"I'm enjoying every paragraph."
"Why don't you call up Murray's and take some more lessons? Maybe if you put in enough roadwork and a few more thousand dollars—you could finally learn to tango."
"Damn your pretty eyes! Why don't you study how to follow?"
Ricky laughed. "No fooling! You work too much. If you don't play some, you'll burn yourself out in another forty-six years. You've been getting stale around here."
"Tell me about the birds and the flowers and Popcorn."
Popcorn is one of the cocker pups—all white. Quite a dog. Popcorn had got into the garbage pit and trapped himself for two hours. There had been a squall. The wind had blown over the delphiniums. The 2-4-D I'd sprayed around was already wilting weeds that had defied generations of her forebears. She was going to dig up and separate the crocuses in the rock garden. She had decided I wouldn't finish building the water lily pool for another year and she was planning to use the excavation for composting. There were two young downy woodpeckers and an oriole at the bird feeding station that afternoon.
"Don't work too hard," she repeated. "And have some fun."
"I'm weary and I'm bored and I'm lonely." God knew I was lonely, anyhow.
"It's good for you."
"I hope you starve emotionally."