A Preponderance of Caution

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Door County Obi

The other day our 60 pound, one-year-old Goldendoodle Obi ate a grape.  Despite being a novice dog owner, I was somehow aware of the fact that grapes are toxic to dogs.  Everyone seems to know the chocolate thing, but grapes are a problem too. The girls were also aware of this, and I have to say they’re pretty good about keeping concerning foods away from him.  Other items (slime, paper, underwear), not so much. But they’re pretty vigilant on the food front.

That Friday morning Obi had been particularly…spirited.  He snatched up anything that the girls dropped or had recently held in the hope that they’d give chase and a fun time would be had by all.  So when Natalie dropped a single purple grape while packing her lunch, the dog was all over it like a cheap suit. “He’s got a grape!” she screamed, and I joined the chase while her younger sister immediately devolved into hysterics. I caught him, and heard an almost cartoonish “gulp,” as he swallowed the grape and knocked the entire day off kilter.

I was supposed to drive the carpool to school and then immediately pick up my mother-in-law from the airport.  Instead I found myself on the phone with my vet and then Animal Poison Control–it’s a thing! I mimed for the girls to find another neighbor to drive the carpool and texted my husband, asking him to inform his mother that I’d be late.  I soon learned that the professionals are unable to identify the minimum toxic grape amount with any degree of certainty. They could not simply write this one off.  So, as a preponderance of caution and fear of litigation, they advise the same measures whether your dog was getting greedy in a vineyard or fell victim to a single grape temptation: make the dog vomit with hydrogen peroxide and call us back.

This plan assumes having hydrogen peroxide in the house.  Or should I say, “good” hydrogen peroxide. Come to find out, my 15-year-old bottle had lost its kick.  I scooted the girls out the door to school (they’d found a helpful neighbor), and raced to the drugstore. My mother-in-law called while I was en route and cheerfully informed me that she was waiting because. Of course my husband hadn’t called her and her flight was right on time.  I tried to give the condensed version of the story over the phone with moral being: I’m going to be late. Given my frantic mood and her status as a non-native-English-speaker, I’m pretty sure she didn’t get much other than “wait there.” So then I felt guilty AND worried, and so I called up another neighbor, the Best Neighbor Ever (BNE).  Because, well just you wait.

I got the first dose of peroxide / bullion / peanut butter slurry mostly down the dog, and then handed him over to the BNE.  She was still in her pajamas, but proceeded to walk him around the yard while I raced to the airport to collect my husband’s 80-year-old mother. The BNE kindly waited several days before letting me know that she’d thought that I was crazy.  She gently suggested that her veterinarian sister had said that less than (I don’t remember how many) grapes per pound weren’t likely to be a problem. But I pressed on. I’d called Dog Poison Control and committed to a course of action! And if I remembered one thing from human medicine, it’s that Poison Control has got their shit together and are to be ignored at your own peril.  So I told the BNE that her job was to find a an entire grape in whatever vomit Obi produced. If this didn’t happen, repeat the peroxide.  Buh bye.

I managed to find my tiny Asian mother in law waiting patiently in the central concourse of the Mitchell Airport.  During the drive home I told the story as best as I could. She’d owned dogs, and the whole grape situation was new to her.  In fact, her oft-repeated refrain that weekend, uttered whenever the conversation lagged, was “one grape? Who knew that!” As we pulled into the driveway, my pajama-clad BNE handed over a chagrined Obi.  “Let me show you what we’ve go,” she said, and led me through the woods to his…results. There she proceeded to dissect through a pile of the dog’s breakfast (h.t. Ina Garten!), partially digested treats,  and a completely intact pair of girls underwear.  But no grape.  True to her word, she’d actually sifted through the…results and hadn’t found a grape. So, she repeated the peroxide, forcing it down with a syringe.  The dog has studiously ignored her since, turning his back if she appears.   “I don’t know, but I’d be a little more concerned about that underwear than a grape…” the BNE opined, and headed home to put on some clothes and be glad that they don’t own a dog.

My follow up call to the Poison Control was reassuring, and the vet on the other end deadpanned that if he’d brought up the underwear, the grape was probably the least of our worries.  Obi was pretty subdued the rest of the day, but he eventually perked up and started wreaking havoc again. The girls have sworn off grapes entirely, my mother in law has a great story to share with the relatives, and I have invested in magnetically closing laundry hampers.  Did I mention that this was Obi’s fifth pair of girls underwear that he’s vomited up, intact but partially digested, in his short life?  So, yes.  Grapes are toxic, but underpants are the forbidden fruit.

The easiest decision

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graduation

Mom and me at medical school graduation in 2002

Almost four years ago now, I retired from medicine at age 37.  It feels like I should be saying this in front of a group to whom I’ve pledged anonymity.  “Hi, my name is Angie.  I’m a recovering physician.”

I’ve already told this story countless times to people whose responses range from confusion to concern, pity to envy.  I contemplated whether a public admission is even necessary, or is it simply more self-satisfying hubris?  The other day a friend sent me an essay written by a woman who had retired from medicine at 37.  I haven’t been able to read it–I think it’s something about wanting to get my own story out there before I become an accidental copycat.  So here goes!

The facts of the case are as follows:  I went to medical school straight out of college, where I met my future husband.  We then moved to Arizona where I completed a residency in pediatrics and practiced at a clinic for two years before we returned back to Wisconsin.  Then I joined the faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin and practiced as a pediatric hospitalist, taking care of kids ill enough to require hospitalization.  I flatter myself that I was pretty good at the job, and I especially enjoyed the teaching duties that came along with it.  I was doing well and had garnered some awards and leadership positions during my six years there. During this time we had two children, and we managed to hobble together a two-physician life with the help of nannies and family and luck.  I grew increasingly disenchanted with my work, and I assigned most of that feeling to the world of academics.  So I left and joined a local general pediatric clinic–the BEST clinic imaginable in all honesty.  Wonderful coworkers and patients, just really everything.  And I remained gnawingly unhappy.   And I retired.

I realize how lucky I was to have been able to indulge in contemplating my dissatisfied feelings, let alone acting on them.  Were I not married to someone bringing home a nice salary on his own, there’s no way I could have retired.  I would have been trapped by my student loans, which we only just recently paid off.  I totally get that I was lucky to even be able to see leaving medicine completely as a viable option.  But as soon as it reached that level of viability, my decision was simply.  It was getting to the point of not worrying about who I’d disappoint / what others would think / loss of identity that was the hard part.  After that, the decision was easy and the path forward clear.   And I have a lovely spouse who greeted my decision with “you only live once” and has never once made me feel guilty about it.

Since quitting medicine, every few months I’m contacted by a colleague from a past stage of my career.  They are generally going through some turmoil surrounding their medical life, and they want to talk it through.  I think they want my practical opinion and advice.  But I think that I also serve as a living worst case scenario–I quit the thing entirely and emerged intact.  It’s like they are wanting to touch the nail holes to confirm that I am, in fact, still alive;  wanting to prove to themselves that life after admitting disillusion with medicine is possible.  Awhile back yet another female medical colleague contacted me to hash through her moderate dissatisfaction with her medical career.  I had NO IDEA that was the purpose of our lunch date;  I didn’t see it coming from her.  Usually the calls I field are from women my age (for interestingly, all of the advice-seekers have been women).  However, this colleague is probably about 10 years my senior and childless.  Two of the most common denominators of the typical conversation were absent, and she is REALLY REALLY good.  I didn’t see it coming–either her malaise or need for my perspective.  Even the most stalwart have these moments, I’ve learned.  Medicine does that to a person. If she found use in my thoughts, then they are worth publishing.

Before I launch into my lessons, let me reiterate that the field of medicine remains a noble profession that is truly rewarding for many, my husband included.  His role as a physician is vital to his sense of self, as it is for so many of the best.  I simply wasn’t cut from that same cloth.  Further, I do not mean to discourage ANYONE who is truly called to that life and profession–for medicine is both.  I mean, instead, to allow space for anyone needing it to contemplate some of these Big Questions.

Here’s my thoughts about the process of entering medicine in general, at least in the U.S. system:

  1. Once a person has matriculated in medical school, there’s no looking back.  The competition to get in is so fierce, the classes are so rigorous, the peers so singularly focused.  There is no time–either literally or metaphorically–for a medical student to pause and query:  “is this path I’m on leading to a life that I really want?”  Which is too bad because…
  2. The degree of debt that most students take on to complete their medical training necessitates that they practice medicine for at least 20 years.  The repayment schedule is such that a move into a similarly-well paying entry-level position in another field is virtually impossible.
  3. Most 22-year-olds have no idea what they really want in 15 years, the time when the reality of life as a physician (following the years of schooling and residency) truly sets in.  It is challenging to try and introduce the topic of work life balance and delayed child bearing to this age group, especially when they are immersed in the culture of #1.

Here’s my lessons about myself in particular, with thanks to a particularly skilled therapist:

  1. I went to medical school because I was very good at school and had little confidence in anything else about myself.  Believe it or not, I fell rather thoughtlessly into the decision.
  2. I ignored many warning signs of my poor fit and developed unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with them.  However…..
  3. I met my most important people through these life decisions and, therefore, wouldn’t change them for anything.
  4. Medicine is an especially difficult profession to emotionally manage if you are a people-pleaser by nature.  And paradoxically we pleasers make especially good providers.

If people are at all interested, I plan to break down in an occasionally amusing fashion some of those numbered items above.  It’s hard to admit things like this, but at least now I can go read that essay my friend shared with a clear conscience!

The Meaning of Bier

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I’ve mentioned my correspondence with Stephan Bier, a former Ketzelsdorfer who now lives in Berlin.  He publishes on the history of the area and has been someone with whom I’ve been lucky enough to correspond.  Before the family trip to the homeland, one question that I hoped to have answered was, “where does the name Bier come from?”  Many from this side of the pond have suggested, joking only to a degree, that a predilection for the beverage may have something to do with it.  Indeed, even when the family was newly arrived and largely destitute, their small gatherings always included a small keg, in addition to music and card games.  These activities are still cherished by the Valentine Bier progeny to an almost universal degree, as far as I can tell.  In fact, the eventual homestead now boasts what is essentially a small private club in what used to be the pig barn, known as “Bob’s Man Cave.”  The Biers, they love their beers.

So at the risk of upsetting the familial apple cart, I proceed.  Once again, I owe thanks to John McSweeny for translating the following from Stephan’s February message:

You asked me where the name Bier comes from.   I confess that I asked myself the same question for quite awhile.  My parents (ordinary people) also did not know the answer, just as they could not explain how we had come to the Bohemian-Moravian highlands so long ago. [However], these puzzles were already solved by clever people before me.  In the book “Ketzelsdorf: A place of pilgrimage in Schönhengstgau“ by Otmar Embert (a teacher in Ketzelsdorf), Franz-Sales-Press, Eichstätt and Vienna, 1984, there are some explanations. (To be specific) there are some explanations of the names on pages 192-194. This book primarily concerns the old Ketzelsdorf residents and is only available in a small edition.

In anticipation of the question of those more scholarly than myself, this book is out of print and I can find no obvious source of a copy in my online searches.  I’d be happen to be proven otherwise to any potential sleuths.  Fortunately, Stephan transcribed the portions of mutual interest:

Origin and Meaning of Some Ketzelsdorfer Family Names

Old German names: In pre-Christian times, the Germans took a single name which was closely related to (the everyday life) of the old Germanic culture and which originally was taken exclusively from the German vocabulary. These ancient names continue to exist in many current family names. However, in the course of centuries most (of the names) have become transformed such they are difficult to recognize. For example, the current family names come (from):  

Here follows a list of such old-Germanic derived names until we come to . . .

Baar, Behr, Bier = Bear (Considered by the (old) Germans to be the king of the forest).

I mean, what else is there to say?  Our Biers, the ones who left from Ketzelsdorf, historically acquired their surname from the king of the forest.  Hopefully, this highfalutin’ derivation will provide some solace to those who will part with their stein only reluctantly.

Stephan goes on to include some information on the arrival of the Biers to their neighborhood of Ketzelsdorf and neighboring Schönhengstgau towns:

Baar – Bier. The earliest bearer of the name Baar is Gierg Par, who appears in Schöffe in 1532.  The name Bier does not appear in the early days of the city (of Ketzelsdorf) but we do find a Merten Bier in 1600 in Hemersdorf.  The [eventual] strong distribution of the two names Baar and Bier in neighboring Ketzelsdorf, which was already a part of Bohemia, is striking.

Are there Biers roaming about whose name DOES derive from the beverage to some degree?  ancestry.com would seem to suggest so, explaining that the origins of the surname Bier are several, including:

“German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from Middle High German bier ‘beer’, German Bier, Yiddish bir, a metonymic occupational name for a brewer of beer or a tavern owner, or in some cases perhaps a nickname for a beer drinker. South German: from the short form of a personal name formed with Old High German bero ‘bear’. Northern English and Scottish: variant of Byers.”

A colleauge of John McSweeny’s at the University of Toledo reviewed the evidence, and seems to agree.  According to Dr. Bernhard Sulzer

It seems to me that the name “Bier” as it is used today and has been used earlier has at least two roots, either from bier (beer) as in the drink or from bero (bear) which, according to a site I found, was derived from the Old High German word bero for “bear” and used especially in Southern Germany and quite likely, in the parts that were once the Sudetenland.

 

So, my dears, the bear didn’t turn into the drink.  Rather, Bier seems to have come to us via two historic paths: one originating from the drink and one from the animal.  Maybe you will be slightly disappointed, but I know one person who will not be:  my brother Pete, who sports a tattoo of a bear on his back.  It is of a size that he once told me that the head is “about the size of a melon.”

 

bear by david creighton-pester

From Pinterest, by David Creighton-Pester

The morning drive

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This morning while driving to the library, I turned right on a green light.  The opposing traffic was, appropriately, stopped at the light.  I would never have noticed this unremarkable fact, save for an unexpected movement that caught my eye.  The car at the front of the line waiting in the intersection was occupied by an older man in a sensible four door, gray sedan, a fact I noticed only when he began to open his driver’s side door. For a brief moment I considered the possibility of a Chinese Fire Drill-type situation involving his small fluffy dog in the passenger seat.  He didn’t get out though. He leaned out the door, hocked up a big loogie (official medical term), leaned back in pulling the door behind, and went on about his business.  And I was suddenly back to the front seat of Grandpa Bier’s car, on the way to St. Mary’s School.  

Grandpa Bier drove me and whatever of my siblings were at St. Mary’s to school every morning, except for when he and Grandma were in Florida. During that 6-8 week stretch we were forced to rely on my mother and were uniformly late.  Grandpa’s routine was strictly punctual, and after dropping us outside the doors at the bottom of the hill, he would go to mass.  If there was a Kindergartner in the mix that year, he’d hang around the parking lot and drive them home after the morning session.  If there weren’t, he’d go to the Janesville Oasis for a coffee. Years later my youngest brother, Patrick, recreated this scenario before heading to high school, and his morning coffee klatch somehow received recognition as an official high school club, The Breakfast Club.

oasis

Sadly, neither the Janesville Oasis itself nor it’s iconic giant cow remain 


Anyway, the driving provided an invaluable service to my mother, his daughter-in-law.   I believe he maintained his presence as a morning fixture int he gravel driveway until mom started driving the kids to school herself.  This coincided with her return to the parochial school teaching force and swift ascent to the barely secular title “Sister Jan.”  When Grandpa drove, I always rode in the front seat because I was oldest and age restrictions played to part in seating assignments.  In fact, some of my happiest car memories as a grade school were spent perched on the armrest between two adults on the front bench seat.  But when Grandpa drove, I occupied shotgun an experience of intimate proximity and uniformly stony silence.

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Grandpa and Grandma Bier and me during my grade school glory.  Taken on the occasion of my first communion.

There was no idle chit chat in the morning drive;  apparently that was saved for coffee time.  Instead, Grandpa waged a years-long battle, attempted to secure a clear reception of WGN news out of Chicago.  He clearly entertained the belief that the static was not due to distance or broadcast strength.  Rather, it had something to do with the heating system.  This belief manifested as frequent shifts between gentle adjustments to the tuning dial and violent slams of the hot/cold control lever back and forth in an attempt to clarify what was never more than spotty reception at best.  He’d pause occasionally:  to retrieve a toothpick from the trim over the window, to yell at squirming miscreants (almost uniquely confined to  the time when we also drove our cousins to school, a.k.a, “The Karl and Tim Era,”), and expectoration.   Whenever we reached a stop sign or stoplight, he’d predictably open the door and produce a generous loogie, a sound that echoes clearly in my memory.  My dad figures that his prodigious phlegm production had something to do with his history as a smoker, a persona that I have no recollection of as he quit right around the time of my birth. Probably his slow decline into various stages of heart failure didn’t help much either.  

I don’t recall him every saying “have a good day” or “I love you”. His drop off procedure in front of St. Mary’s school was a thing of beauty, a no-nonsense slamming on of the brakes signalling that we’d better all bail and bail quickly before he lifted his foot again, distracted by his ongoing warfare with WGN radio.  We’d catch up with him later at mass, which we schoolchildren attended on Wednesdays.  We were encouraged to disperse among the regular attendees, a group of 20-30 mostly retirees.  For a good 15 years, Grandpa’s entourage included an ever-changing cast of characters with various shades of blonde hair and the Bier cheeks.  During the handshake of peace I’d get my hug and remember that, despite the strangely-punctuated silence of the car trip an hour or so ago, I was his Dolly.

 

2010-05-01 01.40.06

Show Choir: it’s a thing

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A couple of weekends ago, I took the girls along with my mom to see a high school show choir performance.  What is show choir, you ask?  It’s a singing / dancing / costumed extravaganza the comprised the heart of my high school career.  This particular performance featured two groups from Janesville Craig high school and two from my show choir of record, Milton High School’s Choralation.  Since then, I’ve had all sorts of conflicting emotions;  indulge me while I  unpack a few of those items and shake out some universal truths.

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Milton Choralation:  ballad position, some things never change.

The show choir kids appeared to be the same as I remembered, but with perhaps slightly more modern hairstyles. While performing they were, as a group, emotive and in your face and completely guileless.  While audience-ing they were rapt, supportive, and locked in various stages of platonic and non-platonic embraces in the semi-darkened auditorium.  These were My People.  Whenever I counsel kids going through a tough peer time in school, I always emphasize the importance of finding Their People.  Their People may not be everyone else’s people, and Their People may not be the popular people. Worrisomely, Their People may not exist at their current school and they will have to hold out for the hope of finding Their People later on.  I suppose this is a version of the “it gets better” mantra. Fortunately, My People did exist, and they existed in show choir. We shared the need for the drama, the glitter, and the joy of creating something as a group that brought people to their feet and to tears.  All while spending inordinate amounts of time draped all over similarly minded people in countless auditoriums, gyms, buses and rehearsal rooms.  Finding one’s People should be somewhere in the Maslow Hierarchy;  oh wait there it is in the yellow band.  I knew I was right.

Maslow

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.  Finding one’s People is somewhere in the yellow-green zone, I think.

 

As much as I’d like to think that I had no pretense about those being truly, honestly My People, that would be crediting my adolescent self with far more self confidence and self awareness than I actually possessed.  I had other People too, or should I say other versions of myself.  It was a small school, so many of these tribes necessarily overlapped–both for me and other.  In fact there was always drama about athletes’ schedules when they found themselves participating in the dramas, musicals, and show  choir competitions. I seem to recall a lot of soccer players in show choir… Anyway, there were other versions of myself, too, and the other big version of my high school self was the hyper-academic version.  There were plenty of smart, academically successful kids in the arts programs, as I recall.  However, for me academically successful was actually skewed to mean being The Best.  I found myself caught in the vicious spiral of “successful kid must do approved academically successful things with their life,” like take all of the hardest math classes and declare academically successful career plans.  I learned this lesson early on and it stuck.  So, these two versions of myself were somewhat at odds, at least in an adolescent mind longing for approval and success.  The one area that I could safely guarantee success was academics.  I still wonder, if I would have felt more successful in show choir, might I have been open to exploring other facets of my personality, those that thrived on things other than pure academic achievement and recognition?

But I wasn’t successful in show choir, at least not the way that I wanted to be.  Oh, I was successful–as the piano player.  I was, and still am, a dynamite choir accompanist.  Thanks to early piano instruction by a nun hell-bent on turning me into the next version of herself–a working church musician–I could play four staves of parts and switch between that and the accompaniment line, no problem.  But I wanted to sing and dance and wear frivolous shoes, which is no surprise to anyone that’s known me then or sense.  As I frequently reassure my eldest daughter, people like us with no filters are destined for a lifetime of memorable public displays.  I think I’m really nailing this parenting of a preteen thing, by the way.   But back to show choir—I tried out to be an on-stage performer twice, which is what I secretly, fervently desired. The first time I was passed over and gladly took the role of pianist just to get a seat at the proverbial table. But the second time? I was hurt to not be listed on the choir director’s door.  I had done OK in my audition. My voice was never going to be picked out for a solo, but I could carry a tune, and I could move. So why not me? I screwed up my 16 year old courage and confronted the choir director with that very question.  He basically said, it’s the piano or nothing. So I chose the piano again and didn’t audition a third time.  People told me that it was because he didn’t want to lose me as an accompanist, which makes sense logically, but since when do teenagers think logically?   I knew the real reason that I wasn’t chosen:  I wasn’t attractive enough to don the red sparkly dress, I was simply too horrid to look at.  My adult brain knows that this is simply ridiculous, but on some reptilian level, I think I still believe it.  So, my senior year, I knew all the steps, all the songs. When a girl unexpectedly left to move to another district, I was sure it was my chance, to be slotted into her emergently vacant spot.  I can’t remember if I offered the idea or just quietly hoped.  Probably the latter;  he cast someone else.  To make matters worse, the replacement then got to dance two numbers with my boyfriend.  Insult to injury.

Looking back on the whole thing as an adult, the lessons are almost trite in their obvious simplicity. I can see now how important it is to not push kids too hard toward who we believe / hope / wish Their People are.  And calm down, mother, you never overtly did that.  In fact, I actually remember you daring to disagree with Sister Mary, the St. Mary’s school principal, when I suggested in sixth grade that maybe I wanted to be a cosmetologist rather than a lawyer and she rebuked me.  That took guts, mom, she was scary, with her helmet of iron gray curls and sensible shoes.  Ultimately, thought, the Sister Marys of the world, coupled by a few rejections in other areas as recounted above, left me firmly seeking my future People in the camp of intense academics.  But that’s a story for another day.

In my opinion anyone who comes through high school and identifies those years as the best of their life?  Something’s dramatically wrong there.  The search for one’s yellow band on the Maslow Hierarchy shouldn’t be easy or complete by 18.   That being said, while far from my best years, those were good times.  For a time, I found My People. So, seeing the show choir was bittersweet.  But the sweet must have outweighed the bitter, because I’m currently composing an email to the Franklin high school choir director to see how I can help support this district’s fledgling show choir.  Because I know that some kids need that home for them and their people.

March

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March

I have a love-hate relationship with March.  I love that it’s the month that heralds the slow transition into spring.  Like the final slog up a really steep hill, we just have to get through it.  And the climb through March’s ambivalent days isn’t all thankless toil.  There’s robins and foolhardy crocuses and newborn lambs.   Morning and evening commutes and drives to and from school can finally be completed in the daylight.  The earth emerges bleary-eyed into the shocking brightness of it all, the dirty snow melts away, and we remember what our world looks like stripped bare.  It’s all kind of exhilarating and hopeful, isn’t it?  

But all that earthen nudity and shocking sunshine makes me a bit panicky as well.
From the purely practical standpoint, the seasonal shift adds countless items to the list of things to do.  For example, after the recent snow melt the item “pick up random shovels, sleds and debris buried in drifts” was added to mine.  Then there’s all the “get the yard ready for the next iteration of life in Wisconsin.”  For six years we lived in Arizona, and it was sooooo easy.  A change in seasons usually just meant bringing out or putting away one’s jacket.  There was no complete turnover of the yard and equipment required to maintain it at that given calendar moment in time.  I begin to panic over all of the “I’ll get these things done over the winter” tasks that I never got to.  Repainting rooms.  Sorting through paperwork.  Completing that first novel.  Taking up knitting.  Reading Important Books.  All of these tasks will, be inevitably left to wait until I’m forced indoors once again at the turn of fall into winter.  

And spring begins so quickly–I always try and notice it happening but, like the passing of any of the seasons, I never capture it exactly.  Being someone who mourns over the passage of time with real, visceral, gut-wrenching anxiety, the change of seasons can be difficult!  The other day my youngest came to me during the night, worried about the fact that some day she would die and that she didn’t want her life to move so quickly.  Girl, I feel you.  Those are big worries for a little person.  I should know, because I had them at that age too, coupled with a complicated concern for limbo and eternity born out of Catholic education.  I wish I could tell her that these preoccupations get easier, but they don’t.  They just get more manageable and predictable.  Spring is tricky.  Focus on the perennials.  

But would I give it up?  Absolutely not.  Those years in Arizona slid together too quickly, without the bittersweet mile markers of  seasons marching visibly onward.  So bring on the tulips and the crocuses, bring on the spring rains that scour the salty crust from the Wisconsin landscape.  I’ll only get so many springs in my lifetime, and I intend to do my best to wring the essence out of this one.  And those piles of indoor projects will just have to wait patiently in the corners once again.  The lion of March is prowling at the door.