Suddenly it's March. I must have blinked.

I'm watching clouds flee across the sky as the trees shake their leafy fists at them. Despite the cloud cover, as I emerged from the apartment this morning I had to blink my eyes at the brightness. This is partially due to the fact that I didn't set foot outside yesterday, instead electing to stay inside reading and writing while Willow lost herself in Playmobil land. I feel it necessary to occasionally treat myself to a day of nothing in particular, and Willow feels the same way, especially after her busy Saturday of softball events and Brownie cookie sales. Now, we're recharged.

It has been exactly a month since my last post. In February, I went to Boston with Jeanine so we could attend the Twist & Shout balloon convention. Basically, we played with balloons at a hotel for several days and I honed by skills at twisting them into large bugs. While there, I had a chance to reconnect with my aunt Marilyn and my cousin Peter, whom I hadn't seen since 1982. I also got to meet Peter's wife, and we all had a good time sitting in the hotel pub and talking. Marilyn is my mom's younger sister. It seems strange that almost 30 years have gone by since we'd last seen each other, but that's sometimes how it works in this family.

We didn't spend too much time outside of the hotel, and when we did go out we found many sidewalks covered in mounds of snow. Still, we did take a couple of walks, and during one such venture we were treated to forks of lightning poking the horizon as thunder boomed in the distance. It made me remember visiting my grandma as a child, although then my opinion of thunderstorms was a lot less positive.

Upon our return to California, Jeanine and I took a quick road trip to Sacramento so she could be on a TV program. We used the trip to visit my dad and nearby Sutter's Fort. The side trip to the fort came about because both Jeanine and I had recently completed reading a book on the Donner Party, and Sutter's Fort is where the survivors temporarily ended up. It's interesting to imagine the fort as the only building for miles around, especially now that it has been consumed by a modern city. As we wandered around inside the fort, we found ourselves surrounded by diminutive pioneers who soon proved to be members of a visiting school class. As for my dad, he celebrated our arrival by picking out a vegetarian restaurant for us to go to. He picked well. For some reason, despite the fact that we were in the suburbs of Sacramento (Citrus Heights, to be precise), there were roosters wandering around expectantly, waiting for an unwary diner to drop some rooster food.

Continuing with the historical theme, this past week I helped chaperon Willow's field trip to a nearby history park where we visited reconstructions of a late nineteenth century schoolhouse, home, and barn. The kids got the biggest chuckle out of the outhouse, of course. Willow liked the schoolhouse best, since that's what she could most relate to.

Now, it's Monday again. Suddenly.

Currently listening to: Natural Snow Buildings "Waves of the Random Sea" 2LP