Spring Forward

After this weekend's enthralling snowstorm (all of 1.5 inches---be afraid) we were blessed with a glorious Sunday afternoon. Each spring I step out on the first sunny day in March and shiver with fear at the sight of all of my perennials shooting up in anticipation of the warm weather. Such bravery.

And each year, without fail, those perennials face the wrath of an unforgiving Zone 5 climate. They strain and push and thrust themselves into the open light and air. Each year without fail the burgeoning rhizomes and their beautiful flowers of tulips and daffodils and hollyhocks get battered and bruised and bent by the snow.

But this morning I was still taken by the cant of the sun, the promise of new life and the colors of a new spring season.

(No these were not taken today. They were taken from last year :)

It's been a hectic week. I had Bump's birthday on Tues, CASA stuff both Weds and Thurs, and then hosted a birthday party on Friday night for and five of her friends. Bump's grandmother was in a hospital 1100 miles away having major surgery and so it a stressful evening as well. Then Saturday Tank's two basketball games got postponed because of the (*gasp*) 'Colorado Snowpacolypse'--- that never happened. Those two games were played Sat night to a jacked-up crowd of fans who seemed relieved to get out of their homes and into another loud sweaty noisy gym to watch some hoops. 

Tank did awesome. He was achingly nervous prior to the game and I cajoled him with money. I told him I'd pay him two dollars for every basket he scored. (Ah to be 11 and still think that $2 is an enormous amount of cash!). After his first basket Tank ran back onto defense and as he turned around to post he sought me out in the stands and thrust up two fingers in the air in celebration.

 I didn't have the right to tell him that in the UK some consider that an insult. 

Because frankly the entire stand erupted in laughter as he gestured up at us. And not ten minutes later he added two more fingers to that and thrust four of them up at us. His lips were clenched together and his eyes were wide and he threw up his arm, four fingers extended on his hand, and I knew this was quite possibly the happiest moment of his life. 

(BTW--That's Tai Wesley from Utah State. Not Tank. Not that Tank couldn't play for Utah State sometime in the future. )

So it is this great anticipation that we wait for Monday night's game. It's for their middle school grade championship and it's against a rather threatening-looking cross-town team. This team, FYI, has red and black uniforms. They wear their hair in mohawks and I swear, hand-to-heart, that some of these crunks already have tats festooning their pubescent biceps. And I am sure that if they throw up four fingers, the two middle ones would be crossed. It's that kind of gang. OOoOops---I mean team.

Thanks for your support and reading my non-sequiturs and pretty much incomprehensible at times ramblings. What started as a theme of spring awakening and new growth ended with a harangue and people throwing up gang signs.

Peace out.