March Tan
Jennifer Flaten

Today, 19 March 2012, was 84 degrees and sunny. What a gorgeous summer day. Wait, it is only March. That can’t be right it feels like June. Nope, it’s definitely March.

Over 80 degrees in Wisconsin, in March, can’t be good. Pale Wisconsinites drinking left over green beer and running around in shorts and tank tops, in March, is a sign of the apocalypse. You can look it up.

Huh, I guess there is something to global warming. Oh, well at least I don’t have to wear long underwear anymore and, really, it is all about my comfort.

This nice weather is a little disconcerting. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know Mother Nature is just lulling us into a false sense of security and then, bam, she’ll drop a blizzard on us.

That is why, although all my neighbours were out diligently cleaning up their yards, I sat in the sun reading a book. Lazing, preferring to read over do yard work, has nothing to do with us.

I am tempting fate, I know, but I packed away all the winter clothes. If it does snow, I will be out shoveling in shorts and flip-flops. Not really, I’ll just wait for it to melt

I can’t help but wonder if the dinosaurs were enjoying an exceptional early spring before that asteroid hit and wiped them out? Seriously, this weather makes me feel like Rip Van Winkle, I fell asleep one winter day and awoke to find it was summer. I fear tomorrow I will wake up and it will be fall and I will have to rake all those damn leaves again.

The nice weather makes house hunting easier. Yes, I am still looking for a house. No, I haven’t found one yet, or at least one that doesn’t have a prodigious amount of paneling.

I am not a paneling snob, it can have its place, like deep in the basement where no one will ever see it, but it certainly doesn’t belong coursing through the entire house. One home had so much paneling. I thought I’d accidentally stumbled into the Keebler Elves workshop. Honestly, were these people beavers in a former life?

No snow means I will know, honestly, the hill in the backyard of the prospective home is an actual hill, not a dead moose. Shag carpeting and odd paint jobs aside, really people let’s stop committing crimes against color, I don’t care what the style magazine tells you eggplant and lime green don’t go together,  I’ve had fun looking at houses.

It’s a free pass to rummage through peoples cabinets and closets. I have to, how else will I know if all my stuff will fit?

The kids have come along to look at houses, not that they are any help, they love each house, even the paneling house. They were disappointed to learn that people don’t leave their 52-inch flat screen behind for the next owner, but apparently, they do leave dead moose.