The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

It is almost that time of year when the serpent attends to one of many annual rituals. This one is the little 3.1.5 Black Book
It is basically an assortment of To Do lists and Grand plans and is the serpent alternative to New Year's Resolutions

It is a place for recording Wish Lists and To Do lists for the next 3 months, 1 year and 5 years. Yesss. Those good old fashioned 5 Year Plans more honoured in the breach than the observance.
But the mere act of making such lists in the first place gives the inner serpent something to do and sometimes boxes get ticked off almost inadvertently.

I used to knock off the latest list in an hour or so at some cafe but now the ritual can take more than a week to complete.
The solstices and equinoxes are the times for writing new ones and also looking back on the old ones to see how many items got completed.

Last March's 1 year plan most definitely did not include "Organize Petunia's funeral"

It is now exactly 6 months ago since she died and today she would have been 77. So glad that I took time off work last year so that I could spend the whole day with her. Guessing that the inner serpent had been busy whispering that the odds were not in favour of her being around to celebrate the next one

Meanwhile I would most definitely like to turn up to work on Wednesday 10th October but will have to switch to another day because the Grinch turns 80 that day so I will have to make some sort of effort to do something nice for him.

There are two many other nasty anniversaries around that time and Daisy's recent visit provided a welcome distraction from those. September was in fact the only month in 2012 where Dolores and her goblin trolls left me alone. Turned out to be the calm before the storm. Aside from the calendar year matching, there have been other reasons of late to be reminding of the minions of Megatherion.

But it is awful to think of the Grinch and his mission to cart Petunia's garden off to landfill one green bin at a time. I could always get him a tree for his birthday. That would definitely piss him off. So far I have a stash of $80 in coins which he can count all day long. That should keep him amused. Then there's a bright shiny copy of "The Snowball" a biography of Warren Buffet because nothing pisses off the Grinch more than reading about folks who are richer than he is.
Daisy suggested some tickets to visit The Convict Establishment That's definitely gloomy and doomy enough.

Normal mortals love stuff like lunches and luxury tours but not only does the Grinch not enjoy such stuff, he thinks it is a sin to waste money on them. Even if it's other people's money.

But Petunia has departed this mortal coil and he is still here and no wishful thinking can get them to change places. So the only thing this serpent could do to mark this day in the most meaningful way is to plant trees in her memory. So that is exactly what I did. I also bought a birthday cake and shared it with the folks at the day job.

In some strange way, these last few days have marked a return to the land of the living. I guess spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing and everything is beautiful. The sun is shining but not sizzling and stinking like in high summer. Along with the autumn equinox, it truly is one of the most beautiful times of the year.