A reluctant welcome to spring

I realize that probably no other person on the planet is as woefully reluctant to welcome the coming of spring as I am. Unless it is die-hard snow skiers and other winter sports people, and most of them probably live where spring means the temperature reaches a high of 35 degrees during the day. Or they are also die-hard cyclists and love spring.

I am a recovering hibernator.

Longer days mean I cannot just flop on the couch after dinner and stay there until bedtime. Or skip the couch and go right to bed after dinner. I cannot just look at the garden, or any other part of our property, and think, That looks terrible. Someone should clean that up. Well, too bad it's too cold to do it now.

The Hero does battle an inner voice that says he should be outside when the weather is lovely.  This inner voice is his father's, who apparently admonished him for years that he was wasting time inside when it wasn't inclement weather outside. And by inclement he meant a hurricane.

The Hero asked one day if he was a loser for not wanting to embrace the great outdoors more often. Of course I assured him he was not, but I'm not really the person to be answering this question.

But last Saturday we both felt that we could make no justification for staying inside. The day was forecast to be 80 and sunny. Plus, if we didn't go out we would feel compelled to do something useful like clean the house, and we certainly did not want to do anything that would take a lot of effort. We are still getting our spring strength back after all the enforced inactivity of hibernation.

So we headed to a local frisbee golf course, where we could exercise at our leisure as we meandered up and down gentle hills and in and out of modestly blooming woods. Or so I thought. After I had stopped to smell plenty of proverbial roses, the Hero noted that perhaps I should not meander quite so much. That when playing a game, guys (he did not say himself), get somewhat annoyed when women (he did not say me) do not fully attend to the game and spend too much time in unrelated pursuits, such as chattering and smelling roses.

I thought briefly of explaining what I thought of such "guys," whoever they were, but as there were no other females on the course, and we had seen many males both in front of us and behind, I thought it prudent to take his advice and put aside my meandering for another day.

The game did go much quicker after this, and before we knew it we were back in the car and driving to our favorite little place for ice cream—a place that is only open in spring and summer. Finally, something I am happy to come out of hibernation for.