Today I had a practically perfect moment, the closest I've come to one in awhile. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon, and all of my daily obligations had been discharged.

Earlier, I'd gone to the post office (no check yet) and the grocery store (almost out of bread). I'd had a lovely visit with Mom, who'd gone to a potluck luncheon where many of her friends who hadn't seen her since her surgery could see how well she's doing.

I'd spent an hour pulling the most cooperative weeds I've ever met, with roots so shallow that I could pull them up cleanly with just two fingers. I had a call from David, who's doing quite well in the second round of the basketball pool.

And now I was sitting on the back porch with my feet up reading a novel and listening to the birds singing all around me. How could it possibly have been any better?

Well, it could have been a little warmer, say 75°F instead of 70°F. And it could have been less breezy, and the sky more blue. I would have preferred that the hornets and bumblebees not buzz around the porch as if they were thinking of moving in.

The book I'm reading could have been less familiar; it took me until the end of chapter two to realize I've read it before, and by then I wanted to keep going. It's not that I know what's about to happen, just that whenever something does happen, I have that "oh, yeah" feeling. It's like Déjà Vu for Dummies.

These aren't really complaints, just reasons to expect that I'll have even better moments in the future. Moments come and go, and perfection is a fleeting ideal.

It wasn't long after this slice of heaven that the biting and stinging insects of the evening came out. It still cools off fast this time of year, and it gets dark early. But that just makes the moment itself so special, and it makes me glad (and a little surprised) that I could recognize one while it was happening.

While I was puttering about in the yard today, I made the most amazing discovery. Two white birch trees stand at the corner of the garden, and since I moved in I've had this fear that they were dead.

All they've ever shown me are bare branches, but today I took another look, and they both have little sprouts of new green growth at the ends of those branches. And when I lifted my eyes to the top of the taller tree, I could tell it was growing actual leaves.

I don't know when this happened! It seems just a day or two ago that I found no sign of life in these trees. And now this, three days shy of the start of spring. The world is coming to life. I guess I am, too.

Here's another of the regular visitors to the yard.

I don't feed these cats, but they keep coming around, and none of them looks any hungrier than your average housecat at any time it isn't sleeping. There seem to be fewer of them than when I first moved in, though.