Harbingers

At 7:07PM(EDT) Spring arrives. And just as on this date every year I am grateful for surviving another winter without frozen pipes or ice-damaged trees and with a heating bill I can manage.

Every culture has its own way of marking the vernal equinox. At Chichén Itzá in the Yucatan, it's the time of year when the serpent can be seen sliding down the north face of the pyramid:



In the northern US, they celebrate the arrival of this herald of Spring:



But for some of us, there is only one true sign of this splendid season:




Opening Day is April 2, 1:05 PM vs. Toronto.

Springing Forward

Every year I'm amazed at how I have to "adjust" to Daylight Saving Time. It's just one lousy hour, but it takes me at least a week to get back to a regular sleep/wake schedule. I hate dark mornings, and since we're starting this thing three weeks earlier it will be even longer before it's light enough when I wake up to get me out of bed.

I've always said that missing that hour of sleep at the beginning of Daylight Saving Time makes me cranky till I get it back in October. At least I'm not as bad as the farmers who originally objected to DST because the extra hour of sunlight would burn their crops.

Neti and Me

So I caught a cold over a month ago, and the residual stuffy nose has been driving me nuts ever since. It seems like forever since I've been able to BREATHE. When I was kvetching about this the other day, a friend said "You need a neti pot."

"A what?"

"A neti pot. You use it to irrigate your sinuses with saline solution. It's like a little pitcher and you stick the spout into one nostril and let the water run through and out the other nostril and it cleans out all the junk that's in there."

Well that sounded like more fun than a body could bear, so I traipsed over to Whole Foods and got one of these:



I also got a jar of the Special Neti Salt (in for a dime, in for a dollar, I say)

I spent yesterday evening looking at this thing and reading and rereading the directions and basically it was just as my friend said -- hang your head over the sink and stick this thing up your nose. Tonight I decided to try it.

Holy Hannah.

I can BREATHE!!!!!

I especially like the fact that it doesn't make me sleepy or hyper or all dried out like all those decongestants do. And since allergy season lasts about 347 days a year down here in NC, this little pot should come in very handy.

I just hope I don't end up with a neti monkey on my back.

Lunacy

Thanks to Another Monkey, I knew there was a total eclipse of the moon tonight. Unfortunately, it wasn't dark enough at the moment of totality, but I managed to get a few shots as the earth's shadow passed over.









And since I was already on the roof of the parking deck, here's a glimpse of downtown by night:



And yes, we do realize what that building on the right looks like.