Rainy but not Longfellow

We’ve already had our spring, haven’t we, the azaleas bloomed beautifully, now they’re finished and wilting and falling off. First time in my memory azaleas overlapped camellias so vigorously. And the orchids and so many other flowering plants in Linda’s gardens. Dogwood buds are opening too, and the citrus. 

Got up to thunder and lightning just now, these must be April showers, eh? Global warming is very pleasant. The torrential white rain thunderstorms didn’t even ruin diocesan convention, which was all inside, church, meetings, sleeping, banquets and all. Only mystery was the absence of covered walkway between the parking garage and the convention center, an architectural goof. No matter; it was all good. I mean really, really good, excellent. No, in Navy terms excellent is a “B” and convention gets an Outstanding.

Which, for anyone who’s been involved with Holy Nativity Episcopal Church these past seven or eight years, has come to be par for the course.  

As these long violent storm systems stretch way up north, somebody somewhere must be getting snow instead of rain, but it wasn’t Winston-Salem, NC: last night Joe said Sunday was a beautiful day, t-shirt weather even. 

Of snow, my wicked winter memories include life in Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And winters weren’t always mild those years in Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. Shoveling sidewalks, digging cars out of snowbanks after the snowplows scraped through during the night, scraping windshields. Those were good years too though! All but the car slipping and sliding and skidding and spinning on glare ice on streets of Columbus, Ohio the week Tass was born, early March 1972. Which means she will be 41 next week.    

Haven’t heard from the gardenias yet and it’s raining too hard to go out and see if the buds have set.

"The day is cold, and dark, and dreary. It rains and the wind is never weary. The vines still cling to the mouldering wall, and at every gust the dead leaves fall, and day is dark and dreary.

"My life is cold, and dark and dreary, ... "

Not so, Longfellow, go back to sleep.

Life is Good.

It’s a beautiful day. 

Tom+ in +Time