cherry, cherry, quite contrary

Spring in the Pacific Northwest means one thing: drizzly rain. Wait: it also means the blossoming of cherry trees. Two things.

Right now there's cherry trees blossoming all over my neighborhood. Looks great, smells great. Who can complain, right? Well, I've got my hand in the air. I'm not complaining exactly, but I want to ask you all how things are going to look in another week or two. All those blossoms will be gone, and we'll be stuck with a bunch of skinny old nothing-special trees.

Now don't get me wrong: I love trees. So much, in fact, that I question why we can't have other trees besides these cherry trees everywhere. How about some macadamia trees? It would be so cool to be just walking along and find a whole bunch of macadamia nuts under some tree. I love macadamias! Or maybe some banana trees. I actually don't like eating bananas, but I've seen lush banana trees in real life, and they look so damn bountiful! I'd just like to see some of that in my neighborhood. And we've got palm trees here - there's a couple right around the corner, as a matter of fact - so don't tell me banana trees won't grow in Tacoma.

Hell, I'd even take some apple trees. I love apples. Maybe a nice Jonamac tree, or even a basic old Macintosh tree. I don't care! I just want to be walking down the street, and see an apple tree over there, and just go over and gorge to my heart's content. Can you do that with a cherry tree? No. At least, not the ones around here. You're not gonna eat anything off of them. I'm not even sure if they all ARE cherry trees - maybe there's some other kind of blossoming tree that people cultivate - but let's call them cherry trees for convenience's sake. I want something to eat.