Up Late On The Last Day Of March Thinking About Wildflowers, Sweet Tomatoes & Shooting Ronald Reagan

I was up way after midnight, well into the wee hours of the last day of March of 2011.

Which has me up well after the arrival of the sun has revealed that the last day of the month is a clear blue sky day, so far, in my zone of North Texas.

I am not going swimming this morning. It is only 42 degrees out there. I don't know if the 24 hour average has been over 50 degrees. I suspect not. I'm not in the mood for a shivering episode of the extreme trembles.

I learned, this morning, from one of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin's botanists, that this year's Texas wildflower crop will not be a bumper one.

I also learned that a Sweet Tomatoes restaurant is coming to Fort Worth. Sweet Tomatoes is a good thing. A really good thing. The Fort Worth Sweet Tomatoes will be among all the other restaurants in the booming Fort Worth zone of West 7th.

It was 30 years ago, yesterday, that Ronald Reagan was shot by a Jodie Foster addled crazy man. How can that be 3 decades ago? Time flies way way too fast.

Case in point, it is already past 8 this last morning of March of 2011. It is now time to go do something other than swimming. Like maybe have breakfast.

The Shadow Of The Tandy Hills Fat Man On The 2nd Day Of The New Year

I hauled my bloated carcass to the Tandy Hills today, parked on top of Mount Tandy. I was optimistic that the hills had dried out and were no longer muddy.

As is way too often the case, my optimism had no basis in reality.

Too much mud was quickly adding too many inches to my height.

I don't know what the deal was with the sun and the shadow today, but it appears I have gained a lot of weight since I last saw the formerly thin shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man.

Once I realized I'd picked up some mud, I decided to continue on, since the damage was already done. I had a fairly brisk hike. During most of it I was talking to Tootsie Tonasket, who had gotten me on the phone on the way to the Hills. Tootsie invited me over for Key Lime Pie.

And after that, Aunt Alice invited me over for ham cooked in ginger ale. I don't know if that sounds good, or not.

I realized, whilst navigating the mud, that today is exactly one year since the Tandy Hills Manly Men & Wild Women Hike. An event where about 100 hikers were strung out for miles on the Tandy Hills.

The Queen of Wink and Princess Annie drove all the way from their realm in West Texas in order to hike the Manly Men/Wild Women Hike. However, the hiking soon proved too strenuous for the Queen, when she developed a serious case of the vapors.

To recover from the vapors I drove to Arlington, to Sweet Tomatoes, where we found food. If I remember right, I then drove back to the Tandy Hills with the Queen of Wink and Princess Annie driving off into the sunset. Almost never to be seen again.

A year goes by so fast. And yet so much happens and changes during the course of a year. I'm looking forward to 2012. It's only about 364 days away.