It's May

Once May Day comes, look out. Try to smell the roses, even if they haven't arrived by May Day cuz if you blink, you're liable to miss some good memories and then a long winter will come and the great moments you will want to remember of the past spring will seem so distant and so far off.

That's how it is in May. As the calendar changes, so do the smorgasboard offerings of "things to do." And, in most cases, they're all pretty tasty treats. Decision-making is much more difficult, but one must not linger too long in filling one's plate, cuz the day's offerings will go by fast enough.

I had such a day yesterday. I thought it had been all lined out for me. Clean house, do the garden stuff, and get the computer ready for typing responses from the lady who sells logging equipment. Show her around the place, get her to sign the Lodgepole Log, go to lunch, come home do more gardening, fix dinner, work on stories, etc.

Well, the house work got done, and the phone rang. She couldn't come because her morning activities had stretched into something more complex than originally planned. I told her I'd cleaned my house and mowed my yard, and she said, "You're just like me." We agreed to talk next week and see what could be worked out.

I was also supposed to meet with a committee sometime this week to make some key decisions. Three different time offerings for us to get together had already proved impossible for one committee member who had too much on her plate.

As my week continued to fill up with more stuff than time, I realized it would be difficult for me to squeeze in one more slot, and having yesterday suddenly open wasn't gonna help the situation. So, I called the chair of our committee, and before I could spit out my apology, she was saying, "Let's just do this online. Nobody has any time to get together."

So, once that got established, I still needed to figure out what to do with this day of inplanned "free" time. I called my mother, knowing she wanted to squeeze in some time to get to town to take care of a few errands. We agreed to get together early afternoon. In the meantime, I had a few projects I could do around home, including some writing.

Ten minutes later, she called back. It wasn't going to work because the person she needed to see was not in his office. So, there went that plan.

I continued on my day, switching gears----glad we've got automatic transmissions these days---and tending to things I planned to do next week in preparation for going to Chicago. It was a good feeling to get the extra time now to do the things that would be driving me absolutely nutso at the last minute before a trip.

Today I'm going to lunch, compliments of a book club, and all I have to do is listen to people talk about my books and comment. That ought to be fairly easy as long as they go easy on me. It seems like a nice break from the long list of "must do's" bound to keep me running through the rest of the month.

Why is May always like this? I can remember, as a teacher, that we rarely had time to come up for air during the month. All research papers needed correcting, or the last giant issue of the paper was being completed. All the year-end club picnics had to find a date on the calendar when 13 other club picnics were not scheduled.

Kids wanted out of school. Their minds had already left. Teachers were at their wits' end trying to keep a lid on things in the classroom and trying to find one quiet moment when they could at least glance at the flowers, let alone smell them.

We always did Caesar in May and had festive toga parties during the time in Shakespeare's play when Caesar died and Antony said his famous words about friends and Romans and countrymen and his heart there in the coffin. Did they have coffins back then? I wonder if that was another anachronism on Shakespeare's part. Anyway, the classroom parties were always great as were many of the parodies of the famous speech, even if many students hadn't all memorized every line.

I've been reminded that it is May and Caesar time in the past couple of weeks when checking the search words for unfamiliar parties from around the world who have visited my blog. I'm guessing the assignment of "Friends, Romans, countrymen" is as universal as it was back then, because it's been showing up on a lot of Google references for visitors lately.

This month that I love the most scurries past all too quickly, and the images seems to always be in fast forward. They've gotta be cuz one activity ends and another begins with very little break time between.

So, I guess I'll go outside, see if the hyacinths have any lovely fragrance and take a couple of deep breaths.

Around here, we won't smell a garden rose until June or July, but even without the roses, the beauty is supreme and one must take it all in---even if one is on the verge of going nuts from May-time overload.