A Love Affair Gone Awry

Mother Nature seems rather perturbed of late.  I deduce that she's either having an affair with Jack Frost and is letting him blow his frigidity into her nether regions, or Jack took old Father Winter by the, er, well, let's just jump ahead with the story..and the two of them forgot about her for some (fore)play of their own! Don't underestimate the hostility of a spurned lover.

No matter what is happening, we earthlings in northern Delaware suffer. And suffer we do! My Canadian friends will laugh condescendingly, to be sure.

"Suffer? Cold temperatures and frost in March?! Oh dear boy," I hear them say, "you are pathetic. Delaware has thinned your New York blood."  (Though to be fair, Washington, Colorado, and Houston surely played a role in my thrombocytopenia.)

But I protest and plead: won't you listen to my woes, if for just a bit?!

I present to my dear reader the following evidence:

Exhibit A:  The garden beds at 410 sport an astonishing array of plants, even so early in the spring. A substantial portion of the herbaceous plants have pierced the warming soil, greeted as they were by seemingly unseasonable highs in the 60s and 70s, but Mother Nature has bitch-slapped these importunate children several times this week with blasts of cold air, ice, and yes, even some snow.

Exhibit B: A thin layer of ice appears each morning on my water barrel. Yes, the water barrel is back outside: too early it seems. And the spigot leaks.

Finally, if those exhibits are not cause for sympathy, I present damning evidence in the form of Exhibit C: No matter who fools with Jack Frost, be it Mother Nature herself or profligate, potentially bisexual, Father Winter who needs himself a little cozy, he has left telltale signs of his presence: a morning whiteness worthy of a Ken Starr investigation. Shameful.

Dear Canadian friends, (and dear upstate New York friends): do I have your sympathy yet?! In the meantime, Cixous packs herself away in my bag for warmth and sticks her tongue out at mean, nasty Mother Nature and the shenanigans of Jack Frost.