This has been a miserable winter and spring in the Northwest. At the slightest hint of sun, all of us depressed, pale residents run to our yards and gardens—anywhere in the great outdoors—to revel in the warm, welcome heat of the elusive sun. Even that is not much of a respite, because we all tend to go overboard and end up with sprains and strains, sunburns and heat exhaustion.
It seems like hell has indeed frozen over. Or at least flooded. So, how wet, cold and dreary has it been? Well, our son and his wife report ducks living in their front lawn. Their house is nowhere near a pond. Trees and shrubs are clinging to their leaves and blossoms, hesitant to open in the cold and rain. They, too, over-do it when the sun shines. Everything blooms and rejoices at the same time with a vengeance, sending heavy clouds of pollen into the atmosphere. Puddles appear in basements and garages from water seeping up through saturated yards. Roads have washed out. Yesterday, I saw fat and sassy snails racing across the alley with healthy, ginormous slugs cheering them on.
I finished planting my vegetable garden on June 10th, over a month later than usual. The tomatoes that I planted then started as robust plants. Two of them have mildew. Weeds have taken over part of the flower beds. Kevin cracked. He couldn’t take it anymore. Weeding every week is not his idea of fun, so he laid down sheets of landscape fabric and bark. We don’t like it, but we hate the crop of milkweed, dandelions and other noxious weeds that were taking over. We drop the alternative “F” bomb frequently: fungus. Kevin wears his fleece jacket all the time, even indoors. I refuse to light the wood stove, even though neighbors burn in their fireplaces regularly. I will not turn up the heat! It’s frickin’ June! (Pardon my French.) But, it’s cold. How cold could it be? I saw a woman walking her dog last night—the dog was wearing a fleece-lined raincoat and the woman was wearing and knit cap and mittens.
How wet was it?
It was so wet that our wooden flagpole disintegrated!!!!!!! Oh no, it melted! No kidding. We looked out the window and saw that our flagpole was leaning on the neighbor's house. The top brass finial barely missed smacking into their second floor bedroom window. Paul and Wendy heard a big thump against the wall at 4:30 in the morning. Wouldn't that just make your heart skip a beat?
Kevin tipped the pole back into place and then over. It hit the ground with a miserable thud and broke into sections. Rotten all the way through. ugh. The wood was like mulch covered in white paint. It was a tube of compost held together with a skin of latex enamel. Kev wrapped up the cord and the flag. No screwdriver needed to remove the cleat. It pulled off easily.
The sections of the flagpole are piled up in a heap along with other grass and yard waste. Back to Nature. It won’t take the flagpole that long to get there. Rest in peace/piece old driftwood.
I have a bad case of S.A.D. Look at me sideways and I’ll burst into tears. I am beyond pale. I’m now glow-in-the-dark white, tinged with green. Winter blues. And I hate blue, especially the gray-blue hues. I don’t sleep well. I’ll eat an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting. I woke up this morning with a case of vertigo. I might have OD’d on anti-inflammatory meds. This weather wreaks havoc on my rusty, arthritic knees. Enough! Kevin at least has the opportunity to get out of this crapola. He travels for his job and Los Angeles is one of his favorite places to go. He’s happy to sit in traffic with smog and congestion. At least it’s sunny and warm.
I demand a weather do-over. I’m looking for sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, not this winter in a dark cavern in the land that time forgot. It’s the Solstice in a couple of days, for crying out loud. It better be a good summer or my new name will be Jeannie Weenie Screaming Meemee.
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