The Good, The Bad and The U-G-L-Y

Ahh, springtime in Texas makes me wish I was a poet  The grass is green, the trees are abloom and budding and then they are quickly green and leafy.  My drive down 2222 each morning provides me with hill covered in various shades of green: light, dark and vibrant.  The trees are nice, but it is the wildflowers that steal the show.  First up from the ground are the bluebonnets.  People in Texas are crazy about bluebonnets.  Usually, I can take them or leave them, but this year they are especially abundant, full and downright gorgeous.  Look, these are the bluebonnets in my neighbor's front yard.  

Pretty in blue.

They are so lush and full and have so much depth that I fully expect some fairies, elves or at least Smurfs to be living among them.  I would like to get close enough to smell them, but in my head they smell purple (like grape Hubba Bubba or the scented markers we used to huff as kids) and I would be crushed if they just smelled flowery.  There are fields of bluebonnets on the side of the road and small, almost forgotten pockets of them that creep up.  After the bluebonnets come the orange blue bonnets.  I am not sure if those are called Indian Paintbrushes or if it is the yellow and orange daisy-like things that are called that.  Either way the orange among the blue is eye-catching and complimentary.  There are yellow tall things and wispy white dotty things and my favorite, the delicate pink ones that somehow remind me of teacups.  The grasses are alive and screaming with color.  People up north have their leaves in the fall and we have our wildflowers in the spring.  It is a visual cornucopia to admire and enjoy each day and helps detract from the not-so-good things about spring.

One of the bad things about spring in Texas is the Live Oak trees.  Live Oaks are weird and start dropping things as the wildflowers start to bloom. First they drop their leaves in March, so we rake and mulch and bag in the spring here instead of the fall.  Next, the tree starts to fornicate or mate or germinate or do whatever it is trees do and as a result it spreads yellow pollen everywhere.  Everywhere.  Your car is covered in it, your dogs are covered in it and the sidewalks are stained yellow like a smoker's fingers.  You are breathing this pollen dust in and you have allergies even if you never had allergies before.  Your eyes are sandy, gritty, itchy, red and leaking.  Your nose is sniffly, stuffy, dripping and raw.  Your throat is garbled, sore, and thick.  It's not pretty.  After the yellow dust, the Live Oaks drop crunchy, twisty pollen sticks.  They stick to your shoes, your dog's tail and are on every floor in your house.  They hold like burrs and it is not unusual to find they have made it through both the washer and dryer cycles on a pair of boy socks.  Finally, the last and most disgusting thing these trees with drop is worms.  Tiny, little, weird tree worms that hang from the trees on an invisible string so you walk into them unknowingly.  You convince yourself it was a twisty, crunchy pollen stick and keep going until you feel itchy and weird and run your hand over your head/shoulder/arm and find out it is said worm.  EWWWWW doesn't even cover it.   

Another thing you will find trying here in spring is hair.  Hair right now is ugly.  I will have one day each spring where my limp, fine, somewhat curly hair is gorgeous.  It will hang in sproingy ringlets and frame my face in a way I never thought possible.  It will not fall, it will do exactly what I want all day long and I will feel like a supermodel.  This will only happen one day each spring when the humidity is perfect.  The other days when the humidity is a dry-humidity or a "it might rain three days from now" humid or it's normal 1000% humidity, my hair is Albert Einstein meets early Michael Jackson meets lion.  The curl is both angry and tired.  It hangs from my head yet flies up on the ends.  It can look fine when I leave the house and by the time I get to work look like I never even washed it.  I then sit there at work and I swear I can feel it growing.  A quick look in the mirror affirms it has grown three sizes in five minutes and to tie it back, stat.  I am not alone here, everyone is sporting some kind of ponytail, braid, twist, or the occasional pencil stuck through a knot.  The other day SG was running through the house looking for a headband.  I told her the only one was in my hair.  She wanted me to give it to her. I laughed in her face. I love her and shared my body with her but there was no way in hell she was getting the last hairband.

Spring in Texas is definitely a mixed bag, but like all seasons here except summer, it does not last very long. I intend to sigh over the wildflowers, watch my veggie garden actually grow for awhile and enjoy the mild temperatures. I also intend to curse every Live Oak tree on our lawn as we rake and bag yet again and because the crunchy pollen sticks are already on the ground, I will be dodging the tree worms.  Good thing is that when the lawn work is all over, I can sit with nasty, knotted hair in my favorite blue chair in the driveway and drink a beer.  That and once again marvel at the bluebonnets across the street and think how pretty it is here in the spring.  Beer and Bluebonnets - there is a poem in there somewhere!