One of the most salient features of being home is I sit 11 floors up in the are with a decent view through 14-foot wall-to-wall balcony doors of my city's river valley. I see a few buildings, but a vista of my well-treed city. So even though I'm not outside, I am always aware of "outside."

And right now, outside is pretty brown. Spring is just starting here, verifying my friend PM's estimate that is was about 3 weeks late. Other than conifers, significant to my view but not the majority, the trees are brown. With just a hint of green starting to show. I noticed this yesterday, but in a single day there shows the beginning of spring in the deciduous trees, a dusting of the light green of new leaves. Lawns are green though, but I don't see many of them.

I realized in Dallas, TX that I will see three Springs this year.

First in Los Angeles, CA in February where it was an unusually hot and dry winter and an early spring according to TFS. Roses were starting to revive in bloom, trees were budding or leafing or leafed, and it was pretty warm. HOT at times because it was February and temps shouldn't be that high and the Santa Ana winds were early and there was negligible rain. High pressure kept moving into the Great Basin, pushing the rain away, and sending warm interior desert air toward the coast.

Second in Dallas, late according to the locals. March was as desolate as at home, marked with some strong temperature shifts, accented by wind. The continued cold air that swept down from the north and made for a long winter at home was not escapable in Dallas. USA Today, which I had a habit of reading every day, along with the local paper if I could get it, has an isotherm map of mostly the US at the back of the first section. The blue and green bands that signify temperatures we'd call "cold" unless we had it worse slumped over the eastern 2/3s of the state consistently all winter. Sometimes becoming purple (cold! to most North Americans) or godforbid white ("Why the hell does anyone live there???"). April brought spring, albeit slowly and interrupted by whatever slumped southward overcoming the warming influence of the Gulf Coast and Mexico. There were green lawns, greening driving ranges, and even flowers, most notably at the Dallas Arboretum. The heat and humidity and lack of a nearby ocean to make up for it, was a taste of the best weather of Texas.

Last at home. Temperatures are "warm enough" which I feel innately as someone who has lived here most of my life, but which in Dallas or LA would feel "cold," especially in mid-May. Spring is coming along slowly. Nothing for me to feel restless about, because I've had 2 Springs already and even some summer-like-for-here heat, but I'm sure just about everyone else here (like my Mom) is just waiting to forget about last winter. There's been moisture (snow and rain) but no heat, and an uncertain next few days of teasing higher temperatures mixed with cloudy skies and showers.