spring-loaded

For the past month, our weather has been spring-loaded.

Temperatures have ranged from below 30 to over 80

and enough snow, rain and hail has fallen

to take us from drought to flood.

Through it all, a robin built her nest next to the house

and laid her eggs.

She carefully rolls them every 40 minutes,

while fending off marauding squirrels and jays.

The eggs have begun to hatch.

Thunder and lightning crash, and the wind rocks the cradle.

Hail hurls stones at her until, to my amazement,

her mate swoops in, lands on her and

spreads his wings to protect her and the nest.

It's brutal out there, and the drama is wrenching.

It's just one family of robins,

but they're playing out the game of life.

The rule is:

robins live to make baby robins.

a cast of thousands

I call it "a cast of thousands" because, in the end, that's what it's going to cost (adios Hawaii :o[ ). The Scottish in me does not think this is amusing at all. Methinks if Lady MacBeth had had a cast it surely would have been as red as this one, especially after using it to club you-know-who over the head. She'd use it as a red flail to out out that damn spot.

But the goofy in me knows that goofy is what will save me, so I'm considering auditioning for the role of Sissy Hankshaw, the swollen-thumbed hitchhiking heroine of Tom Robbins' seminal 1976 novel, "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues".

"Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps." 

-William Blake