Winter, in its final twitchings of death, has dropped a chilly, overcast day on us. Even so, the sun peeks through a ragged hole in the grey firmament, as if to reassure the damp city-dwellers with their dogs, children, and grande café lattés, that the vernal equinox arrives tomorrow, bringing cheer and green and drying the sidewalks and streets and dogs and children, but not the lattés.

It's times like this when, in spite of winter's hacking death rattle, a watery sunlight warms the sides of homes and buildings and the scalps of balding men, and people smile at each other without provocation and are prone to humming "Here Comes the Sun" at length while they go for jogs across still-squishy soccer fields, because their minds are on the equinox and the renewal of spring and not at all on how the mud is seeping into their 300-dollar running shoes.

For my part, I'll take long walks past the daffodils, irises, and the other ones -- the little purple and yellow ones that I always forget the name of -- and appreciate the lively crop of algae on the roof of my car that signals that the frost is truly gone, because tomorrow... tomorrow, spring will kick winter's cold, wet ass.