Wasn't it just yesterday I was writing about the first day of spring?Whew! Time does zoom by when you're busy. No need to rehash the specifics, so I'll just launch into a late-year Quick Takes entry.
-- It's 44 degrees and dry at the moment, a far cry from the frigid weather (highs in the teens) of two weeks ago and the thorough soaking we got last week. A year ago, we had a white Christmas -- actually, a little too much snow for most Portlanders' taste, as it ground things to a halt in this snowplow-averse city. I wouldn't mind a light dusting this year, but the forecast is partly sunny with a patch of morning fog. I'll take it.
-- We hopped on the bus at mid-day yesterday and bought a lovely photograph for our new place at Saturday Market. It had been a couple of years (shame on me) since I'd been down there, so it was a pleasant surprise to stroll through the booths under a clear covering just south of the Burnside Bridge. You can smell the market before you see it (a generic greasy smell, comingling the scents of elephant ears and various stir-fries) but it's always fun to see the characters on both sides of the artists' booths.
These last few days at the market are called The Festival of the Last Minute, but there was plenty of elbow room yesterday. Hmmm...Does that mean people had already done most of their shopping? Or is it a sign of the still-weak economy?
-- Today's top headlines are all about what I'd come to fear would never happen: The Senate moved incrementally closer to passing a universal health care bill. Yeah, yeah, yeah...it's far from perfect. But as Obama has said, "Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good." **
We'll see what happens next when the Senate and House conference committee members try to resolve differences in the two plans.-
** Evidently, the quote originated with Voltaire. (I'm not in the habit of quoting 18th century French philosophers, so how was I to know?) Anyway, I learned of that when I clicked on this Web site: The Happiness Project.
From it, I'm sharing author Gretchen Rubin's Twelve Commandments below. Not a bad list...
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