Spring Hope’s Eternal

Hope sits on the doorstep of Spring.

Every year, with a big smile, waiting to be let in.

It’s the best thing about spring.

Hope.

After all those abbreviated, dreary days, grey skies, drizzle and frozen nights blanketed with snow...it’s spring!

The sun hangs high, stirring lawns, awakening buds, elevating new sprouts of crocuses, daffodils and tulips upward and outward.

All of it shouting in celebratory tones…we made it!

It’s spring!

Now, instead of merely dreaming of better days, we can actually set our sights on them—months of them—ahead.

Not that we’re totally without hope throughout the bleak months of winter.

We hope Netflix finally comes to its senses and starts streaming “The Musters” after all of our complaints.

We hope the nor’easters arrive packing mostly rain, and, if not, hope most of the snow drifts on our neighbor’s driveway instead of ours.

The Essence is Time

Let me be the last to wish you a Happy New Year!

Hopefully, I’m the last, because if people are still wishing you a Happy New Year, a couple of days before St. Patrick’s Day, then both you, and they, need to get out more.

Like me...I need to get out more, at least enough so my tires don’t crumble with dry rot, again.

So, it’s been awhile.

I’ve been a little slow out of the gate getting the retorts rolling, this year.

Not that it was intentional.

It just was.

Not sure why.

As I was telling Super Retorter, Joan, just the other day, every time I sit down to write I seem to get easily distracted and that’s the end of that.

I think I’m going to blame Trump. He’s constantly after me to work up pithy new Tweets for him to put out there. 

Of course, I have no idea what I’m talking about, especially at that hour of the morning, so I just throw out any nonsense that pops into mind, just to get rid of him. The next thing I know he’s got the whole world in an uproar.  

Crazy, huh?

Go figure….

I’ve also spent a lot of the new year trying to find myself…again.

This year I found myself in the cookie cabinet, which wreaked havoc on my waistline.

Not to mention the cookie cabinet.

A Great Idea for Year’s End

I came up with a great idea for a year end story.

The other night, right there at the mall as I was riding up the escalator at Barnes & Noble...of course, of course.

It was perfect for the season and one of those easy right brain downloads that really do just write themselves.

Plus, I was actually chuckling to myself at all the humorous possibilities.

Unfortunately this isn’t it.

Not even close.

It totally slipped my mind by the time I got home, and I’ve been trying to recreate the circumstances in which it popped into my head, ever since.

As, I said, we had been in the basement of the book store, looking for Z’s annual Polar Bear calendar, without success.  I was now riding up the escalator and passing a little girl of about 8, on her way down. 

As we passed, the little girl actually made eye contact with me and gave me a big smile, which is not a situation I’m accustomed to; especially since when I walk thorough most stores, let alone ride up their escalators, I normally assume the expression of a prisoner undergoing enhanced interrogation techniques.

So I don’t usually generate smiles, except from folks sporting monocles.

I kind of nodded, which is about all the congeniality I can muster in these uncertain situations, monocle or not, and snuck a quick glance behind, since surely this unadulterated friendly gesture was certainly not directed towards my unwelcoming countenance.

But there was no one else nearby. Z had already gone on up ahead.

The Magic’s in the Memories

I’m constantly dismayed by the lack of magic in my recent Christmas holidays...more and more with each passing yuletide.

But, no big deal.

I’m constantly dismayed by a lot of things...especially the inconsistency of the haphazard size variation found in the O’s in my box of Cheeri-Os.

I mean, shouldn’t they all be the same?

You might think that’s an odd thing to be constantly dismayed about, and you’d be right, which is my point...but chances are, more than a few of you will be checking out you own nilly willy O’s in about 5 minutes.

Anyway, despite my constant dismayity over this issue—the missing holiday magic...not the cereal—I take comfort in that I don’t appear to be alone. 

I hear it all the time, especially while eavesdropping.

“I don’t know...Christmas isn’t what it used to be...especially since I have to buy my own presents.”

“I swear, I used to hear tiny reindeer bells, up on the roof...but not anymore. Now it’s just the neighbor’s kid crashing his drone into my chimney. ”

“I can still recall when sugar plums danced in my head? Nowadays, there’s not a sugar plum to be found; not since the E-coli scare of ought 12.”

“My family’s lost all our old holiday traditions...like hiding Grandpa’s teeth in the mashed potato bowl! Man, that brings me back...and to this day, I still can’t eat anything mashed!”

Okay, sure. Some of those reminisces might sound a bit peculiar to you, as they do me. But who are we to judge another’s Christmas reveries.

Thanksgiving Cavalerity

You can tell the Christmas hub bub season is upon us, because everywhere you look folks are running around gobbling up turkeys.

Get it...turkeys...gobbling up?

I know...what can I say?

It’s a gift.

Which is very appropriate for the Christmas hub bub season.

You know...gift...cause it’s Christmas...right?

Or should I say “Clause it’s Christmas!”...ha ha ha...I can’t get enough of me....

Anyway, once we get through all this big, turkey gobbling, family gathering, giving thanks hoo ha stuff we can get onto the “real” holiday festivities and start drinking egg nog, which sounds gross, and, at least to me, tastes even worse.

However, tradition demands it...for some...not all...and certainly not me.

But first, like I said, if you were paying attention, which I’m sure you weren’t, because who does these days, there’s all this turkey stuff.

Horrified by my Thanksgiving Cavalerity?

I know...sorry...I made that up.

Cavelrity...no such word.

But there should be since it kinds of sums up the kind of second class treatment Thanksgiving gets these days.

Which I’ve written about before...and before that...and before that...and which I’m sure I’ll write about again.

Same ol same ol.

I was on the fence as to which way I wanted to go this year, theme wise...at least until my neighbor pointed out, in no uncertain terms, I was gonna bend his fence...which I thought was  rude.

Time and Again...and again...and....

October now folds into November, which slips into December that leads to an entirely new year.

Time and again and again and again.

Yet, no matter how many times we’re graced as witness, we never seem to grasp the quickening pace at which it all occurs.

As if we’re taken by surprise...time and again and again and again.

“It’s Halloween already?  Wasn’t it just Christmas and summer a week ago?”

Even though we’ve been warned—our entire life we’ve been warmed—by those who came before.

“It goes fast...enjoy every day...cherish every moment, don’t look back...full steam ahead...the future is now!”

But most of us we’re too busy to listen. Let alone take it to heart.

Yeah, I know.  Not more of this same old same old, again. Haven’t I written this story about 20 other times?

Like just last month...and probably the month or two or three before that.

Sorry....

It all seems like yesterday.

Which is the problem.

Zombie Come Home

The other morning finally brought temps down into the 30’s; this after a schizophrenic fall made it difficult to discern if we were indeed heading towards winter, or straight back to spring.

Just this past Saturday, Z and I came upon a small bunch of confused crocuses happily reaching toward the warm, sunny, October sky.

However, once they saw all the pumpkins scattered about the neighboring lawns the expected finger pointing began, at least in a metaphorical sense, since crocuses don’t have fingers to point.

“I told you this didn’t seem right!  Wayyyy waaaaay too early! What are we going to do, now; I didn’t pack my woolies...did you? I told you not to listen to Carla...Carla always jumps the gun!”

At least that’s what I heard in my head...in reality who knows what they were saying.

They’re crocuses. They have a language all their own.

Anyway, it was cold the other morning.

Really cold.

Winter cold.

So, there I sat in our sun room, minus the sun, listening intently for signs of hot water meandering its way through the pipes and into my 92 year old cast iron radiators.

Did I mention it was cold?

Shivering, transfixed with every drip and gurgle, hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee,  I heard a rustling outside, by the front door.

More of a shuffling, really, which could only mean one thing...the Zombies Across the Street were back.

But, how could that be? The Zombies haven’t been around for over a year; not since they decided to pack up and take what I perceived to be an extended vacation with some ghouls out west