Waiting for the Locusts

Today is my birthday. (Or, as I like to call it, the anniversary of my 28^th birthday.) It is the first day of spring. My birthday is always on the first day of spring. I don’t care if it’s the first day of spring or the first full day of spring (by the way, how do you measure the exact arrival moment of a season? It’s not like Spring just stepped off an airplane), and those few years when maybe it’s not officially either of those things, well, I say, the reporters are wrong that year. My birthday is always the first day of spring.

This is what greeted me on my birthday, the first day of spring:

Excuse me? What the $@#! is this stuff? I do not live in Canada. I do not even live in Yankee territory. I am squarely in the southern parts, people, and we have snow on the ground. In spring. I’m telling you, the plagues are coming. Watch out for the frogs.

My family has been very kind to send me and call with birthday greetings today, and I’m grateful for every single one. I would be more grateful if my daughter hadn’t spent most of the dark hours of the night awake (admittedly with some sort of tummy ailment, so I’ll cut her a little slack, but I am TIRED) and my son hadn’t come back in the house from playing in the snow and promptly smeared mud across the carpet. So my birthday included cleaning up this:

(Yes, I’m putting up a picture of muddy floor on my birthday. It’s my birthday. I’m the boss.)

This day has nowhere to go from here but up.