This is the last day of the first quarter of the year--three months out of twelve. And the time seems to have gone by quickly.

Temperatures today were in the 80s, and they are expected to get that high each day for the next week. My azaleas are fading, but my red tips are blooming like mad, as are everyone else's. Guess it's the overabundance of water last August which maybe helped them set their buds, and then the relatively warm winter. No matter, they don't look like the wind blew off half their leaves any more.

No traffic problems today, either going or coming. I came home a bit earlier than usual today--there was a poetry reading scheduled for the early afternoon and everybody was disappearing. So I joined the crowd, except I disappeared into my car. I guess yesterday took care of accidentitis for a while.

Gradually the traffic lights are returning to S. Claiborne. By Monday they may all be working. Then I won't have the time to notice things like a tall McDonald's sign with only the arch supports remaining--and a pile of rubble where the store was. I think it was just two days ago when the wrecker came to tear the building down. It was located on a lot of fill (fairly high) but maybe the McDonald's people figured it wouldn't be (or maybe it wasn't) profitable. Or, they may be going to put in a more modern store.

Another building being shredded today was a big dry-cleaning plant. Not much was left after the winds and about five feet of water, and now the old building is almost gone too.

More repair scenes: you don't realize just how big the Superdome is until you watch the roof repairs from the interstate, and those tiny little ants on the roof are people.

Upbeat repair work: the huge apartment complex in New Orleans East run by the Volunteers of America is being fixed up. That will proved some much-needed housing for workers. VOA seems to have been on the ball pretty much as far as helping their tenants. I don't know whether they provided the P.O.D.S. or the tenants did, but almost every apartment has one outside.

On the other hand, the complex with evidence of a couple of upper floor fires now has one entire unit that has been burned. My thought is that it's probably squatters.

Still reading the Maureen Dowd book, and TV being what it is, I'll probably get more reading done this evening.

And when I wake up it will be April. The time seems to have flown by.