What gives? Is my spring rallying cry. Breakup is here, that drippy, sloppy time in which things we’ve forgotten about magically surface, and other things disappear. Case in point: a few days ago Pete began digging out the upper garden space, with the intention of eventually uncovering the garden cold frame. This seemed to me to be an utterly senseless activity because give it enough time, and the snow will eventually going to melt. Problem is, we can’t give it enough time. There’s easily four feet of snow out there. We could end up putting in the garden in September. So I gladly offered to give the master shoveler a hand.

I first put on my mismatched gloves. The first warning sign of breakup is when Alys throws on any old gloves and heads out the door. It would appear to an onlooker as I don’t care if the mitts fit. Actually, I do care; I care very, very

much about this. But not so much that I’m going to waste valuable time backtracking in order to see if I can rectify the situation.

Every fall, Pete pulls the glove and hat box out of the black hole, and I match up what we have on hand. (I also match up his gloves.) Then we go out and buy a few more pairs. I don’t discard lone gloves, because you never know where or when one will resurface. (For the record, I once found a much loved glove in the sock bin. I must have stuffed it in a fleece coat pocket, and it got washed, and ended up with the socks.)

My world feels ordered and complete after the fall sort. But as the winter progresses, gloves fall by the wayside. I lose some, misplace others. By late March I usually have six or seven left-handed gloves and two right handed gloves scattered about the property. This drives me nuts. It’s too late in the year to go out and buy more, so I endure. I can, at this time of year, be found wearing two left-handed gloves.

This is not so of Pete. He hangs onto the same pair of gloves all winter. If he loses any, I am the culprit. His wear out, and he replaces them. I do not understand why it is that I have this problem. What gives? This is again my spring rallying cry.

Next: 113. 3/31/12: Cartoonist Chad Carpenter