Matters Quotidian

The Winter Olympics at least provided a pleasing distraction as I was preparing my taxes for the accountant. Hundreds of check stubs, hundreds of little receipts with cryptic scrawls on them. (What is "sprawk?" Is it deductible? Does it go on Schedule C?) And then I look up, and Canucks and Austrians and Chinese Communists are gracefully doing weird aerial stunts on ski slopes. And tonight there were the giant mechanical beavers and the Radio City kick line of Mounties.

Satire is impossible. Just impossible.

This morning we ventured forth to perform our yearly task of burning weeds and leaves stranded on our property last autumn. Normally we would have done this earlier, but starting in December we started to get weird weather. We've been getting milder versions of the storms that have been vexing the rest of the nation, and so we've had lots of rain and sleet and occasional snow. Likewise, it's been maybe ten degrees cooler than usual. It's hard to burn leaves in a heavy rain.

As a result of the weather, many of the weeds, normally dead and dried by this time of year, never died at all. I would have thought the unusual cold would have killed them, but apparently it's been wet enough to keep them going.

They are not only thriving, they're blooming, and attracting a rather sinister cloud of bees. And where the hell did they come from at this time of year?

I fear the spring, Montresor. I fear it. For it is the season in which the giant mechanical beavers move south in search of warmer climes.