Yesterday, we were cleaning the garage because I am an awful whore when it comes to cramming things in gigantic rubbermaid tubs, storing them in the garage, and never going back to sort out the items I have removed from household circulation.

With the move looming and my knowledge that there will be an entire basement at my storage-loving disposal, my slave driver husband is making me SORT. THROW THINGS OUT! WTF? It doesn’t help his case that temps are hovering at around a hundred degrees and that I find sweating to be intolerable, but I staggered on, mostly throwing things out (which was probably his intent) just to get the chore finished.

In one particular box, I pulled out several old photo albums containing pictures of my brother and I when we were very small. I packed them in a box and turned back to the bin.

At first, I only saw the portrait of my Mama in her long pink dress with the green velvet ribbon and I stood there for a moment, a little frozen, just thinking … but when I stuck my hand in to pull it out, I noticed what was laying to the side.

Sometimes I think my Mama or God or Dave Grohl is trying to send me a signal, a message through the universe or Joel O’ Steen, something to comfort or pursuade or calm. I got that feeling yesterday and I thought I might as well share it.

A time to every purpose under the heaven  

A time to be born and a time to die;  

A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which has been planted  

A time to kill and a time to heal;  

A time to break down and a time to build up  

A time to weep and a time to laugh;  

A time to mourn and a time to dance  

A time to rend and a time to sew;  

A time to keep silence and a time to speak  

A time to love and a time to hate;  

A time of war and a time of peace  

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 

Missouri eases into spring with much debate and trepidation the same way that it faces any kind of change.  The Bradford Pears lining streets and scattered throughout the backyards don’t even bloom at the same time, but rather fall back and await a few stalwart sentries to cry the alert that all is well for dainty white flowers, huddling snowballs.  

Unlike The Dogwood, The Cherries and The Hawthornes fill out quickly, in time with the frost-bitten tubers, their blooms diminished quickly by the early spring winds.  The Dogwood, however, takes her time, tight buds slowly breaking to expose the thick satiny, pink and green bracts that comfort the tiny blooming flower cluster inside.  Months will pass before she reveals her true and final beauty. 

Though many beautiful things grow in my yard, they rarely make it to the kitchen table or the window sill.  The beautiful offerings that come to me sealed with a kiss are not found in garden shops or seed catalogs, not cultivated and nurtured or fertilized and manipulated by the pluses and minuses of soil ph.  These greed goddess blessings are not tepid about spring or cautious about life.  They are not pretentious or perfumed and celebrated. 

They are weeds.  To some.  But to me, they are the first real signs of Spring, of Mother Nature’s real glory.  They endure.  They multiply.  They attract children like coneflower attracts bumble bees.  They are given to me, readily, by small dirty hands that have been poking the dirt for earthworms and flipping garden stones in search of centipedes.  I am humbled in their presence, the truest sign of the faithful graceful love of a child.

The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote. Christianity no longer supports stoning disrespectful children (though it’s not that bad of an idea). Landmark strides have been made in microchip technology and manufacturing that does not involve illegal child labor. You can get TGIFridays mozzarella sticks in the freezer section at your local WalMart.

Cars run on batteries and batteries run on lithium and oddly, so does my crazy Aunt Caroline. There’s fast food, organic food, and I’m sure that someplace there is probably fast organic food. You can run your lawnmower on doughnut grease and fly a flaming American flag behind your inverted, ergonomic bicycle while your neighbor washes his car with an eight ounce spray bottle and a ShamWow.

We’ve gone from The Beaver to The Fonz to The Mentalist; Kool & the Gang to The Sugar Hill Gang to Gang of Four … from the Green Mountain Boys to Greenpeace, Green Acres, GreenDay, and Green Tea. There’s Bob Dylan, Sheriff Matt Dillon, and Dylan from Beverly Hills 90210 (the original one, not the new one). You can call it all progress or natural progression; the generation that follows yours isn’t going to care. They will choose for themselves. Oh yhea, the times, they are a changin’. And they always have been.

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I wonder who told Obama that “CHANGE” was a good slogan? CHANGE is the number one threat. It’s the opposite of everything that makes people happy. *assume Jane Austen voice: “Let’s not listen to that scary Rock-n-Roll, My Lord; go put some Tony Bennett on the victrola.” (no offense to Tony Bennett who is super sexy)

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Let’s say I start wearing little white day gloves and carrying a parasol (two accessories that I think are very spiffy). What would you say if you walked past me in Macy’s? Would you compliment me on my dynamic use of historical fashion or give me a weird look and cut through the sales racks?

Suppose I decide to put a smokehouse in my backyard and keep a couple of Haitians back there to tend to it.

OR

What if I (in association with IMAX and Bill Gates) created a magic machine that turned all of the 68-inch plasma screen televisions at Buffalo Wild Wings to black & white?

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How is it that in a nation created on generational “CHANGE”, we are so reluctant to accept that which is not our “own”. Until we can, we will always be more divided than united and if you ask me, that’s something that REALLY needs to change.

I mean it. Damn you. You have ruined my day for the last time.

I used to love you Bill. I really did. You with your bedroom eyes and that sexy Arkansas whisper ~ let’s just say you could have had more than my vote. Don’t get me wrong here, I love Hillary too … in a girl’s-school-crush sort of way; curious, just not that curious. But those days are gone, Bill. Not only are you on my shit list, I am ready to freely admit that I fully regret impulsively dropping twenty-five bucks on that snoozer of yours, Giving, at an airport bookshop a few years ago.

In spite of rescuing the journalists imprisoned in North Korea and creating a bazillion dollar foundation, regardless of your influential world status and smooth talking machismo, it’s the side effect of your tryst with Monica (and I am not referring to STD’s) that haunts me to this day. No disrespect to Monica, of course. She seems like a perfectly nice girl.

My problem with you is bigger than your little cover-up lie about “having sex with that woman”. My problem with you is bigger than a stained dress. It’s bigger than pervasive cheating or money laundering or hiring a hit man and/or whatever else the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy folks have in their dossier. It’s personal, Bill … and as recently as this past Saturday, I have had to suffer the humiliation of your philandering.

You have taken away my personal liberty. You have infringed on my freedom as an American. I don’t think there’s a specific amendment in the Bill of Rights that fully encompasses what you’ve done, but I bet that someplace in the annals of Vogue there is. That’s right, Bill Clinton, you have crossed into territory where no straight man has the right to tread. You have violated my right to fashion. You destroyed a classic, the essence of chic.

Yes – I am talking about the beret.

You ruined the right of every woman, everywhere, to accessorize at will. I have a theory that Karl Lagerfeld and Ralph Lauren actually hired and handsomely rewarded Ken Star for his work on this issue of maintaining the dignity of this timeless chapeau. Unfortunately that did not work out at all, for you or the beret. They should have sent Elton John.

Obviously, the shame of sporting the beret lies only with women, as it does not appear that the US Army Special Forces have felt the need to alter their uniforms or the spiffy, well-known moniker, The Green Berets. I bet nobody would ever walk up to John Wayne and say, “Hey Duke, Monica called and she wants her hat back.” No sir, I do not see that happening. In light of that fact, I suspect that not only are you all those other things, you are also sexist. Not sexy (well, not anymore – for purposes of this post), but sexIST. It is worth mentioning that I do not believe that Prince has suffered any repercussions of Clinton Beret Dysfunction.

However, I will not go down without a fight, you sexy sexist beast. Last weekend, I found the cutest most fabulous black felted beret with the cutest embellishments ever and though I let the words of others dissuade me from wearing it on Saturday, I am taking a stand. I WILL wear my beret and I will wear it with pride. Like Rosa Parks and Jim Morrison, I will not let The Man keep me down. I am going to wear that hat this weekend. I’m going to wear the shit out of it and I can promise you that the first person who mentions Monica Lewinsky is going to have a stain problem as well, but this time, it’s going to be blood.

So, Goodbye Bill Clinton … as we part, I have but one request ~ please, please stay away from Ben Affleck. My headwear wardrobe can’t take another hit.