Daily Kup (My Life on the First Day of Spring) In the Upper Midwest, when the calendar says that it is Spring, by golly, it's Spring because — darn it — it's gonna be!
As much as the transition to Daylight Savings Time is disruptive, the natural light later in the day leads to happy thoughts of gardens and school vacation and baseball season. I read that sentence back and realize that the sophisticated urban detachment that I had once sought in my life is as long gone as the odds of playing beach volleyball in a Pepsi commercial.
But Spring has returned on schedule. As if on queue, the icicles have leaped off the gutters and trees are gaining collars of brown-green mud. The remaining snow looks grimy and deflated as every day it sinks lower and lower. (A good place for a Charlie Sheen or Porkus analogy -- NO, No, must resist.)
Spring is a juggernaut now. Winter, you can have one or two more measly snowstorms. You can have freezing rain. You are on the ropes, dude. Spring will crush you and usher in picnics, walks on warm evenings, and the sounds of children jabbing each other with sticks in the backyard instead of weeding the garden like they are supposed to. OK, it's not that bucolic. But it's good.
'Another Sign of Spring' News Flash: Cub Scout Builds Bird House
Can a crystal radio be far behind? I don't know why that particular youth organization bothers to hand out neckerchiefs — each new member should simply be given a birdhouse kit because you know that's what's going to happen anyway.
This bird house is meant to attract wrens, those little loud brown birds who get louder when you are trying to take a nap.
Tomorrow, we'll show you how we built it, we'll trick out the basic Cub Scout model for the exclusive use of wrens, and give you the plans so that you can make one yourself. Come on, you need a birdhouse more than a nap!
The Pessimist's Ballad of Spring
Ice dams drip and gutters fail,
Icicles poised to plunge and impale.
Cats shed fur, kids shed coats,
Low-lying backyards become moats.
Puddles rise and snowbanks melt down,
Displaying lawns a crappy brown.
Snow recedes and reveals the prize --
Broken branches, every size!
Retired travelers return tanned,
Small town rivers grow bags of sand.
We survived the last, we'll make it through --
Winter cold to springtime flu!
~A. Grumpy Guss
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