Random Wanderings of the Mind

It has continued to be a cold month. It may be the year that spring forgot. Yesterday's high was only 57 degrees F. which is 15 degrees below normal. The low temp was down near 40 for two mornings in a row. If we hadn't had clouds last night we might have had frost here in southern Minnesota because the dew point was 32. What has made it worse is when spring has shown up we ended up with the tornadoes around here including an F5 in Iowa. No, it isn't the coolest May on record I am sure, but it isn't one I wanted after the seemingly endless winter we had.

Then imagine my sadness last evening when I got to the coffee shop and looked across the street at the flower garden. And all the tulips were gone. The bed was empty. They had been really pretty, too. Well, tonight there are things planted over there that offer the hope for summer. Notice I said hope and not promise. I will not accept any promise made about a summer of 2008. The only way I know spring has come is the orange barrels marking the road construction.

But in truth I have very little to whine about as I have been watching the destruction from tornadoes here in the Midwest, the devastation in Myanmar followed by the insensitive paranoia of the government there, and the destructive power of the earthquake in China. Listening the other evening to a report from there on NPR they were talking about the fact that China has had a general one child per family policy. They pointed out that many of the children killed in the earthquake were their parents' only child. I hadn't even thought about that. As a parent of an only child I stopped just before it got to that place where a parent's mind can't go. Yes I can feel some of the pain, but unless you experience it, it is only a deep pain you can't allow to come to its full fear. Nature is not as benign as we sometimes romanticize it to be. And yes it is true that life really isn't fair.