“It Might As Well Be Spring…”

Well it’s finally happening: winter is ending, and almost like someone flipped a switch, the sun is shining, and I’ve officially come out of hibernation. The Spring Party Season has begun, and with a vengeance, as I can personally attest to. The first one was a doozy, it was Mardi Gras after all, and while I had my share of cocktails, I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine the tall, masked-man in a Marie Antoinette wig and a cape, or the blow-up doll that someone mistook for Charles. It was kind of like an “Eyes Wide Shut” moment without the sex. But hey, if this means SPRING, I say bring it on!!

There’s a bunch of things that I will not miss with the changing of the season, and I don’t think anyone would disagree when I say I have seen enough snow to last me the rest of my life. I’m starting to understand why old people go to Florida in the winter, but I don’t think I am ever going to because it snowed down there a couple of times too. I’m tired of astronomical heating bills and my feet being cold and my flannel pajamas and my slow cooker with all those one-pot comfort foods that I might as well just slap on my hips because that’s where they are headed anyway. I am sick of having to clean the dog’s feet when she comes inside, and when I’m lazy and don’t do it, worrying that she’s going to have a stroke when she cleans them herself because what is so tasty about dog toes unless they are covered in ice melt? I’m sick of my kids being home for “snow days” making a mess in my kitchen baking cookies and making hot chocolate and charging me too much to shovel my sidewalk and doing a lousy job at that. I’m sick of pumping my own gas in freezing rain when the thingy on the pump is broken and I have to squeeze it the whole time, and I don’t have gloves on, and I have to pee and the numbers on the pump are turning S L O W L Y I’m not even kidding, like it must be broken, but I need the gas and I have to pee and when I finally settle for $5 worth which takes like 10 minutes but feels like an hour, and I splash through the slush and rain getting soaked up to my ankles to find the rest room and the stupid manager points to a line of PORT-A-JOHNS and I have no choice at this point, and trust me the only upside is that when all that waste is frozen it doesn’t smell as bad. If it were spring or summer I would have just pulled over and gone in the woods, snakes or no snakes! But I digress.

I yearn for refreshing mojitos and margaritas and icy martinis. Cooking on the grill because Maverick always does it and I don’t have to mess up my stove. I want to buy ice cream sandwiches and fudgesicles because I have a rule about not keeping them in the house in the winter because it’s cold. I want to sit outside and watch my dog bark at a piece of garbage that blew onto my lawn, instead of from my kitchen window. I want to worry that my neighbor is going to call the cops on me because I’ve got the music playing on the outside speakers so loud, and that I’m going to burn my house down because I’ve got such a big fire burning in our fire ring and complain that it makes my hair smell like camping. I want to leave the house without a coat, I want to put on a pair of flip flops instead of slipper socks and show off the sick blue nail polish I’ve got on my toes. I want to wear cotton sweaters and white jeans because even though the fashion gurus say it’s okay these days to wear white year round, I still don’t until Memorial Day unless I’m in the southern hemisphere or the mercury reaches 80 degrees fahrenheit. I want to buy suntan lotion instead of cold medicine when I go to the drug store, and when the school nurse calls I want it to be because Charles is having an allergy attack from being outside for recess, not because he has a 104 fever that was only 101 when I sent him to school anyway. I want to get my legs waxed on a regular basis because it might be warm enough for shorts, and try to lose that same five pounds I tried to lose last year because it’s almost bathing suit season, and then just buy myself a new coverup instead.

Sunday is the first day of spring, and by then we will have already partied for St. Patrick’s Day, and adjusted to Daylight Savings Time, which I’m still struggling with at this exact moment. Hopefully the sun will be shining, the grass will be greener, and I’ll start noticing buds on the trees, as long as I have my glasses on….And if it’s not, I’m going to make myself an ice cold margarita on the rocks with salt, tell Maverick to throw a steak on the grill, kick of my socks and enjoy my pedicure. Here’s hoping you’ll be joining me.

Happy Spring.