Yesterday while I was driving home from work, something weird happened. Weird white stuff was dropping from the sky, and I heard myself say out loud (really loudly, for some reason) to an otherwise empty car, "Oh it's snowing."
That's right; after an unseasonably warm spell of false break-up that pretty much vaporized the snow in Anchorage's downtown streets, Mother Nature is now tapping us gently on the shoulder to remind us, um, in case you were getting carried away, Winter is still here. Never mind that for two days, it was so unbelievably warm that I had to suspend wearing my down parka (which I affectionately refer to as my "bear" coat") even though it has been my three-year custom to start wearing it in October and not take it off until May.
So today we are back in the 20s, still very temperate by Anchorage standards. Of all days, today I chose to be the Harbinger of Spring by wearing a decidedly Easter color that has been just hanging out in the back of my closet - a gentle pastel turquoise (think Martha Stewart's robin egg blue). But my spring color is not very noticeable under my black bear coat.
Another sign of confused cues taken from Mother Nature is the proliferation of gardening supplies at local grocery store. This weekend, I bought about ten packets of seeds and eight seedlings growing from bulbs - variegated hostas and bleeding hearts. The seedlings were on sale but suspiciously marked "AS IS." But I can't resist a good bargain (or at least a price that looks like one). After languishing in plastic bags for two days, the seedlings finally got a proper home in the form of a giant planter sitting next to the kitchen's back door, as if the seedlings are waiting for Spring to just open the door and let them play outside. I looked out the back door window this morning at the wintry white and felt a little foolish. The first signs of Spring Madness.
Much of the year in Anchorage is spent looking forward to summer. Much of the year in Anchorage is Winter. So we spend a great deal of time in winter looking forward to summer. Sure, there's a lot of skiing and ice skating to be had and other winter-related activities, but the mind inevitably drifts to thoughts of growing one's own veggies or hauling in one's fish, especially during a month too warm for our usual wintry distractions. At this time of the year, there is a great urge to hold down the fast-forward button and just get to summer already. In our heads, we're already catching so many fish that our vocabulary is starting to include such summer words as "giant smoker," "vacuum-sealing," and my personal favorite, "new chest freezer."
Suffice it to say, the salmon won't even know what hit them.
But until we meet at the river, fortitudine vincimus - I foresee at least eleven minutes and thirty-two seconds until Spring....
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