That's March in Ohio for you: I walked out the door into a stiff, damp wind-slap of about 35 degrees this afternoon and it was hard to believe that this was the same planet as last night.

We've had a pretty crazy time of it lately: the war has weighed upon our heares and demanded much time and attention, my mother-in-law has been staying with us for the last couple of weeks (and has moved all of her worldly goods into our house - she is trying to sell her condo, is visiting a series of Buddhist retreats over the next several months and doesn't want to be materially burdened), my son seems to have activities or friends over ALL THE TIME, and we have a 3 year-old.

Early last night my son was off to his mother's for the weekend, the 3 year-old was taking a late nap, my mother-in-law was off to visit some relatives for a week, and it was about 75 balmy, breezy degrees out. My wife and I set up a boom box out on the back deck, fired up the grill, opened a couple of Dortmunder Golds and settled down to take in our new backyard for the first time since we moved last November - it snowed a few days after we moved and it has been a L-O-N-G, brittle winter ever since.

Sitting on our new deck, smelling the steaks, sausages, zukes, and corn sacrificing themselves on the grill, looking at our own grass, our own trees (still naked, but a tree is a tree), and feeling a gentle warm zephyr like an advance scout for summer was enough to make the world seem a place you'd enjoy living in.

And dancing lightly, organically, tunefully on that breeze was the new Fruit Bats CD Mouthfuls, a bit of neo-'60s acoustic psychedelia that could not have fit the mood better had the Fruit Bats been joining us for dinner. Sometimes everything just comes into focus and you wouldn't change a thing. And then the next day it's 35 degrees, but that's another story.