Spring makes a surprise visit to Big Apple

I had my teeth cleaned. The dentist's office is right next door to where my husband works. So, with the clean white smile of the pure of gums, I met him for lunch.

Luckily the graduate center cafeteria had a chef's special--salmon, risotto, and asparagus--that both of us polished off with pleasure. It was so good to be sitting there having lunch with Jim. Something we used to do almost every day, now made new by scarcity.

After thanking the chef we strolled to the bargain store, I bought a pair of tights for 2.99 and they were very careful to give me my penny change. Jim had to go back to work. A quick tour of the handbags at Lord & Taylors proved that vastly expensive on 50% sale is still expensive... I next went to the Midtown branch of the public library which has the best collection of current and science fiction and treated myself to some promising titles. For free. Behind the famous research library, with its stone lions and much of the building shrouded by repair walls, I discovered I'd wandered into an alternate reality. The sun was shining. It was 65 degrees. I found a chair and shucked my down coat. I read in the sunshine as people, no doubt some of them very famous and unrecognized by me, entered and left a huge white tent covering most of the lawn. Is it fashion week? Is the library starting a literary circus with genre clowns and poets balancing on line breaks? Men with nicely cut and gelled hair smoked cigars while saunting in a daze. Women engrossed themselves in discussing office politics and flicked crumb offerings to the iridescent birds. I read and let the sun touch skin that hasn't felt sun in months. Even more than the chocolate, I felt delight thread into me. Oh how I will enjoy this Spring when it comes. Then the sun was hidden by building spires, as if a fan had flicked open with a chill breeze. It was time to go. I went. The whole rest of my day a little brighter.