Spring?

I haven't seen a daffodil or tulip outside my window (although they have popped up in my local Trader Joe's). The trees are still bare (or, in the case of the dogwoods outside my living room window, dead.) And we still have a couple of mounds of snow at the end of our cul-de-sac. But, I didn't care.

I broke out the barbeque grill.

Yesterday, when the temperature hit a balmy sixty degrees, I couldn't resist the urge to dust (chisel) off the old Weber and throw a couple of pieces of chicken and a mammoth Costco strip steak on the weathered grate. If I had known how to whistle, I'm sure I would have done so as I cleaned out the ribs-we-had-last-October's ashes still residing in the bottom of the kettle. (What? You clean your grills at the end every season?) As I readied the black giant for duty, I didn't even care that I was doing all this work for a single meal. I knew this sunshine tease was scheduled to last all of forty-eight hours with the weather gurus promising a return to the forties (and possibly yet more snow) later in the week. But none of that mattered. The winter that seems determined to never end had given me a break. There was no way I was going to let it slip through my fingers.

Tomorrow, I might have to crack out the crock pot again. Or I might be forced to defrost the chicken soup in the freezer just to get warm. But, for one glorious moment, I had a meal that didn't involve comfort food; that didn't involve scrubbing a frying pan or a hefty enameled Dutch oven; that actually did involve a salad.

Summer can't be far behind.