“I’m feeling peevish,” she said.

    “I think of it as being cranky,” I told her, “but, now that you mention it, I’m peevish too. And so are a lot of other people.”

    Have you noticed? My friend Laura says that she is irritable. We tried to come up with a reason for it.

    Laura and I had no problem identifying irritants; quite the contrary. We identified everything and everybody we know, including ourselves and each other. It was hard narrowing it down.

    “I think it’s the time of year,” I told her. “Every year at this time, people are cranky.”

    Adirondack winters are so relentless, we all knew that on the first day the temperature went above 20 degrees we’d see people sunbathing, skateboarding in shorts and T-shirts and picnicking in the melting snow. That is exactly what happened a week ago.

    As I walked past the Keene Valley Neighborhood House, I nodded to a gentleman resident who was out for a little stroll.

    “Nice day,” he observed.

    I allowed as how it was.

    “Don’t get used to it,” he advised.

    He’s right. Still, short-lived as it may be, you would think that the break in the weather would have put a stop to the rampant crankiness. Spring is already here, at least officially. We’re having another cold snap at this writing, but the worst of the deep freeze is past. Warmer weather is on its way. The sunshine does cheer us up for the moment, but our crankiness is deep-rooted, and not easily weeded out.

    Like bears after a long, severe winter, we find it difficult to come out of hibernation. Our nerves are shot, and we will need some time to recuperate. Our reserves, mental and physical, are dwindling. And if we had any financial reserves, they would be dwindling, too. W are involved in two wars! We are struggling to survive through the worst global financial catastrophe since the Great Depression!

    Have you noticed that crankiness tends to induce exaggeration?

    A lot of grandstanding and speechifying goes along with seasonal crankiness.

    Some believe this widespread irritability is political, not seasonal. It really makes me mad when politicians come on TV to grandstand, speechify and pontificate about what the American people want and what the American People think, and it is totally opposite of what I want and think on any given subject. I am an American! I have ancestors who came over on the Mayflower! Don’t tell me what the American people think about the new health care reform bill!

    Many people take their crankiness out on foreigners. The Mexicans and the Canadians both get their share of abuse from us because they are our neighbors. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but we have no place to go to get away from each other.

    Mostly we go easy on Canada, because what’s not to like? Well, you know how the English have always felt about the French. And vice versa. Cranky.

    My nephew Nick said that in the 1880s French Canadian priests sanctioned the eating of muskrats during Lent because their followers were suffering from lack of protein. Muskrats live in the water, and so were not to be considered meat.

    I’m not irritated with the French at the moment. I’m still too annoyed with the robins for not flying north. The red-winged blackbirds have been here for a while. What’s the hold-up?

    I am getting sick and tired of these robins taking things into their own hands. Or beaks, or what have you. Every year at this time I am irritated with robins for one thing or another. The real problem I have with robins is that they do not understand the gravity of their position as the official Michigan state bird.

    “Gravity? You mean like when we saw them feeding on fermented berries in Florida, and they were falling out of the bushes?” my daughter Molly asks.

    “That too,” I answer darkly. Molly was born in Colorado, and so cannot grasp the seriousness of the robin situation. If robins want to get drunk and fall out of bushes, that’s all well and good with Molly. The fact is, however, that as representatives of the state of Michigan they should mind their Ps and Qs. If the robins don’t start shaping up, I think Michigan should look into selecting another state bird. Everyone can be replaced, you know.

    Have a good week.