[Begin rant]
The season here begins in April, although there are some hardy early-bloomers that show up in late March. It starts slowly, a few scattered signs of life, usually in blues and reds and yellows, with the occasional white thrown in for contrast. They appear on lawns and along the edges of the road, and at first they give me a sense of renewal, of being able to wipe the proverbial slate clean. I think about the myth of Persephone and her mother Demeter, goddess of the harvest, who withholds growth from the earth until her daughter is returned to her each spring after Persephone's annual sojourn with Hades in the Underworld.

But by now they've become so numerous and have grown so thick that they are a blight upon the landscape and all I can think about when I see them is "How many more days until the election is over so that these fucking campaign signs can come down?" Hardly a grand appreciation of the privilege of living in a democratic society, but when these hideous signs are coupled with the relentless barrage of campaign TV commercials, which by now have deteriorated to the political equivalent of "MOM MAKE HIM STOP BREATHING ON ME! SHE LOOKED AT ME! MAKE HIM/HER STOP!!!!", one begins to long for a campaign period of no more than two weeks. If you can't make your point in a fortnight, then you certainly aren't qualified to serve in a legislature that can't seem to cobble together more than fourteen days of working time in any quarter before they need a break.

[end rant]
Thank you. That's all.

Well, almost. The Devil's Dictionary definition of "fortnight" is "military term, the timespan required to invade and conquer France." In case you were wondering.