Cactus 1 - Erik 0

I had a fight with the cactus last night.

As part of my husband training, I was helping Marga hang laundry to dry out on the balcony. I turned to get some clothes pins and, like a professional wrestler in a china shop, slammed my right elbow into Mr. Cactus. One of us let out a squeal, and the confrontation was over. Marga, who needs no wife training, ran to get the tweezers and a nurse hat and plucked several large thorns out of my shapely triceps brachii. After making sure she'd gotten all of them, she then pulled some sort of burn ointment out of nowhere and rubbed that on, finally sealing it with a kiss.

I was excused from the rest of the clothes hanging task.

When I was organizing my photos into the new iPhoto '08 the other day, I came across this photo from only one year ago:

Look how tiny he was in that huge pot! And now look at him...

It looks like he (the cactus) is about to explode out of that pot like the Hulk out of a polo shirt. (ignore the pantsless wood bear)