8 May 2005

This is the last "normal" Sunday we'll have this month. Next Sunday Mark and I will be in Omaha. The Sunday after that, Grand Rapids. And the Sunday after that is Mark's birthday party.

I called my grandma and then my mom today. Grandma thinks she knows what she's getting from me for Mother's Day. Surprises are good for her. They're good for all of us, really, on that scale. We're not going to do presents until we get down there next weekend, so there'll be suspense as well as surprise.

If there is also adventure and excitement, I will be most displeased. My trip to Omaha should not be this summer's blockbuster movie event. A little romance would be acceptable. There are other reasons to bring a spousal unit, but that's a decent one.

I'm currently reading K. J. Parker's Pattern. I wouldn't recommend Parker very widely, compared to many of the authors I like -- and Parker must qualify, or I wouldn't be on the second book of a second trilogy. But she (he?) gets fairly brutal in spots, and also dwells on things a bit. Not the brutal things, usually. Just...things. This book is not particularly fast about getting where it's going. I don't think it could go there if it went fast. Some things can't be done at top speed. There's still another book in this trilogy, and it, too, is sitting on my pile to read.

It's astonishing how much I end up bouncing up and down going, "Ooh, ooh! Look what this author didn't screw up!"

It's probably more astonishing how often I don't. Sigh.

We have turned a corner here, and it's really spring. When I opened the door to go out and weed the yard on Friday, it smelled like cut grass and growing things. This is strange for my brain, which compartmentalizes the yard as "where we keep the coldness," but I'm going with it for the moment. I haven't had socks on for three days running now, which must mean it's spring. Tonight it's managing to rain and be really warm for the first time this season. The sirens went off, and it wasn't the test. (It also was a severe thunderstorm warning rather than a tornado warning.) Mark has a list of the plants we'll need, but it's still a little too early to put them in the ground here. We're not quite to the average last frost date.

Minnesotans often say things like, "Spring came on the weekend that year, so we had a picnic," but compared to Nebraska springs, the ones here are long and luxurious, taking their time to move from snow to heat. And spring has further to come here. It means more.

In the meantime, I'm using the hair fork to keep my hair off my neck so I don't go entirely nuts. This office is the warmest room in the house, and generally I appreciate that. Generally. I guess to my way of thinking summer is an anomaly. I don't want to sound like Puddleglum, but I was quoting Trumpkin earlier, so I suppose it can't be helped; I'm just having a Silver Chair day. No turning into snakes, though. I haven't got the energy at this hour.