These Are the Days

Mondays have virtually no redeeming qualities.  They loom on a dark horizon, promising a week of early mornings, starchy clothes and turbo-charged fluorescent lights.  They are the Grim Reaper of the weekend.  But the first warm, brilliantly sunny Monday afternoon after a long winter - this is an entirely different sort of Monday.

I roared into our driveway after work (roared, I say, because I drove hubby's Titan for the day, so he could fix last Friday's left-front blow-out on my Neon), eager to enjoy the remaining hours of daylight.  So Dan and I pulled our bicycles out of the shed and pedaled down the Rock Island trail behind our house.  Red-bellied robins peppered the grass along the path.  Grass!  Can you believe it?!  The breeze tickled my face and the sun warmed my soul.  Then, after a quick dinner of Asian tuna over mushroom rice and a lovely Piesporter, we scurried off to a 7:05 showing of the much-touted indie flick "Slumdog Millionaire".  It was heartwarming and almost poetic.

And if one magical day wasn't enough to satiate our appetite for spring, yesterday turned out to be just as nice.  Dan fired up the mini camping grill and cooked some juicy burgers in the golden afternoon light.  With Rilo Kiley on stereo and a 6-pack of Red Hook ESB, we were basking in our good fortune like iguanas in the Caribbean sun.  We made a brief appearance downtown to give love to the Irish and then called it early - with full bellies, wide smiles and happy hearts.