When Spring Rejoices Down the Lane

'Twas but a short week ago that I was waxing poetic about impending spring, singing songs in her name and watching her every move.

And, lo, what a long time a week can be.

Now, instead of seeing each tiny sprout as a harbinger of sweet sunshine and long evenings, I see every bud on the tree, every fleck of pollen on the car, as an assault to the senses, like massive, cottony Q-tips stuck too far into my ears.

Amherst, like most of New England, has only a whisper of spring, a brief moment of shocking color that bursts out of the snow just before the onslaught of full summer. Here, though, spring seems to creep agonizingly along, bringing buds to new trees each day, new aches to my limbs, new minuscule, incremental advancements toward summer, s l o w l y waging war with our histamines.

Aaaaacccchoooooo!

Early hay fever: yet another aspect of the South that I did not fully consider before relocating here.

In happier news, we've solved our water crisis, by which I mean our lack of drinkable tap water. Mecca, aka Whole Foods, has this handy $0.39/gallon triple-filtered water system. We just drag along our five-gallon jugs and fill'er up. Waiting for them to fill means shifting out of the way of bulk aisle shoppers while considering things like bins of citric acid and scoops of herbe matte, but it's a small price to pay for the taste of pure, clean agua.

Which is necessary to wash down copious amounts of antihistamines necessary to do things like drive to Whole Foods in the first place. It's a circle of life!