Bidding A Sad Farewell To The Best Winter Ever

Spring starts tomorrow. It's also my Cousin Ellen's birthday, and the last day in Life As We Knew It (which I know because it's the first day of spring and my Cousin Ellen's birthday).

Ordinarily, I'm very happy to greet the first day of spring and to say farewell to winter, especially March, my absolute least favorite month of the year. And quite frequently, in that irony Nature loves so much, it snows on the first day of spring, as a nasty reminder that nasty March is going to last another nasty week and a half.

But not this year. Oh no. This year, I absolutely adore March. It's been sunny and 70 degrees for a startling number of days, and later this week, in honor of spring, it's going to be sunny and 78 degrees. I saw daffodils blooming at my mother's nursing home last week. What a winter.

As it happens, starting in April, I have to go back to work, or at least that which passes for work in my delightfully semi-retired life. I have a school visit in Texas (the last one I have scheduled, so it may well prove to be my last one ever, although I'd still say yes to Paris or Hawaii), and I'm a very small part of a very big science fair in Washington D.C. at the end of April. It's such a big event that they're having a wine and cheese reception for us authors with Mayim Bialik and the guys from Mythbusters. I'm taking my friend Renee, who is very worldly and sophisticated, and will keep me from swooning in excess.

In May I'm going to upstate New York to be a small part of a big library event. And in June, I think, I'm talking to local librarians, but don't ask me about what. Something Junish, I guess.

Meanwhile, dear darling Google (they want my personal information, well, let them have it) sent me the sweetest email yesterday morning, to let me know the San Diego Union-Tribune had mentioned Life As We Knew It in an article on YA books.

All right. I'm off to run various errands and to have lunch with Marci, at the brand new restaurant, Mr. Sushi Bar & Grill (actually I think it's just Mr. Sushi & Grill, but the Bar adds a particularly nice note), after which she's coming to my apartment to figure out how to sell off some of my entirely too massive collection of old movie magazines.

Winter ends with a bang around here!