so spring, already!!

we are having a warm spell and it is torturous. the forecast is for 50's tomorrow and the rest of the week, which should melt the rest of the snow hidden from direct sun, and the birds are riotous. torturous and riotous in the same paragraph - dude. i must be needing some springtime.

i checked on my south-facing slope when i got home today, to see if any little green sprouts were finding their way sun-ward, and yes! there were! and crabgrass - where did that come from?? so i (deep and satisfying sigh) Weeded. the first of the season. i dug under the mulch to the cold dirt and tugged the stubborn grassy roots - the smell of the earth, even this early, is heavenly. ooo, but i miss my garden!

this is a dangerous time for me. mustn't plant seeds too early. mustn't turn the vegetable beds too early. mustn't transplant too early. patience, patience. so i scour my gardening books and Northern Gardener magazine and anything online remotely discussing gardening and plants and flowers and dirt and pH levels and fertilizers and compost.

i have a gardening journal - i document every change i've made to my precious yard since i bought the place 5 years ago. it's a lovely thing to see the progress, to set down in writing my plans so i can see how far i can go. there's always something to do in a garden. maybe this year i'll take a gardening vacation - days off of work to do nothing but garden. heaven!

but for now, i live vicariously through my folks and brother and sister, who live much south-er than i. and patiently wait for the ground to thaw, and the grass to come back, and the bulbs to sprout.

and what do you want to bet it'll snow next week?

chemical help

how do some people get so much done and make it seem so effortless? i have been trying to get off my butt to take care of some things around the house, and nada, nothing, can't do it. i get the usual upkeep done, the dishes, laundry sort of (it's on the folding table in the basement and i've been dressing from there), and cooking for myself and the occasional guest. but the big stuff, the big project - re-arranging a room to start a cascade of re-arrangements - this is taking me years.

and friends talk about their big projects and how they got so much done on the weekends, blah, blah... i need a personal assistant. or i should learn to drink coffee. i'm sleepy on the weekends!

in other news, i learned off of my Addison's Dog chat group that i should probably be giving pup a teensy bit of pred every day, instead of her weekly little bit, and that should help her peeing inside. did i mention this? for the last couple of months, she had pee'ed inside, in my unfinished basement, a couple of times a week. she is very housetrained, so this is highly unusual behavior. and this is not incontinence, when she pees in her sleep - that's been medicated away. so a crumb of pred for pup, and it seems to be working - only one puddle inside this last week.

i guess we all need a little chemical help now and then. i think pup's is a bit more urgent than my laziness, since most of hers keeps her alive, but maybe i'll have a real coca-cola with lots of sugar and caffienne and see what happens.

and keep working on pup's meds - i just want to give her the best life i can.

in which i admit that i'm a freak of nature.

i have this thing called synesthesia by which i see the year's calendar around my waist in a hoop. i move around the hoop, counter-clockwise through each month,and every month is a color which fades into the next month. right now, september is across from me in beautiful royal blue/purple, february just slipped past to the left in a light, light blue, and march is coming out of my right side in a vivid kelly green.

i kid you not.

i have a sedate version of synesthesia, a nice entertainment for my friends. they ask, "so where is august now?" and i point accross the hoop and slightly to the left, to gales of laughter. Unfortunately, this has given me no cool abilities to count toothpicks, predict stock prices or zip through calculus equations, it just Is.

another part of my peculiar brain wiring is that i see numbers as shapes, with slightly emotional tones; the even numbers are stable and secure (especially tens), numbers divisible by 3 are round and fun, and primes are inverted pyramidal blobs, precarious and ready to fall off of their point at any moment, as well as being rather stable, in one hunk, divisible by only itself and one.

again, not kidding.

this year, i turn 41, a lovely prime, and i'm using my unique perceptivity (is that even a word?) as an excuse to rock the boat and teeter on my point. i'm pushing my comfort zone, doing the unexpected and sometimes actually saying what i think, with the security that i'm still a somewhat stable blob.

look out, world!