She said, he said.

A salutary tale: reader make of this what you will.

She said "It's not like it used to be."

He said "That's because you're always critical so I tense up around you."

She said "Nobody else says I'm critical; maybe you just give me things to be critical about."

He said "And you're surprised I go quiet around you?"

She said "Well I didn't introduce the 'critical' thing; you're the one who brought it up."

Then he said "And your tone of voice is critical; you're always angry and irritated with me."

So she said "That's because you withdraw from me."

To which he said "We are going round in circles here."

So to change the subject and lighten the mood she said "And I'm really worried about the children. Do you think they are o.k.?"

Which elicited "They'll be more o.k. if you stop worrying about them."

Which prompted "Are you saying that I've caused them to behave like this?"

To which he rallied "I didn't say that, really."

To which rejoinder she added "What do you mean by really?"

So he said "I don't know: it's just a word."

Which she parodied as "Just a word; just a word."

Which he threw right back at her as "Sarcastic! Sarcastic!"

And she countered with "Words are important, you know. Modifiers; tags. Why do you have to be sloppy?"

Which caused the parrying of "I am not a child or some kind of linguistics student!"

To which she said "If you were a linguistics student maybe you would choose words and phrases more carefully? Some kind of linguistics student, for example?"

Well, they had a parrot in the room, these two. And to their shame, the parrot learned to, well, parrot what they said right back at them. It made them flinch and squirm and people would come into the house and say

"Oh - what an unpleasant parrot."

To which he said....

Picture of a blue hydrangea in autumn. Still beautiful stripped of its former vibrancy, I think.