this 'n that

After some absolutely gorgeous warm, sunny weather, it's cold and rainy again today. I don't mind; I'm snug inside and anyway, we need the rain. I'm happily at home because I had jury duty this morning. It was just petit jury duty, and no one was called. We were dismissed a little before noon. I went to Luna de Noche, where I had a bowl of tortilla soup, then I ran some errands and came home, where the furnace is once again on and I'm in the long, involved process of switching out the brown velvet slipcovers of winter for the white duck slipcovers of summer. It's a long, involved process because I wash and dry the old slipcovers before packing them away, and I have to do some ironing to the duck slipcovers to make them look decent on the couches. Still, it always cheers me up to make this switch, and seeing the summer slipcovers on the couches reminds me that the warm weather will be back soon, I'm sure of it.

I put out bedding plants over the weekend, so my patio has once again come alive. I love to look out and see flowers, and I got a good start on all of that this weekend. Right now I have flowers inside the house too, beginning just inside the front door, on the hall table, I've placed a big blue glazed pot filled with scented jasmine; at the opposite end of that table is a big vase full of peach blossoms; on the secretary around the corner is a potted pussy willow, and in the kitchen, on the countertop, a blooming phalaenopsis orchid. Things are not so cheerful in the living room, where the banana plant has a strange sort of white, cottony mold, and I need to do more reading before I decide whether to try to treat, or dump everything and start over, complete with new soil.

And I know it's only March, but I can't help but think of eecummings:

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
-it's april (yes,april;my darling) it's spring!