2001-12-03 - 6:54 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Closer", Nine Inch Nails

Before I begin this story, I want you to understand something about it.

I'm not a moonlight-walks-and-flowers kind of girl. I mean, I like moonlight just fine, and I certainly like flowers, especially when they're not being eaten by bugs or thrown away by garbagemen. But where other girls I know dreamt of a man who makes them candlelit dinners and brings them flowers on a regular basis "for no reason", I dreamt of a man who talks to me and who listens to me and "gets" me, and that's about it. Nothing else really mattered beyond that.

So in this story, it's not the flowers, per se, that matter.

Two more things:

1. Since I have a man who talks to me and listens to me and "gets" me, I basically stopped caring about presents. Since I was in my early 20s I haven't wanted to be fussed over on my birthday. I'd rather just notch up my age a year and get on with my day. I don't think I've gotten a present from Poindexter for the entire six years we've been together. He asks every year if I want one, and I say "no". When I say "Having him around every day is so wonderful I don't need presents", most people want to puke, but it's true. Keep your airsickness bag handy.

2. My rosebush outside, the one with the orange blooms edged in red, had one last bloom on it, due to the unseasonably warm fall. I've been watching it and waiting 'til it was developed enough to bring it inside (it's been weeks in the making). That day was yesterday. Today is my 30th birthday, so I've been calling it my "birthday rose".

So, I woke up today with that telltale feeling in my throat. I have a cold brewing. Ugh. I asked Poindexter to call work for me to tell them where in my desk to find my timesheet, then went back to sleep. My plan was to get as much sleep as possible in the hopes that I could fight it off.

Later when I woke up, I came downstairs and sat on the couch and looked pitiful. Poindexter looked at me sympathetically from a safe distance and said "Poor thing" a few times. I took a look at my birthday rose, and noticed with excitement that it had started to open during the night. These roses, which Alicia gave me last spring, have a wonderful fragrance that fills the room when it's open.

I leaned in for a sniff, and it was -- and this should be absolutely no surprise to some of you -- covered with little green bugs.

I cussed a bit, grumbled, covered the bloom with a cup so they couldn't fly off in the house, and put it out on the porch. After breakfast, I said, I would spray it with bug killer.

Which I did, and then put it back on the porch to wait for the bugs to die and fall off. When I came back in the house, I grumbled, more to myself than to Poindexter, "Now it's going to smell more like bug spray than rose. I'm gonna have to go buy a rose at the florist to make up for this."

Now, this was NOT a "hint". I buy flowers on occasion, when I see them in the grocery store and can't resist. Me being independent me, if I want flowers I go buy them myself.

So anyway, I sat on the living room couch -- the living room is flooded with sunlight in the morning and early afternoon -- and telecommuted for a while on my laptop. Around 3:30, I informed Poindexter I was tired and went upstairs for a nap.

At 5pm, I came downstairs, walked toward the couch, and laying there next to my computer was a bundle of greens with two roses in the midst of it, from the local florist I always go to. One peach, one red. My jaw dropped. I leaned over to pick it up, and discovered a vibrant pink one, and then a white one lurking in the back.

What did I do next? I started to cry.

Then I went looking for Poindexter, who was downstairs, and met him on the landing and I yelled, tearily, "Where did those flowers come from?!" I thanked him and hugged him very, very tight, and he said, "You're not crying, are you?" and I said, "Yes I am" and he laughed and hugged me some more.

Apparently he had gone out to CompUSA looking for a CD burner (his had died), and remembered my comment and thought he'd drop in and see if he could get me a replacement rose. He told the lady there the bug story, and said, "The one she has is orange with red around the edges." Apparently these are special order, and she didn't have any in the shop, so she asked, "Do you want red or peach or ... ?"

And then the man who correctly guessed six years ago that my true favorite color is "all of them" (although I pick periwinkle when pressed), said, "How 'bout one of each?"

I'll spare you all the gushy things I said. But remember, it's not the flowers. It's that he listened, and he was thinking of me when he was out. They weren't flowers "for no reason" or "because he loved me", but because he had paid attention when I was grumbling about a flower from my garden.

I couldn't possibly ask for more than that.

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