It is a beautiful day today. The sky may be a slightly paler shade of blue than it has been, but it's still blue. It's warm in a nurturing kind of way, and a strong breeze rustles through the trees with a sound like distant water. There's a tree up the road from our house that is festooned with what look like hundreds of grey, fuzzy seeds? pollen carriers? caterpillars (y'know, I didn't know until I wrote that that I didn't know how to spell "caterpillar"; I had to look it up to find that middle "r"), dangling fuzzily from twigs. (Did I mention they were fuzzy?)

On the way back from picking up the mail from the mailbox around the corner, I was finally able to introduce myself to our neighbors across the way, Don and Doretta. We've lived up here for over two years, so I thought it would be nice to say "hi!" They seem like very nice, friendly retirees.

I watered the trees and nascent flowers and groundcover in our front yard. Because the drought makes me feel guilty about "wasting" water on groundcover, I've started collecting grey water by sticking a bucket in the shower, especially when I'm waiting for the water to warm out. I pulled my back the first time I tried picking up the nearly-full bucket (I was being lazy and did it wrong) but I'm more careful now.

The leaf buds on our lilacs are practically swollen to bursting, as are these yellow flowers that I'd thought were daffodils but may turn out to be crocuses (croci?) There are some other unidentified bulbs that have leaves but no flowers yet. I didn't plant any of these, but I'm happy to see them. Next fall, I'll plant more bulbs.

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I watched A&E's Napoleon last night. It was okay. Visually, it was gorgeous and artistic and lovely to watch. It also gave me a nice, integrated timeline for various things I knew about the time period (I kept thinking of Ray and Cynthia's post-Napoleonic Waltz of Nations game.)

Emotionally, though, it really didn't move me, being a series of vignettes more than a connected story with flow. It was no Horatio Hornblower, in other words.

Last week, Shawn also found Aaron's DVD that I'd misplaced months ago (it was in a bag under the piano bench), so we finally got to watch The Yellow Sign. It was creepy, yet intriguing. I wanted to know more about The Other World. I loved the bit with the Swiss clock! And I would have liked to have been able to help out more with the set decorating -- the studio looked like it would have been fun to work on. (Aaron: did you want the DVD back, or can I hold on to it?)

After I post this, I'm actually going to turn my computer off, open the windows, and do some things around the house. The database and site updates can wait: it's far too wonderful a day to be plugged in.

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QotD

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (1772-1834)