The blossom trail

It's a beautiful time of year in California's Central Valley: The almond trees are blooming. I-5 between Santa Nella and Tracy offers a spectacular view of the valley floor and never more so than at this time of year, with the almond orchards fully decorated with their white blossoms.

It's hard to view the blooming trees without gaining a sense of promise. What a shame that so many almond blossoms will fail to reach their full potential this year, because farmers won't have enough water for their trees. Our state continues to diminish itself by failing to plan for its future and providing enough water for all the needs it has.

Many of us have been explaining this to anyone who will listen, but our politicians can't even do the little things, such as figuring out how to pass a balanced state budget on time, let alone do the big things such as creating new places to store water and resolving the decades-long dispute about how to move water.

It makes the beauty of the annual blossom season seem even more fragile.

An omen ... of what?

Entering my boss's office late yesterday afternoon, I noticed a large bird landing on the ledge outside his window. It turned out to be a vulture; it looked like this image of a turkey vulture.

I pointed it out to him and, as we debated its symbolism, the bird flew away. We decided that if a vulture gets a look at you and decides to fly away, it's a positive sign.

A Valentine's Day surprise

We were pleasantly surprised when our Marine showed up at home on Valentine's Day. He had gotten leave for the three-day weekend and driven up from Twentynine Palms with a buddy. He also brought a nasty cold with him.

Earlier in the day, we had a lovely time at our grand-niece's first birthday party. She is being raised bilingual--English and sign language--and she expresses herself frequently via signs.

She received a couple of baby dolls for her birthday and, each time, enthusiastically signed "baby." This was very charming and I wanted to illustrate that, but the only picture I could find to show the signing of "baby" features a gorilla; so you'll have to imagine how the sign looks as delivered by a round, blue-eyed, ginger-haired 1-year-old.

A generational thing

While shopping on Old Sacramento this weekend, I saw a toddler-sized shirt that I doubt would have been available when our children were that size.

The shirt was emblazoned with the words:

"My mom's tattoos are cooler than your mom's"