to get flowers as a surprise. And surprise he does. One day I came home from an errand to find a vase full of orange flowers like the ones pictured above sitting on the mantle. 'Where did you get them?" I asked. As it turned out, he got them from the vacant lot next door to a rent house he owned downtown. "There are a whole bunch of them," he added. "If you like them I can dig some up and plant them in the back."


Ah, my ever practical hubby. The spider lilies, as it turns out they are called, are the oddest flowers. The leaves bloom in the spring, then they appear to die away, and leafless flowers pop up a few months later, when I least expect them. As I said, it's nice to get flowers as a surprise.


So I'm keeping him. Him and the spider lilies.