To my dear and patient tomatoes, on the delay of your planting:

When we awoke, yesterday, to the sound of steady raindrops through our traditionally-cracked-open-in-spring-and-summer window, I thought of you, dear tomatoes.  Taken from your cozy greenhouse almost three weeks ago, you have indeed been most patient. 

The weatherman provided us with a helpful tidbit, perhaps to distract us from the promise “forecast” of an entire week of rain: “This is more of a February or March weather pattern, rather than a May weather pattern.”  (Yes.  Thank you for that, Mr. Weatherman.  As an aside, it just occurred to me that they must send all the rookie weather reporters to the Pacific NW—a sort of weather boot camp, you know, to break them in and let them earn their stripes when all of the natives turn on them with scorn over rain in May (late May to be exact).  Then, after they’ve suffered in the trenches awhile they get “promoted” to a land of larger markets, happy gardeners, and sunnier, more predictable weather where they pretty much can’t go wrong.)
But, back to you, my faithful tomatoes.  I assure you that we have been doing our best to provide for your needs. 

We hardened you off, oh so gently, tucking you into your flannel sheet each night without fail.  I’m sorry that the neighborhood cat mistook you for its personal bed, but I think we have that rectified now.  A better bed (for you, not the cat) of deep, rich soil awaits—it has been warming for over a month now, under a black tarp. 
According to the oft- and anxiously-consulted parenting gardening guide, you should not be planted until “nighttime temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees”, and, one would assume, torrential downpours have ceased.  And so, we wait.

And you wait.  With your feline-inflicted wounds, yellowing leaves, and overgrown roots.  Please don’t think for a moment that we’ve forgotten you—we are prepared to put you into the ground at the first glimmer of a warm, dry day, and with an extra good dose of fertilizer to boot.
Try and find the silver lining to the gigantic nimbi hanging overhead: your fate could be worse.  Consider the carrots:

Your poor carrot friends have persevered against the elements, lo, these many weeks, only to discover that a bigger danger lurks outside the confines of the front porch: an enthusiastic, yet impatient (perhaps it’s hereditary) gardener named Spud.  Daily he “checks the seeds” and insists that “the carrots are weah-dy (ready), Mama,” plucking a few two-inch seedlings whenever her back is turned.  Be assured, tomatoes, that when your first green marble-sized fruits appear beneath your tomatoey-scented leaves we will take extreme measures to protect you, but he will seek you out, too.  So it could be worse. 
Remember, this hurts us more than it hurts you.  We’ll all look back on this and laugh someday.
Love,
Your waterlogged, cabin-fevered human parents
P.S.

Don’t worry about Spud right now—he’s mowing the lawn on his fire truck.  (Those aren’t shorts—he pulled his pants up above the knee so they “won’t get wet” if he [‘accidentally’] splashes in the puddles)