"April, come she will . . .

when streams are ripe and swelled with rain."
simon and garfunkel

My birthday month. It is the month when, for me, spring really begins. It starts with that flourescent green and works its way into rhodies and azaleas and tulips and all the riot of spring flowers that makes Oregon's rain worthwhile.

Happy Birthday, today, to my friend, P. It was exactly a year ago that I stopped by her house with a pot of flowers for her birthday. I expected her to be at work and thought I would leave the flowers and a card on her front porch, but she came to the door and said she had left work, feeling really sick—flu she thought. A year later she has no memory of my being there, of her birthday or many days that followed. Within days she was in the hospital with a viral brain infection. As she recovered from the virus, one of the drugs she was being treated with caused a reaction even more painful and life-threatening than the original illness. April was a sad and frightening month. I will see her on Sunday, which is my birthday. We have been celebrating our birthdays together for nearly 50 years and her recovery makes it all the more worthy of celebration!

Today I am doing jobs that I have been procrastinating over, but I took my camera when I went out awhile ago. I hoped to see the pair of mallards that have been hanging out in our creek, but they were not around today. The earlier rain has made everything clean and shiny and oh, so green.

Even Gracie's eyes seem a little brighter green this time of year.