"Letters to my brother...in jail"

Well... the mosquitos and love bugs are starting to make an appearance. My hibiscus and bouganvilla are starting to bud -- and I am atremble at the glory of it all.

I am tricked every... single... damn.... year into prematurely planting bulbs, pulling out the pool furniture, trading my heavy-bodied red malbecs and cabernets for lighter, fruitier (poolside) ingulgences and apertifs. I've even started wearing yellows and vague pale pastel ensembles. (sigh)

You can't blame me. Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes are starting to poke up out of the weeds alongside the roadside. My gardeners have started showing up every Friday, and I am in a state of freshly-mown heaven. Really.

Every year I get tricked into spring cleaning, organizing my pantry and clothes closet. I throw away all of the cans of pumking puree' and evaporated milk that I did not use up over the holiday cooking blitz. I start planting rosemary, basil and fiddle-head ferns in the "garden". I feel deep in my heart that this will be the year that I will be able to keep the fuschia New Guinea impatiens alive through summer. (sigh)

I stash away all of my heavy Houston winter gear (long-sleeved t-shirts, blue jeans, footwear not in the flipflop category) and start contemplating renewing my subscription to Martha Stewart's Living magazine.
Martha's great empire has made it such that creative types like me never need again to conjure up an original idea... and I see the value in that. I'm a Very Busy Woman.

We will have a final, wicked freeze within a week or two, nipping away all of the buds and glory, screwing up my seasonal urges. I gawdamguarantee it. Such is life in Houston, Texas.


One of the major differences between my daughter and myself: I am a woman who solves my own problems; my daughter is a woman whose problems always seem to resolve themselves. As I am her mother, I am learning to accept this and just be grateful.

After her latest crisis, she is back to her footloose and fancy-free days of absentmindedness, slovenly living and feline debauchery. At this very moment the smooth stylings of Tom Wait are vibrating the rafters over her bedroom.

I have much (secret) admiration for my daughter. Lately, though, much of the admiration has been cancelled out by all of her shenanigans. However, I figure I am paying my Karmic rent, ya know? It is my prayer that she wake up and adjust to what is required in order to get by in this life, and I'd do just as well swinging a dead cat by the light of the waning moon as wasting my breath on any of that. There I go again, being an old-fashioned parent.

I am no longer in the captain's seat when it comes to my daughter, and that feels strange. I am rearranging my prayers for Mere', assuming that whatever is required for her to get by in this life will simply come to her.

Maybe I should take my feelings to a therapist, or a chat room full of well-meaning non-experts. (sigh)