We have had two gorgeous days in the Willamette Valley. For you non-Pacific Northwest people, that’s pronounced “will – am – it” not to be confused with “will-a-met”.  It’s a public service I try to give those who are not from around here.  Just like it is Or-e-gun – not Or-e-gone.  And if you see Couch street – it is not “couch”; it is “cooch”.  Enough lessons in Oregon pronunciations.

Like I was saying, it was a beautiful day in the Willamette Valley.  Blue skies, gorgeous sunrise, and SUN – lots of SUN.  This time of the year, we crave sun.  While we try to convince ourselves, we get “liquid sun” for almost 6 months (or more); it is no substitute for the real thing.  And, as always, the real thing happens during the work week…..so those of us lucky office workers get to experience the sun from inside of an office building.

In addition to the sun, it was 60 degrees.

Let me stop here for a second and acknowledge those who are probably cursing me right now.  Yes, I know how lucky I am to have a 60 degree, non-snow day.  Remember – I am from Iowa….and the part near Minnesota too.  I spent 22 years of my life with windchill factors so far below zero you wondered if they could ever rise again.  And, because I actually can say this – I walked to school in that weather…almost 3 miles.  Or I begged my best friend for a ride in his car…which was really much less dangerous than walking.  And I still, to this day, reminding him of that.  My point, and I do have one, is  I felt your pain…..and left as quickly as I could.  While I like snow, I would rather visit it in the mountains. 

Back to the 60 degree day…..it was glorious.  I came home, worked out with the backdoor open so that I could feel the warmth while I was on the elliptical (and so I didn’t kill the fucking dogs who are worse than children when it is warm – constantly wanting in and out and in and out and….but I digress).

But before doing that, I walked by my flower beds to see if there were any daffodils trying to make an appearance.  My boss, a very smart woman, told me, after I asked this question aloud before I left work, that there would absolutely be nothing trying to come up.  She was pretty insistent about it.  I guess I’m going to have to show here this….

 

This is the glimmer of hope we need to get us through the next 5 months of rain.  Garbanzo does not allow me to complain until after the 4th of July.  But, what this does mean is I need weed and start cleaning things up and cutting back rose bushes to within an inch of their lives.  I don’t mind doing these things.  When you have a job where it is difficult to measure progress while you are working, weeding flower beds gives you the satisfaction of seeing progress as you are making it.  And, an hour later, you can see you are truly done.  

(An hour later at my job, and you see a list of all the emails you haven’t been able to read because you have had back to back meetings all morning where you got to listen to users whine because they want change but only if it doesn’t affect them.  It’s why many of us IT people garden really. Plants don’t talk back….and if they don’t behave you can rip them out and replace them.  If only we could do that with some of our users…..)