Chestnuts roasted o'er the open fire unfortunately smell better than they taste. I've tried.

Spring is in the air and summer is a-comin'.

Exhibit A: blooming plant life. In particular, the whole city is steeped in the fragrance of orange blossoms, azahar.  I walk around taking big, deep breaths of air like I'm in a yoga class or getting ready to deep-sea dive, but really I'm just trying to somehow embody that smell. I want to feel it in my eyelashes and in my pinkie toes.

Exhibit B: our local chestnut roaster guy has put out his fire for the season and erected an ice cream stand instead.

Cherry Blossom Hope

Spring is in bloom.

These are plum blossoms, but they look so much like cherry blossoms that I fell in love with them a little bit.  I love cherry blossoms - I lived in Japan for a couple years when I was a kid, the land of the cherry blossom, and I remember riding my bike down this one long street in town that was filled with cherry trees.  They seemed to soar to the sky, and in the spring it was a riot of color and fragrance.  They looked like blushing brides, draped in lace,  clothed in pink and white innocence.

The news out of Japan this week has been terrible, just terrible.  I've added a lot of words to my Spanish vocabulary that I hope I would never need - words like total destruction, radiation, and reactor meltdown.

2011 has been brutal so far for the world. Revolutions, civil wars, stubborn dictators, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis.  

It's been a hard winter.

But I, for one, am hoping with all my might that beauty, and healing, will return with the spring.



  

I hoped it would be fall and it really is

About a month ago exactly, we had a week to go before we left Phoenix.  It was inching toward the middle of September, and it was still devilishly hot.  I remember turning to The Mister after a particularly sweaty week of moving and declaring, "oh I hope it will be fall in Spain".

And you know what? It is fall here.  70s and sunny, with rain showers scattered in, which to a Phoenix resident is like saying that Santa Claus has been let loose.

Today The Mister and I went on a beach picnic with a few friends of ours.  The weather was sunny and bright at first, and then when gray storm clouds rolled in over the sea, we fled to our apartment all together and played cards and music the rest of the evening.  Because it's fall.  And that's what people do in the fall.

As a side note, yesterday in the store I found cinnamon.  And now it's really autumn.