Today is indisputably a springtime day heralding the annual freshet. There are squawking geese amassing on the river and triangulating high in the sky. The snow is melting in the open farmlands and the temperatures are rising charitably above freezing. It’s late afternoon. I’m sitting on the balcony overlooking the sodden fields and churning river beyond. We’ve just returned from Oxford Mills where we lunched on mussels in a creamy parmesan sauce with an exotic side of a tiny loaf of bread individually served on a cutting board with miniature ceramic bowls of butter and olive oil.

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Introduction:

My dear Reader – I am hopeful that the following assessment by my friend HAL at ChatGPT will, if nothing else, enlarge upon what follows from my own pen. Billy

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Sitting at my desk, having exhausted my preliminary necessities of the day, I am looking upriver across the endless rolling meadows to the cerulean horizon. Nearby in the field immediately below, there are skinny Canada geese (always in pairs) waddling up and down the narrow pathways between the cornstalk stubble looking for food. Occasionally, one of the geese stops to extend its neck towards the ground, attaching its black beak to a remnant corn cob unearthed from the abandoned residuum. In this solemn atmosphere, the geese take what they can get.

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What seems to have been only days ago I marvelled at the precipitous transition from the short month of February to the long month of March. And now here we are already approaching the final day of March.  In our own springtime fashion we have joined the parade of Canada geese who purposively distinguish themselves in clamorous congregations along the shore of the Mississippi River and rampantly gliding overhead or across the distant farmlands.

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Late afternoon today in the distant fading sky are flocks of Canada geese circulating above the placid though burgeoning river below. The mirror upon the former icy gloss of the river’s face has revealed a rich blue with only a rim of pure white snow surviving on the shorelines. Today is Saturday, March 21st, the date often greeted as the first day of spring. This year the much vaunted inauguration was actually yesterday, Friday, March 20th.

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It is unclear to me when I awoke to the psychic stimulus that is shopping. Until I was 24 years of age (after graduating from law school) I was dependent upon my parents for stuff. My mother (never my father) looked after whatever I required.  I was merely a delivery destination. Frankly, during my prep school, undergraduate and graduate studies I hadn’t much but the faintest interest in shopping.  My preoccupation until then was my education. Whether my mother bought me something from Ashbury’s annual antique sales, Alyea’s Jewellers, Nordiska Kompaniet, Georg Jensen or Flesher Furs, I seldom had any part of the initial commercial transaction other than supplying the obvious details of product, colour and size.

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No doubt, my dear Reader, you have noted that the legend of this particular monologue is not a question.  It is an exclamation.  Mind you, I suppose that, upon even modest analysis, it is self-evident that our 3-hour luncheon today (precisely from 11:30 am – 2:30 pm) is rationale enough for the idle ejaculation.  What made it all the more timely (or, should I say, ill-timed) was that our confab at table, though hardly rambunctious, was ripe with pleasantries, whimsical barbs, insightful swipes, comic assertions, wry recollections and heartfelt reactions. And coincidentally it was a birthday celebration. That alone constitutes a serendipitous reference to the fleeting allusion.

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The pistachio nut is the edible pale green seed of an Asian tree of the cashew family. The evergreen tree produces the pistachio, with small brownish-green flowers and oval reddish fruit. It is widely cultivated, especially around the Mediterranean and in the US.

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The difference between anticipation and impatience is what makes the one thrilling, the other unnerving. I suppose there are many things to be said against both anticipation and impatience – you know, how it is better just to “live in the moment”, “qué serà serà” and how dreadful it is to be constantly restless and yearning. But impatience in my opinion has anticipation in the dust!

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