In what has become a morning routine, my cat followed me to the computer, waited until I sat down, waited until it seemed OK to hop up onto my lap. I patted my leg and up he came.

But he can’t stop there. He has to climb up me, until I have an arm or hand underneath to support him, and wedge his head tightly, repeatedly underneath my chin. We hang out like this for a minute or two and then I put him down, either just to my left or behind me on a black coat he has adopted. (Being a cat, he chose it because his belly fur is all white.)

It’s only been like this the last month or so, so clearly I can learn new routines. One I never seem to be able to grasp, though, is checking the weather.

Perhaps this is a knee-jerk reaction to my husband’s fondness for it. He is a Weather Channel devotee of the sort who no longer watches it for two hours at a time, but still probably can rattle off the names of all the anchors – at least the female ones. He has little use for the computer, but does have area weather maps bookmarked. He ALWAYS knows what the weather will be like today, tomorrow, at home and anywhere he is headed in the next couple of days.

I am one of those people who wakes up and is surprised it is raining.

So today, I am dismayed that it is wet for yet another day.

In a large departure from tradition, I raked some leaves in my yard. Ordinarily I don’t get to it and they remain scattered, to be revealed as a sodden mess come spring. This year, I thought I at least would get the front yard taken care of, and got them largely into piles.

Then I got sick. Then it got cold. Then it warmed up and rained. And so the cycle has gone, roughly, until yesterday I overheard something about “record warm weather” and got excited about the possibility of bagging leaves, and today I see that if I put those soggy heaps into bags the bottoms will melt right through.

Should I spread the leaves back out or is that too defeatist?

This post originally appeared on ourMidland.com, the online home of the Midland (MI) Daily News. Republished with permission.