Spring Fever

Here in the central San Joaquin Valley of California, we don't get much diversity in our weather. It's mostly hot. From April to the end of October — all hot. Then November gets here and it's just plain foggy. Seriously, we have world-famous fog — look up "Tule Fog." We sorta kinda have fall, but only if you've never been Back East. Winter consists of mostly gray. We don't get snow here — well, just that one time in '98. Then, all of a sudden, just before Valentine's Day, it's spring! And since the central valley is the largest agriculture-producing region in the world — yep, you can look that up too — producing not only a LOT of agricultural products, but also boasting  very diverse ag output, we don't have to rely on groundhogs, calendars, astronomy, or any other such ridiculous notions about how to determine the beginning of spring. We have fruit trees. Lots and lots of fruit trees. And they bloom in early February. Orchard after orchard of bright pink peach and nectarine blossoms, pale pink almond blossoms, white plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, apple blossoms — you name it, if it blooms, it's blooming somewhere nearby.

 

This makes people crazy.

 

Absolutely no doubt about it, spring causes more crazy than the fullest moon. In the interest of making anything close to a point today, I will skip the in-depth explanation of the crazies, but suffice it to say, I have more no shows and cancellations during spring than any other time throughout the year.

 

Which is how it is that I have a few hours to sit around the salon today, listening to Internet radio (folk music — it’s been suggested that I have really bad taste in music, but my clients like the folk better than the bluegrass) while alternately staring out the window at my awesome view where it looks like our 40% chance of rain today might at least be hitting the Sierra Nevada hard already, and then back at the salon thinking there are so many things I ought to start working on.

 

Finally, after a walk to Starbucks and the bank, I set my mind to organizing my atrocious nail-art drawer. The drawer that holds a chaotic array of rhinestones and impression tools and things that didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped or things I never use because they've settled at the bottom of the drawer under all those things that didn't really work out. So I sat down on the floor, opened the drawer ... and Minxed my toes instead.

 

So now that my toes are fabulous again, maybe I ought to get around to the drawer.