Little Preview.

ANYLF comes to you, friends and fans of nascent signs of spring, from the front porch. It is the cooling end of a day full of lies, the kind of day that makes it hard to believe there'll every be anything but this and warmer, even as the snow still covers the northwest-facing pansy bed. The dog's out here with me, three-quarters of the Christmas lights are down and packed away—hey, February—and I'm seriously entertaining the idea of going to the Harris Teeter for a six-pack of Molson I could then come home and drink in front of the open den window whilst winter Olympians send curling stones a hundred feet in one direction, then a hundred feet back again. I love the curling. It just seems so possible.

There are birds and birds out here, and shouting children up the street, and the sure sound of a table saw a block down the other way. The Mousy Downhill has hung a feeder off her front porch, and she's got cardinals. La Vieja Nueva's done nothing on the other side, but birds live up in her eaves regardless. Ralph's got his pickup parked, as always, square in front of our driveway, making entry and exit an Olympic trial in and of itself. The light's long out in the road. I checked under the liriope, and some of the daylilies are sending out feelers. People, it will again, and soon, be miserable. Seems it'll rain tomorrow. Seems it won't break 40 on Thursday. But the ten day, even slowly, shows sparks and signals.

It is 61 degrees and sunny at 5:10 pm on Sunday, February 21.