Evidence of Spring

  March is a surly month. Like a five-year-old that has just figured out that the world doesn't revolve around him, March victimizes all of us with inconsistent mood swings. Snow flurry pouts, ice storm rages, and the violent outbursts of severe weather that result in flooding and tornadoes, until fury exhausted, he falls asleep and dreams into the serenity of April.

   It could be that I am getting old or that memory is failing me -- but I recall March as a month that one anticipated as the beginning of warmer weather.  There used to be sunny days warm enough to fly a kite or practice softball outside. Typically I'd have raked out the flower beds and planted lettuce and peas in the garden. I would now describe March as one big, wet, muddy yuk. I don't think I've seen the sun since December --which as I remember was warmer than normal and relatively sunny.  The best I can say about March is that the temperature has improved by about ten degrees. Going from twenty or thirty to thirty or forty isn't something to write home about.

  And then of course hanging over everything like an uninvited Thanksgiving guest that won't go home is "THE DISEASE". Not that the weather would entice anyone to go out this year -- but still, being able to go out but choosing not to is different than being confined by government edict -- even if I believe that the edict is the best course of action and the surest way to get us all out alive -- most importantly, me. I have no noble aspirations of dying for the dow, no sir, not me. You can take that to the bank --if it's still there after we are done with all this.

  A lot has changed since March of last year.  We were under water then. I remember driving north to my various jobs and wondering how anyone was going to get a tractor into that bean field yonder as it was so crowded with aquatic fowl. I thought I saw the Pequod sailing through one cornfield but that could have been an overactive imagination.

  My aunt who I had always thought would outlive us all passed away last summer. We always said she was crazy -- which she was, but in a more eccentric way than the running down Main Street wearing nothing but sunglasses and red cowboy boots kind of crazy.  Her brand of crazy, once she was confined to the secured area of  The Home, was to order a 16 foot ladder from the Vermont Country Store to aid in an escape attempt from her second floor window. Did I mention she was 94?  Some crackerjack type at the front desk caught on as the ladder was headed for the elevators. No doubt she was planning to take a run down to Kentucky Fried Chicken on her electric scooter. She loved Kentucky Fried chicken and when the judge took away her driver's license threatening her with jail time if she was caught driving over the neighbor's mailboxes again, she acquired the scooter.  One night when no one was looking she grabbed the scooter and went on the lam, hauled ass down a four lane divided highway to the local KFC. True story.  The lady was a pistol.

  And speaking of The Home, I used to tease my youngest daughter about a declaration she made when she was little that she would always take care of me. Several times I mentioned the house she would build for me when I was in my dotage...er... the age I am now. One day I came home from work to find brochures for the local Home with a sticky note prominently placed and labeled,  "Your new house." Some sense of humor on that kid. It's the joke that keeps on giving. I still get junk mail from those folks trying to entice me to buy in.

  I am more familiar with The Home lately than I care to be. My dad who has managed to out play, out last, and out live most of his contemporaries had to be moved into managed care. Isn't that what they call it? Nice euphemism. In any case due to his hard Irish head he refused to listen to his doctor who told him to use a walker -- one of the nice wheelie kind, not the tennis ball model -- or he could fall and do all kinds of damage. My dad concluded that the doctor was "full of shit" -- that's a direct quote, and managed to fall and do all kinds of damage. So he is now in The Home, which I had thought he'd hate. It seems he's waited his whole life to be managed.  He loves the place. Especially the food. I've eaten the food, so I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about but he's happy as a little clam in his efficiency apartment where they don't let him have sharp objects -- which is probably good.

  Some days he's not quite himself thinking he's in a secret secure CIA facility somewhere in Wisconsin.  One thing I've noticed is that when he has these flights from reality there is often a thread of the truth in them. Which brings me back to the live hand grenade we found in the sock drawer when we were cleaning out his house.  CIA? Hand grenades? Is there a connection? Or did he just keep it around for the home protection feature?  "Stand back or I'll blow us both to smithereens!"  Somehow that doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi as "Stop or I'll shoot!"Maybe my aunt wasn't the only crazy one.  Sometimes you really don't know a person.  And having thought long and hard about it, I'm really not sure why Wisconsin other than why not?

  Working from home is still a thing. I'm adjusting.  I've noticed the landline doesn't ring nearly as much as it used to, though that nice Chinese lady keeps calling.  She has multiple numbers which I religiously block after each call. But she keeps calling. I wonder if she's trying to warn me about something.  I keep the landline for calls such as hers -- hers and the RNC.  Every time they call I shout at them. Maybe one night I'll actually pick up the call and yell at whoever's on the other end of the line. Of late I haven't heard from the guys  from Microsoft who will shut my computer down if I don't contact them immediately. Now that I'm home all the time I kind of wonder what they are up to.

   And speaking of lawns, (see how neatly I segued from nuisance calls to lawns?) mine is beginning to look a little green. Other lawns in the hood are brilliant emerald green due to an early season cocktail of fertilizer and weed killer. I myself don't believe in lawn cocktails. While I like a cocktail as much as the next person and would like my lawn to be emerald green I have come to the realization that I really don't believe in lawns. They are take an awful lot of time, energy, and money. We inherited the idea of lawns from envying British aristocrats back in the day. True American roots are more weedy, though we might enjoy a good round of competitive croquet. I could see that becoming big, along the lines of the NBA. You can trust me on the weedy roots in our heritage. I was a history major. In any case, being true to my roots I don't chemically enhance my yard. I do mow it from time to time to keep the neighbors happy. My yard has become a bit of a sanctuary for moles. The neighbors kill them and probably don't approve of me letting them do their moley things on my property. Live and let live, that's my motto, unless you bring it inside in which case I'll blow you to hell.  All rodent violence aside, my yard does turn green eventually. As long as you don't look too closely, it could resembles grass in a figurative sort of way.

  I was looking forward to planting things this year. The things I plant often die, but like Charlie Brown, every spring I believe I am going to kick that football and a rose bush will survive. But then the disease may have put an end to all my gardening plans. Mingling with people who may be shedding (ugh) virus doesn't inspire me to gas up the pick'em up truck and head out to the garden center. (I don't really own a pick 'em up truck but I'd like to.) I spend too much money on plants that die  anyway -- or maybe I forgot to water them. In any case I am bored with gardening by July.  Did I mention that the Beagle is a digger? She's got a couple good excavations going recently. I might be able to send her to China for take-out by the time she's done.

  The last couple of days I can almost believe that spring is here. But you can never count on the weather.  Or the birds - you can't depend on the fabled harbingers of spring. I saw too many bluebirds and robins in January this year to think they are anything but liars. You can count on the turkey vultures though. They turn up in March like clockwork.  I've seen quite a few of them in the past week. It must be spring.