Soft Landing on a Blue Planet

Having spent the last three months (or more) bleating piteously about the awfulness of our winter (I'm sure much to the simultaneous annoyance and bemusement of those who had real winters), I'm now whining about all the rain we have had in the space of the last four days.

Yes, I could calculate, assuming a lowered atmospheric and ground temperature, just how much snow the rain I am complaining about would have produced, which would have shut me up quite nicely thank you as I'd be outside even now probably with a snow blower and mukluks (the perfect name for a grunge band, imho).

Instead, I got up both yesterday and today with temperatures above freezing (a novelty of sorts) and rain. Poor me. In honor of April Fool's Day, perhaps a snowfall of mini-marshmallows might be a practical joke by Mother Nature or, in light of how many of us have yearned for Spring's arrival, real snowflakes that look like marshmallows.

We could stand outside and stick out our tongues and hold cups of cocoa, with peppermint swizzle-sticks. Except I dislike peppermint in cocoa nearly as much as I dislike mint in my chocolate ice cream. But enough about snow and cocoa (a terrific name for a follow-up TV show to "I Spy" for obvious reasons) without as much Jell-o as the original, I hope.

The first three months of 2014 are in the books, their passing marked by this day, a celebration of sorts for pranksters and practical jokers. And we turn to face the Spring, or what we hope will be spring soon enough. I have always found people and places slightly more attractive when the trees' buds are just about to burst and the birds' songs are louder because they are more numerous.

Unless, of course, I've parked my car under a tree and returned to find it covered in something that makes me wish wistfully for snowflakes and mini-marshallows.
-bill kenny