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Show HISH TIME: By FLORENCE BITTNER Well, it has happened again. When I forgot to notice, the season changed and here we are launched into spring without my knowing what to do with my leftover winter attitudes. WORKING AS I do with federal regulations, regula-tions, I keep expecting an update of the calendar and prorata distribution of the incipient seasonal fluctuation. What that means in every day working English is I expect someone up there in Potomac in the sky to declare seasons surplus and uneconomical and do away with them. To redistribute them on a more equal proportional representation according to population and demographic information. SOMEHOW, SPRING doesn't care. While I am still bundled and anticipating shivers, trees bloom. While 1 wait to send my coat to the cleaners, the back yard becomes a glory of forsythia. I GO OUT in the morning wearing my long woolies and a heavy coat and then complain all day about people who push thermostats up. When they insisted I had to let go of my snow tires, I suffered withdrawal and worried about getting stuck in curbside parking. Jon took the snow shovel from its roost by the back door where I leave it so I can shovel a path to the garage. "Where are you taking that shovel? I might need it any day now." "MOM. ITS April. It's probably safe to move the snow shovel as far away as the garage." "Well, Ok, but don't hang it up yet. You never know." SATURDAY MORNING I was awakened by the neighbor's lawn mower and at first I thought it was a snow blower and 1 could say 1 told you so. Then I heard a bird sing and spring began to creep into my consciousness. It takes a while for me to accustom myself to the different lifestyle when seasons change. Other people seem to breeze into March wearing March clothes and spring outlooks. No me. I HAVE been known to grumble about the early fall after Thanksgiving dinner. Usually Fourth of July finds me with the glass still in my storm doors and last fall 1 left the swamp cooler uncovered till November just in case of a sudden warm spell. I don't know whether this delayed seasonal adjustment is because 1 am basically inflexible and want things left the way they were or because of a distrust of anything launched by government including calendars. Even government regulations can't control the tulips and I had forgotten how sky violets are. They have to be seen in just the right light or you miss them and in a few days they are gone. I COME OUT of the front door wearing mittens and galoshes and find daffodils marching across the front of the house as if they had a monopoly on sunshine. Seasons march on relentlessly. I was warned a month ago by an itinerant robin who came to visit the berries on my ivy. He came back every day until the vines were denuded, and when he left, I forgot about spring. BECAUSE I am not ready, I am always surprised by the relentless beauty of the changing seasons. Just when I begin to find a glory in sun on snow, I have to adjust ad-just to crocus and kids without coats. After I have come to expect trees in bloom, they put out green leaves and days get warm. Every year I am converted to perpetual summer and am offended by crisp weather. TIME MARCHES on, and if you think I have trouble adjusting to seasonal changes, you should watch me try to cope with jet lag. |
