That's not the quote I'd planned to open with today.  The quote I planned to open with today, however, ran off in the night after it got a better offer from some paper journal in New Jersey.  
     I don't think I've been so pained since I tripped down the back steps one morning last week and landed hard in the yard, sending the dew point clean through the palm of my right hand....

     Incredibly, unfaithful quotes may be the least of my problems if my cat, Jester, is to be believed.
     He was going through some old entries here last night, looking for pictures of himself, when he overheard a couple of them talking.  It was ugly talk.  Obscenity-laced complaints about the lousy backgrounds I'd stuck them with for all eternity.  Heated rants about the short graphics-rations I've had them on ever since we first set sail on the World Wide Web.  General outrage over my steadfast refusal to allow them to link to porn sites even when no visitors are around.
     To hear Jess tell it, outright mutiny looms.  
     And believe it or not, that sweet little May 21 entry of mine seems to be the ringleader! 

     As if all this wasn't worry enough, word has reached me today that the seasons might be breaking up.
     Just how much shock can my frail system take??

     I grew up with the seasons.  I can't remember a time when they weren't part of my life.  I just don't know what could ever replace them, but I might have no choice but to find out if reports of "extreme creative differences" prove true.

     First word of trouble came in an interview Summer gave to "Solstice City" magazine.  
     "I'm the season everyone likes best - I think polls prove that," Summer said as only Summer could.  "I'm the one at the center of every year we make together.  I'm the one responsible for 90% of the growth we've shown since the day the four of us first got together.  If it weren't for me, the others would still be stuck in some Ice Age, you know?  And frankly, I'm tired of pulling their weight.  I've done me time.  I've got three wee months at home to tend to.  Why the hell should I be expected to traipse the world like a gypsy vagabond when I could be parking it on some tropical beach and watching the beautiful days go by?"
     Needless to say, this didn't sit very well with his partners in climate.
     "I think old Sum's been out in the sun too long," Winter opined when asked about Summer's comments as he emerged from his Arctic hideaway.  "He'll be ok once he chills out."  The squeals of  Eskimo groupies prevented further commented.
     Fall (fresh from putting the finishing touches on yet another artsy solo project for his Autumn label) was a bit less diplomatic.  "Nobody buys tickets to our shows in New England to see Summer's green trees shtick," he sniffed.  "Nobody goes around humming his 'Summertime in Paris' anthem, now, do they?  If he thinks he can go it alone, he's welcome to try, but I think he'll get his ass kicked by that new kid who's burning up the charts overseas now.  What's his name?  Oh, yeah - Global Warming." 
     The real shocker came from Spring, though.
     "I was actually planning to leave myself," he revealed in a written statement just this afternoon.  "Not because Winter has been teasing me lately about my lengthening days.  Not because Summer has always treated me like his warm-up act.  Not because Fall has been getting more and more into the death and decay thing.  But because I need a year of my very own, you know?  Stretch my Easter out a bit.  Spend some time with my new buds.  Maybe even direct an Ally McBeal."