Late Spring

Long November hung on as long as it possibly could, and then some. But the march of seasons persists, and the cold and cool days have become cool and warm days. I even managed to take the laptop to the table out front and work outside.

Of course, it’s April, and that means the pollen count left “extreme” far behind and was playing in “Are you $#%@!! kidding me!?” territory:

After a few hours working outside…

Once inside, I ran a Swiffer across the laptop and cleared away the pollen, turning the Swiffer yellow. The pollen count topped out at 8024; Daughter Dearest heard it was the third highest recorded measurement ever. It starts to clog me up when it gets above 4000 or so, and I don’t have allergies.

As always, wild violets run riot in the yard. The wife thinks they’ll kill the grass; but they’ve been coming up every spring, ever since we’ve lived at FAR Manor, and the grass lives on:

Because plain green is BORING.

The cherry tree really put on a show. This week’s windy weather has turned these into what looks like a dusting of pink snow if you squint:

Pinkitude!

Last night, I finally got to take the wife out to dinner like I’ve wanted to do all… all year, actually. The January royalties from Amazon came in at the end of March, so I had enough to splash on a pretty nice outing. Jam came up to watch Mason for us, since Daughter Dearest was working closing hours at Dress Barn. The best laid plans… we got to the place I’d picked out, and hadn’t realized one of the local high schools was having prom night. I expected the place to be crowded, but not “hour and a half wait time” crowded. Fortunately, there’s a large cluster of restaurants across the highway, and we’d agreed to check those out as a backup plan. “How about that Tilted Kilt place?” she suggested. I hadn’t ever been; I knew it was an Irish pub-themed place was all, and the high school kids wouldn’t exactly be crowding it.

We got right in… and what neither of us realized, is that it’s more of an Irish-themed Hooters (wife laughed at this description). The servers, young shapely women all, wore halter tops and a tartan-patterned mini. I think they might have had a clear or flesh-toned body sock covering the expanse of belly and back between the two pieces; it would have been awfully chilly in there without one, but the lighting wasn’t enough to decide with a quick glance. I wasn’t there to check out the girlies, anyway. I may mount a solo expedition to make a final determination, especially since the food was pretty good.

More yard work is in the cards for today. I think I’ll take a day off work and not tell anyone, then disappear with my writing stuff so I can catch up.