Just Like Heaven

Saturday night was one of the nights that remind me why I live in Minnesota, and in Saint Paul.

After the show, I had a house full of kids over, hanging out with my son. They were busy having a dart-gun fight in the back yard (take that, Rebecca Thoman!), so I ran out on some errands around dusk.

I got out of the car in the parking lot at my local shopping center, and just stopped. The exhaust from the cars and trucks on Snelling mixed with something else - the smell of spring. Grass, woodfire barbeques in the distance, flowers here and there, all on a bed of perfectly warm air that, after the cold snap of a month ago, felt like May breaking out. The sky to the west was a deep indigo blue, the breeze a soft waft that carried the smell of leaves and somebody's hamburgers across the street. My car - so recently a salt-crusted greenish-gray mess - looked like it had been polished to a Rolls-Royce-like sheen in the moonlight; it looked smooth and almost soft, like it was jello on wheels. The light made everything look and feel good. I stood in the parking lot and watched the sky for a few moments.

I picked up some goodies for the kids - and then, on impulse, stepped into a video store. I haven't had a rental account in a vid store in years, as in "since before I got divorced." I was delighted to see you can rent some of the TV series you miss watching! And that the talking picture comes in a box in your house, too!

I rented half of the first season of "24", and I think I got to 5AM (show time, not real time) by the time I turned in on Saturday, and into the 9AM hour by last night. So that's what the fuss is about. Now I'm going to have to find
87 more hours to catch the rest of the series, now. Thanks for nothin', Joel Surnow.

Plus, I rented Blue, the Krystof Kieslawski film with Juliette Binoche. It's one of my favorites, ever - in my top five, along with Casablanca among a few others. I have to watch it every couple of years (along with this Kieslawski joint), just because.

That'll be tonight, prolly.

So it seems spring has sprung. Much as I love winter, it's nice to see it back again.