I'm Getting Vewy Vewy Excited!

"Why Lu?"

"Why are you getting excited," you may ask?

Well let me tell you.

Because of this...

and this...

No not really.

But definitely this...

It's berry time!

These lovely white blooms are the precursors, the torch bearers,
the beginnings of the most lovely, luscious, sweet and tangy berries around.

Dewberries, sometimes called wild blackberries are what I'm excited about.

Berry picking is a tradition, a requirement for Spring.

It must be done.

A Berry Pie must be made.

And eaten.

I will wait anxiously until "the day" in early May when the berries are at their peak.

I will grab my special Berry Pickin' Bucket

that I will shape from a gallon plastic container using my formerly very sharp serrated bread knife.

And look,

I know that some of you have likened my bucket to  "a large portable urinal",

but I most adamantly assure you that it IS NOT.

So  please stop saying it.

Anyway, it will be the hottest  and most dangerously sunny day of the year so far,

and the humidity will be the highest we've had in the last several years,

no, the highest in the last century,

and I will forget that I have never had a suntan in my entire life,

and that my name actually appears in The Guiness Book of World Records several times under "The World's Most Severe Sunburns",

and I won't put on any sunscreen,

and I will run out the door with my bucket

and The Chief will look after me and shake his head,

and I will begin to pick berries,

and I will bleed from all the scratches on my hands and arms,

and I will sweat

copiously,

and I will turn bright red from the sun,

and I will swell from the wasp, ant, and caterpillar stings

and I will be so very, very

Happy.

I'm just simple like that.

And then, after the antihistimines, the salves, balms, and aloe vera...

OK, and sometimes after the bail posting (I'm sorry but sometimes one has to do a teensy bit of trespassing to get to the best berries)

I'll make a Berry Pie.

And we'll eat it with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla,

and we will taste

Heaven.

And then soon thereafter you will be forced to read a blog post from me full of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and lamentations about

the gargantuan size of my hips and thighs,

And all will

once again

be right with the world.

Can I get an Amen?