Say It With Flowers

Hello World, April greetings to one and all! We've had some nasty and blustery weather in our area lately, but we've also been treated to some glorious balmy days that can't help but make a person believe in better days ahead, by Jove. But rain or shine, it hasn't stopped the spring flowers from busting out all over, and a more welcome sight would be hard to beat, I can tell you that. There's still hardy crocus peppered throughout the yard, joined now by early hyacinths lending their heavenly fragrance to the environs. The usually vibrant daffodils suffered mightily at the hands of Winter Storm Stella, leaving only bedraggled remnants behind, alas. But the explosion of wind flowers and glory-of-the-snow has turned the front yard into a veritable carpet of periwinkle and white, with the neighbors' forsythia sprinkling their golden yellow cheer around the perimeter. Even the creeping phlox has popped up already, and around town, the flowering trees and shrubs are just about ready to show off their colorful charms. Coming home from work last week, I noticed the highway ramp was a sea of sunny buttercups, and I also spotted a parking lot with what appeared to be lavender azaleas, although that seems way too early for me. Can dandelions be far behind? I think not! In other news, this has turned into an eventful week, with a confluence of notable occasion and occurrences that we don't often find all cobbled together like this - not only bookended with Palm Sunday on one side and Easter on the other, but Passover in the middle besides. We are also sharing Easter Sunday with our Eastern Orthodox kindred, which rarely happens, since they are usually lagging behind the rest of Christendom by at least a week. Apparently, local schools are closed for some sort of seasonal break as well, which these days could be for just about any old reason they can think of, or no particular reason whatsoever. (Although it must be said that the dinosaurs and I can't help but wonder how youngsters can be expected to learn anything nowadays, when schools seem to close up shop at the drop of a hat - unlike the ancient days when we trudged to class regardless of weather, or weather forecast, and there was no such thing as spring break, teachers conferences, winter recess, or any other such newfangled malarkey, believe me.) Also on tap this week, the start of the NHL playoffs, which seems completely astonishing to me this early in April, since the coveted Stanley Cup isn't even awarded to anybody until June, for heaven's sake. On a positive note, beleaguered taxpayers get a reprieve from the dreaded April 15th deadline this year, as the filing date has been changed to the 18th in 2017 because the 15th is a Saturday, and the following Monday is observed as a holiday in the District of Columbia. Well, if that's not enough bunnies, monies, school books, and hockey pucks for everybody, I just don't know that it would take, by golly. Speaking of Palm Sunday, everyone knows by now that this is the highlight of the church year, at least for our cats, that is. I always make sure to bring home a whole handful of them, and they pounce on them like a drowning man on a life preserver. They will still play with them when they've dried out and gotten crispy, but there's nothing like fresh palms to wind them up and get them cavorting around like a bunch of kittens in a yarn factory. It's a lucky thing that early Christians invented Palm Sunday, rather than Millstone Sunday or Chariot Sunday, to give the cats something to look forward to, even thousands of years later. Of course, the kitties will tell you that space visitors from The Cat Planet came here to help ancient civilizations build the pyramids, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and (obviously) Easter Island, so I guess it's no wonder that they tossed in a special day into the church calendar just for their own entertainment. Remember, you heard it here first, folks. In other astonishing news, alert readers may have noticed this startling tidbit on the AOL Welcome screen earlier in the week: ===================================== Kylie Jenner looks totally different without makeup The reality star is known for her makeup kits and painstaking beauty regiment ===================================== Excuse me??? Now, I realize that her only job in life is to look good in public, but do they honestly want us to believe that she actually has an entire regiment devoted to this? (Mind you, our friends at Merriam-Webster define a regiment as "a permanent unit of an army typically commanded by a colonel and divided into several companies, squadrons, or batteries and often into two battalions." Frankly, even for a world-wide celebrity who may actually look homely without her cosmetics, that seems like an epic amount of overkill, and I have to believe that the colonel would agree with me on this, I dare say. Surely this so-called beauty regiment could have been reduced to a mere troop, unit, or patrol, and left the regiment to handle more important problems around the globe. I guess this explains why they have the famous saying, "War is heck." And while we're on the topic of vive la guerre (youngsters, you can go ahead and ask your grandparents about that one) we get the following from Bill, regarding an old acquaintance from the neighborhood, who has since relocated to France: ============================================ Since Sophie Dillard and I became friends on Facebook, I get a lot of French posts. Didn't understand this one, so I finally acknowledged my ignorance and clicked on the translation button. Thank heavens I have that, or I'd be completely in the dark about what that said. Vladimir Livran: "Comme diez Picasso Je suis a cote watteau le Gilles sublimes comment oublier le recontre. Le Louvre depuis la naissance du monde." Translation: "Like Diez Picasso I'm next to watteau the gilles sublime how can I forget the encounter. The Louvre since the birth of the world." {Automatically Translated} ============================================== Ah, next to watteau the gilles sublime, indeed! How fortunate for us all to live in this day and age of modern technology, where automatic translation can clear up these language mysteries, and bring welcome comprehension out of confusion at the click of a button. Well, at least the Louvre since the birth of the world, anyway. Personally, it sounds like ancient aliens from The Cat Planet got mixed up in this somehow, and let's face it, how could they possible forget the encounter, I ask you that. Now, I'd love to just keep on blathering on and on and on, but I'm afraid I have to wrap this up - the colonel is here with the rest of my beauty regiment, and I hate to keep those battalions waiting. Elle