Aslan must be on the move.

I've been yearning for the end of winter. There's something exciting and invigorating about the first snowflakes (preferably in December, not October), but I'm thoroughly tired of the cold wind and the overcast skies. In New Jersey over spring break, there were snowdrops and crocuses, and I even saw an early forsythia on the drive to the airport, but I mourned that there were no such hopeful signs in Wheaton . . . until Wednesday!

I was thinking on Tuesday about how the first crocus sighting of the season is sort of like D-Day of World War II. Winter has been dealt the death blow. It may not be over yet, but spring is certain. There is hope and raised morale to labor through the few dark, dreary days remaining that look more like winter than spring.

So I was exultant on Wednesday, when not only was it sunny and beautiful, but I saw crocuses too! On my way to pick up my canine friend Lucy for a walk, I ran into my friend Allison, and we walked together, with another canine friend, Gus.

a Very Good Day

Irony

My mother mailed to me the rain jacket I left at home in this envelope:

What were they thinking?

We come, we writers, paints, sculptors, architects, lovers of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.

"A Protest Against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel," Le Temps, 1887