The person who first described March as “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb” apparently slept through July every year. This one in particular keeps getting better and better. Among other things, my niece Hailey and her husband DJ (one of the two best nephews-in-law a guy could ever have) just had their first child this weekend, which officially makes the Czarina and I a great-aunt and great-uncle. (Because she argues that she’s already a great aunt, the Czarina told me that she plans to encourage the next generation to refer to her as “Auntie”. In response, I’m planning to teach all of the kids to ask her “Who run Bartertown?” When I do it, she hits me.)
Even with all of the craziness coalescing within the next few months, we made tentative plans for a working holiday at the beginning of August. Nothing much: I figured that it might be nice to visit Michigan without needing a grandparent’s funeral as justification, and let the Czarina see my childhood stomping grounds when they aren’t decorated with carved blocks of frozen oxygen. (Or at least, that’s her perception. The first time she saw a snow broom in the back of a rental car, I thought she was going to have a heart attack when I explained what it was for. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about how the mosquitoes in summer were so thick that their carcasses tended to sandblast the paint off the front of vehicles, so we were actually glad for the snow when I was a kid.) When we heard about a combination independent garden center conference and music festival called “Bloomapalooza”, running maybe a thirty-minute drive from my childhood house, we both figured “Why the heck not?”
In the meantime, life intruded, and I learned today that Bloomapalooza’s organizers just canceled it. No trip to Michigan, and no music festival. I guess that means I’ll have to organize the “Manchester United Flower Show” after all, doesn’t it?
So, are you Master or Blaster?
I’m Pig Killer.