Winter is slipping away. I am not in the camp that is jubilant about the return of spring: Phoenix winters are too mild and too short for me to feel that spring is any sort of reward. Remembering a coat & hat before you walk out the door for a scant two months is not much in the way of a test of perseverance. No snow, no biting winds–most of the time, it wasn’t even cold enough that waiting for the bus in too thin a coat would be dangerous. As such, I don’t feel rewarded by this weekend’s “nice” weather, or by seeing the globe mallows in bloom. I feel like they’re a portent of the baking hot misery to come.