The Lady Washington web site says they need volunteers for the spring, through the Rose Festival, but their volunteer coordinator told me today that they've got a bunch of Evergreen students on the schedule now--no room for Sailor Dave. Damn Greenies!

Laura told me about the Capital 2K, an open water swim in Town Lake at the beginning of May, right before Molly's birthday. I swam 2500 tonight at a not-so-great pace of somewhere around 1:22 (depending on how far off my count was), which would be 30:37 for the 2K. That actually beats all of the results from last year's Mens 30-39 category, but open water is very different from pool swimming. We'll go down for the swim and for Molly's birthday, and get the hell out of Portland.

I thought winter was the worst part about Portland winters, but it's actually spring. The daylight, the blooming trees, the occasional warm day have done nothing to ease the misery of the Portland winter--if anything it's worse, taunting and teasing us, reminding us that we won't get more than a few sunny days in a row, a week if we're lucky, until July. The winter is cold and dark, but you deal with it. Spring gets your hopes up then drops the rain and sleet and grey clouds all over them.

Neither of us want to face another winter--or spring--like this again, so we'll be migrant workers: we're spending the dark months in Austin next year, maybe March through June. I'm not quite sure how we'll pull it off, but we will. For our sanity, we have to.