As I was chopping food for dinner this evening, washing romaine, dicing fresh cilantro, squeezing lemon over the avocadoes, grilling the chicken breasts in fajita sauce....I could not get it out of my head: "It's not easy being green." Laughed at myself....tried to think of other, more esoteric things...tried to compose a poem. Thought about the wonderful talk I read today which was given by Peter Khan in San Francisco this summer, all kinds of uplifting thoughts about education, but persistently, my mind would drift away to..."It's not easy being green." Oi oi.

I painted (or rather, Bernie painted after we chose the colour together) the room which has been my parents' bedroom, and which will be the guest room for my sister and her husband when they arrive Christmas Day, but which will revert to being my office in early January, quite a bright green. I will line up my plants along its one window wall and watch the winter from a green and white glow. That's if winter ever comes. Apparently our continued double digit temperatures here are fooling plants and animals into thinking it's spring. Garlic farmers are worried, birds are still here which shouldn't be...and I have planted a lot of tulip bulbs, with my Dad, which will hopefully not think they're meant to be out of hibernation. I never thought I'd wish for cold, but we need at least below zero for the natural world to go about its business the way it's meant to. Seedlings emerging too early simply means they'll die off at the first harsh snow fall, which must come. On the other hand, I comfort myself by thinking that the tulips in places like the Niagara Peninsula, which have a usual shorter and warmer winter, still manage to come up at the right time. Puts a new spin on Kermit's refrain.

So I leave you with this thought: It's not easy being green.