Spring Has Sprung (and There’s Nothing You Can Do About It)

Well everybody, it’s finally happened: spring. It is spring, as of today (March 20), which means that in celebration you can take to the streets and do everything you’ve been avoiding since it was winter, which in my case means spending time outdoors and spending a few less nights a week inside watching reruns of Great British Bake Off. (Just kidding, I will never, ever stop doing that.)

And according to Environment Canada, we can expect “a warmer than usual” season, which I guess is supposed to be surprising after a winter that at one point saw me driving with the windows down and wearing only a denim jacket. (Like, on top of my regular clothes — I am not that brave, and I never will be.) Anyway, here’s the offish spring write-up:

“We think the flavour, the personality of spring over a good chunk of the country is going to be warmer than normal,” said a person who obviously endured the same amount of winter as the rest of us a.k.a David Phillips. Minus Newfound and Labrador, so my heart goes out to them.

So okay, then! Spring has sprung, it is here, right now the general colouring of the outdoors is “beige at best” but okay, fine. I can work with this. So with that I say, we are all very excited and are going to do stupid things because of how excited we are. So in an attempt to avoid doing those stupid things, here is my list of things I will shout at you about if I see you do them. Because I am the mom of this website and also the internet, but most specifically, a lot of things annoy me and I’m going to tell you about them.

It is spring! But do not:

  • Wear flip-flops until it’s hot out. And even then, maybe instead of wearing flip-flops set fire to them or toss them into the sea.
  • Wear shorts until it is hot out. Everybody knows you’re cold. You’re freezing, man. It’s cold. Right now it is 7 degrees. SEVEN. If it was September we’d be wearing eight layers of wool and Instagramming leaves.
  • Push florals on me. I like florals just fine but stop this. I do not all of a sudden become “floral” as of March 20. Florals are to be worn only in the spirit of Reality Bites. Or other ways, but I don’t care about those.
  • Think we are all pastel people. I have zero things that are pastel. Last summer I bought more black and grey than I knew what to do with. This summer I will buy more. Let me live my neutral life.
  • Throw grass at me. I have allergies.
  • Throw leaves at me. I have allergies.
  • Throw flowers at me. This is a complete waste of flowers. Also, I’m probably allergic to those too.
  • Suntan in your bathing suit on the driveway when you should be wearing a jacket. I say this as someone who did that in high school one year and I did get a very shitty tan, but I also got very cold and then got *a* cold, which offset all my hard-earned skin damage.
  • Laugh at me when I tell you I somehow got sunburnt driving my car. This is my life. I don’t laugh at your life.
  • Tell me not to complain when it’s humid. I will complain whenever I want, but I also did not complain all winter so I saved all my complaints up for this.
  • Encourage me to ride a bike. I haven’t ridden a bike since I was 14 and I can tell you what I’m not about to start doing at 31. (Spoiler: ride a bike.)
  • Encourage me to join a softball league. Truly, you have to be fucking kidding me.
  • Encourage me to eat outside on the patio if it is less than 20 degrees Celsius. If you have sat outside trying to eat chicken fingers in a wind tunnel, you will understand why.
  • Ask me to please get off the back porch or front stoop, which I have waited all winter to sit outside and read/do work on. Let me have this. Leave me alone. Let me sit outside and pretend to be outdoorsy.
  • Ask me to be outdoorsy. I don’t know what this means, but when I see Instagram photos of “hikes” that is the hardest pass I can even think of.
  • Say “What, really?” when I suggest we walk around for four hours drinking tea as a Saturday night plan. Because guess what this is not a hike since it is in a city. So it is different. It is still outdoors. There are no paths, only sidewalks.
  • Ask “Aren’t you hot?” when I hold on to the jacket I bought as an investment piece and can only wear for like, two days a year. I am very warm. It is unseasonably warm. But this jacket was not a smart purchase and now here we are.
  • Say anything about my Peeps breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t speak to your life, so step off.

HAPPY SPRING!

Main image via @CitizenBloom

Tags: Anne T. Donahue, first day of spring, flowers, pop culture, spring, summer, topstory, Wellness

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