Wherever the globe is warming, it isn’t around here. Spring has been mild, and rainy. Some days the temperature climbs up into the eighties, but not for long, and the nights are cool. A storm-front went through this week, threatening high winds, and several hours of thunder-and-lightening starting around midnight that sounded like a WWI artillery barrage and kept the sky fairly continuously lit up. You’d have thought that would have made sleep impossible, but I must have managed it. Local newscasts that evening were breathless with anticipation, repeating the tornado watch warning all the evening beforehand. Blondie says there was a shelter-roof by one of the gates to Ft. Sam that looked like it was trashed, but otherwise we came through OK… no hail, at least. And lots of rain. The trees are well out in leaf, and so is everything else.

We added some plants: a friend had a roommate move out, leaving behind a lot of potted plants. We took a lot of them, as my friend has zilch interest in gardening, and so my place looks even more lush than usual at this time of year. The nice part about working at home is that Lesser Weevil does not get so destructively bored. It’s been almost a year since she killed any plants, or tried digging a tunnel back into the house via the perennial border. Blondie has hit some of the neighborhood yard sales. She returned yesterday with a pair of tall ornamental pillars and a replica of the Venus d’Milo, which will look better once they’ve been brushed with a concoction of watered-yoghurt. This is supposed to encourage moss and mildew and other natural things to grow on them, although I won’t go to the ornamental extreme of one of the neighbors, who has so many statues in their front yard that the place looks like a hobbit graveyard.

The two of us are watching way too much of the Home & Garden Channel…

Another rite of spring: Spike the toy shi-tzu had her summer clip. I’m sorry; life is just too short to maintain her in the style which apparently that breed has become accustomed, with twice-weekly baths and constant brushing of her long, long fur. Off to the groomers she went, for what Blondie described as a “shaved puppy”. (Which sounds uncommonly like some of the p0*n spam I empty out daily). Everything between the plume on her tail and the topknot on her head is clipped down to the skin. I think she feels cooler and more comfortable, especially on the daily morning walk.

Or as one of the neighbors calls it “the daily drag around the block”. The Weevil and Spike tear out ahead of me, lunging at the end of their leashes. I must have become more accustomed to this; it’s been ages since either one of them managed to trip me up or knock me down. The Weevil is especially exuberant during the first few blocks: she leaps clear of the ground, over and over again. “You can tell she’s had her Wheaties!” observed the same neighbor, upon observing this performance. There is also speculation afoot that she might be part jack-rabbit. Taking them both out is not just “walkies”, it’s an upper-body workout too.

Rites of spring, indeed.