I must be losing my mind, because I stepped out of the laundry this morning, spotted a cat out of the corner of my eye, and made my usual kissy-kissy come-here-and-I’ll-pet-you noises. Except it wasn’t a cat, it was an empty container of litter, which is green and in no way shape or form resembles one of the felines that takes up residence around here.

Maybe I’m going a little nuts because instead of a nice spring week, it freaking snowed in places a couple days ago. On the upside, I’m starting to hear birds chirp, the sun is rising earlier, and flowers are coming back. I love dogwood trees because they are pink this time of year. It’s neat to drive down a street lined with dogwoods and see all the pink. For me, spring in Washington means the Mt. Vernon tulip festival. We went last year right after moving up, and I want to go again this year but I know Paul won’t want to do it on a weekend. I may take a day off during the week so we can go together since I love the tulips.

Spring also brings baseball, another thing I love. Paul got us tickets to Mariners games throughout the season, and I’m excited to go. Baseball on tv isn’t nearly as good as baseball in person, watching the game and being able to see the skyscrapers of Seattle in the background and hearing the train whistle while gorging myself on Rally fries. Ahhh, good times. We leave April 30th for a visit to California to see our families and to (hopefully) enjoy some warm SoCal sun. I want to sit on the Parkers’ back porch watching hummingbirds and drinking margaritas. I want to be able to wear light summer clothing without freezing my butt off. If the weather is going to be exceptionally nice, I may need to buy some new stuff. I don’t have a lot of T shirts and tank tops anymore. I haven’t needed them. Last summer there were only a few really hot days, so mostly I wore jeans. When we went camping on the beach for my birthday last July, I wore sweatshirts the whole time. Maybe I’m more aclimated now, but still, Washington doesn’t yield the hundred-plus degree weather I grew up in all summer long.

Today I’m driving to Tacoma to meet up with my cousin Melanie. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen her and I’m excited. She lives in Ridgefield, almost in Oregon, so we meet in the middle to have lunch and shop. Our plan today is to have lunch at BJ’s Brewery (and yes, I can only remember the name because when we picked it I was all, “heh, the name is BJ” and damn near snickered myself into an I’m-funny coma. I look up the address so I can program it into my GPS, and it’s time to get ready so I can hit the gas station and Starbucks on my way out of town. Hopefully I won’t be met with an April blizzards along the way.