I heard a rumor from a farmer: we're supposed to have very warm weather all week. Is it possible our government planned an environmental change? To coincide with our new, nice and early Daylight Savings Plan? Hey I'm not being paranoid, if I were them I'd warm things up a bit too. To encourage people to actually spend that new hour outside, picnic-ing, giving the dog more exercise or just basking in a later setting sun.
I love the warm weather. It makes me think I live in sunny California; the one many of us imagined when our plane landed here from coasts with harsher climes.
I'm not fooled. It's not summer. In fact Spring hasn't even truly begun. (I know this because March 20th, the Official First Day Of Spring, is my birthday.) Sure I'll put on shorts and open all my windows. Maybe I'll even tempt our foggy fate and put away my long underwear.
But I'm not about to start buying strawberries. Or any other berries for that matter. I don't care that they're in season a few thousand miles away. The fruit that makes the most sense to me right now is citrus. I had the best time going to Berkeley Bowl last week. Walked down 8 foot displays of yellows, safety-oranges, ochres, deep red-oranges, chartreuses, lime greens and red- blushing pale yellow shoulders of shiny grapefruits. I bought little tangerines with pretty leaves and stems, crinkly skinned large pored seedy mandarins, dusty wax-less outy belly-buttoned Minneolas, and baseball sized navel oranges. I perused, tasted, peeled and nibbled.
Whether fruit appreciation is your own private secret, or you could shout your love from the mountaintops, Berkeley Bowl will not disappoint; it is a temple for fruit worshipping. A church where the fruit prayer is answered. A freshly gilded Mosque dome for paying homage to seeded creatures. An outdoor pagan meadow complete with ancient rocks for free-spirited fruit raves.