Are Men from Mars and Women from Venus?

On a Saturday

When my daughter, my sisters, my cousin and I

Go to lunch and a production at Pioneer Memorial Theater

To celebrate my birthday,

DeRay sits on the couch watching inane TV shows

all afternoon and evening.

He boasts he is going to make me a birthday cake

But he doesn’t.

On the next Saturday

When DeRay* and Ed go to the Clark Planetarium

For a few shows, (so Ed won’t have a boring weekend,)

I wash and hang a batch of clothes;

  Pick the basil and tomatoes;

  Wash, cook, and freeze the beets**;

  Package the frozen peppers,

  Rearrange the freezers,

  Load and start the dishwasher;

  Wipe off the counters

  Vacuum and mop the kitchen, hall, and bathroom floors.

Perhaps men and women are from different planets.

*In his defense, he did dig the beets before he left and went grocery shopping before he came home.

**Since the pressure cooker blew up 20 years ago,

Scalding my face, legs and chest,

I’m leery of beets even though I cooked them

In a regular pot on top of the stove.

Just the smell makes me fearful.

BTW, I froze 9 quarts – a far cry from

The 200 pints Uncle Ed and I bottled from

Mama’s garden when she was recovering

From her first brain surgery.

I remember how acutely I missed having her in the kitchen,
even thought it wasn't the house in which I was reared,

And I had been married and gone from home

For over a dozen years.

. . . Memories. Memories . . .