April, Oh How I Love Thee…

Pardon the late night love note to April. She and I have had our fall-outs over the years, but as I sit down to write my post, my mind returns to how I love April. Here is why:

1. Tax season ends. All the lovely accountants can unshackle the desk manacles and salve their paper cuts and come out to join the rest of us enjoying spring. My fondness might also come from a refund showing up in my checking account.
2. Spring weddings start. Typically being dressed up and forced to socialize for hours is my idea of torture, but a friend’s wedding last weekend cut through the misanthropy. They are a beautiful couple and I can’t help being joyful. April is also the month the husband asked me to marry him.
3. A new Dresden Files novel is released. Wizard Harry Dresden is a private eye like no one in Chicago has seen before. Changes, the twelfth novel in Jim Butcher’s kick-butt series, hit stores last Tuesday, and you can guess where I headed five minutes after quitting time. I’ve been looking forward to the novel for months (literally twelve months), and it was better than I’d hoped. I even felt sympathy for a character I’d hated since book two. Changes will delight me for months as I imagine what Butcher is going to put in the November novella that picks up where the cliff-hanger ending in Changes leaves off.
4. Friends have birthdays. It is always good to celebrate the coming into existence of people you love, but I remember the magical celebrations held when we were kids.
5. I finally get around to planting flowers. I always wait until late April because of the diminished frost danger. Alright, so I also have to wait until the end of April because I can’t get myself organized and motivated sooner.
6. Everything is blooming. It is enough to overlook the pollen tarp over all of Richmond.
7. Easter means faith, family, food, and John Donne. Yes, I tried to fit an F in there but I couldn’t. Johnnie Boy is one of my favorite poets, and I always try to read his work, especially “Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward,” during the season.
8. My sister finishes up a year at college. She and I have a tradition. On move-out day I go to her college and we eat tongue-titillating desserts before lugging refrigerators down three flights of stairs. Maybe this year we should try gorging on ice cream after heavy lifting.
9. My brother has prom. One of the great benefits of having the cutest siblings on Earth is seeing them decked out to promenade. And promenade they do when hundreds of people turn out to flank the walk and watch the couples a la Academy Awards. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
10. Fantastic Spatulans will come together to par-tay. More on that weekend magic later.

Are you infatuated with April? Having a fling? What would you include in your love note?