Loved the book. Loved the movie about the book. Like any avid gardener/reader/filmgoer. But my fond, fond feelings about them come from another cold day in March when it snowed on March 30, a date I remember because it’s my birthday. Instead of spending the day in the garden as expected in this climate, I took myself to a matinee showing of Adaptation. What a birthday present it was – the amazing combination of great cast, a brilliant, inventive screenplay and total immersion in the world of orchids. Friends, I got so high off that movie. I’m having a flashback now just thinking about it.
And since it is a tad icy out there and everybody’s talking about the accumulation that’s predicted, I’ll tell you my theory of winter and summer in the Mid-Atlantic, and it’s based on spending almost all of my [cough] years here in greater D.C.
Hearing people complain over the years about our summers or winters not being to their liking, I’ve sometimes offered my assessment of how much crappy weather we really do have. Which is that we have 
roughly 3 weeks in the summer and 3 weeks in the winter, if by crappy you mean oppressive heat and humidity or freezing temps and bothersome winter precipitation*. See, that’s not so much, is always my point, and this winter it was even less. Because really, we’re lucky to live in such harmony with the elements here, something I think about whenever all hell breaks loose in other parts of the world. And it’s the First Day of Spring and I don’t care that it’s on the crappy side today; we gardeners know how to wait a couple of days for the Opening of our Season.
*If you’re wondering if I know anything about real winters, I present my case. I had to go north to find a liberal college and ended up not far from those brutal winds off Lake Erie, in Oberlin, Ohio. You’ve heard of Chicago winters? Like that. Any other Obies out there?
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I thought you were going to say you went straight out and bought yourself an orchid. Did you? I’m going to go right out and rent the movie.
I visited Chicago to go on a gallery crawl – in February. My GOODNESS was that wind BITTER.
Yes that was a great movie! I bought the book recently but haven’t gotten to it yet.
I visited Oberlin but ended up going to another liberal arts college in Ohio.
Grad school in Wisconsin was cold enough for me, and I get the full effect of the wind off the lake when I visit my brother in Chicago.
I imagine DC does seem mild in comparison.
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