If Cupcake finds out I’m doing this in the back laundry room, I’m toast. If the countertop blows up from all the water, well, I may have to find new living arrangements. I guess I can blame VA for it because they won’t give me my ILP greenhouse.

The good news is she wanted me to grow fewer tomatoes this year. It appears I may have  succeeded. Last year we had 144 starts and I caught hell for it. This year it’s a paltry 117. The other good news is Sunnycrest nursery is buying all my extras so this is now a vocational project rather than an avocational one. In fact, we took 21 mammoth jackolantern pumpkin starts down there this morning. I think I’ll have them donate the proceeds to the Peninsula Veterans outfit locally here. I don’t want to embroil myself in a tax issue if my earnings endanger my Social Security payments. Like that’s going to happen.

The kicker is I (Cupcake)  planted chocolate somethingarother tomatoes. They’re reputed to taste “chocolatety”. Likewise the pineapple ones. This is going to be interesting. I’m not going to go out on the little limbs and ask her why we don’t just buy chocolate or pineapples. I would simply get the “look” and a long, drawn out briefing. Somewhere the words “men, neanderthal, box thinking, and the you have the tomato box out” would be inserted. Following that, exhortations to be daring and not so caught up in those “old, tired ways” would follow. It makes me shiver. I’m learning. In order to “accessorize the salad”, you need a palate of different colors. Apparently, tomatoes are the perfect tool for this.  I wonder how many other men on earth know this. In fact, I wonder how many men on earth even give a… I think I’ll just stop there.