Today is our last day of pretend spring; tomorrow winter will jump out from behind the rosebushes and bean us over the head with a shovel. Apparently we're supposed to get up to 18 inches of snow plus wind, and all of the northern writers who are trying to fly to Tampa for AWP are having Facebook meltdowns, but those of us who are scheduled to play apres-ski parties on Saturday at ski areas that were about to close for lack of snow are, like, "Well, I guess we still have a gig."

Not that I'm complaining about pretend spring. So far I've dug up about a third of the front lawn, which is an amazing accomplishment so early in the year. The snow may annoyingly require us to disinter cars and driveway and sidewalk, but it won't do anything worse than water those new daffodil and tulip sprouts. The temperature is mild, and the earth is thawed and ready, and I will spend the snow day browsing through seed catalogs.