Just sitting here, whiling away the time by counting the minutes till spring returns. Beats watching paint peel.

(Cooking tip: If you’re making an almond pound cake dessert with a pear compote, you’ll have to wait a long time if you have paint peel the pears. Just trust me on this one.)

Spring will make a brief guest appearance this coming weekend, which raises one of the age-old human questions: Is the weather more inconsistent than the Hawkeye football team, or is the Hawkeye football team more inconsistent than the weather? Curious minds want to know.

Of course, there’s more going on in the world than Hawkeye football and the weather, not that you could necessarily tell from the conversations around here.

This is, after all, the Land of Executive Orders, and from what many people say (basically, Republicans), the road to hell and perdition is paved with executive orders. That’s why congressional Republicans sued President Obama.

Well, that’s the story, anyway. Or the story line. (Have you noticed that nothing is a story anymore, it’s a story line? It’s as if our lives are somehow empty when we don’t have a story line.)

Of course, the congressional GOP did not sue President George W. Bush when he did much the same thing with an executive order on the prescription-drug plan as Obama did with an executive order on the Affordable Health-Care Act. But never mind.

You have to wonder whether the GOP members of Congress, who are so enraged by President Obama’s executive orders, remember that President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order (as Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi has pointed out).

So is the GOP congressional leadership going to sue Lincoln, too?

Well, OK, probably not. Lincoln was a Republican.

Speaking of the GOP (and you thought we were talking about spring), Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey seems to believe that Obama is at least partly responsible for the protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Yeah, I know. Obama is to blame for just about all the ills in the world. If only he hadn’t fought so hard against global warming, we wouldn’t have any more winter by now. And I wouldn’t have to while away the time counting the minutes till spring while watching the wind chill chill.

Of course, a day without wind chill is like a day without Republicans, and who would want that? Not me, of course.

Meanwhile, back at Christie (he hates it when people don’t pay attention to him), he said this about Ferguson:

“The country has anxiety over a lot of things. And the only thing that clears up anxiety is leadership and direction. And so as everyone figures out what they’re thankful for, hopefully they can also pray for some leadership that will be strong and help bring us together.”

Later, when asked about Obama’s “involvement” with the situation in Ferguson, Christie said, “I’m suggesting lots of people have responsibility for that … not just the president. He’s just one of them.”

Um, yeah. It makes for a good story line, if you believe in story lines.

Me, I believe in spring. Of course, some people see the glass as half-full, and some see the glass as half-empty.

I say, what glass?