The weather folks tell me that today’s high will be 59. Fifty-nine! I stare at my phone, at the sun icons and the numbers below them, which tell me that at 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. it will be 59. I figure if I look long enough those numbers might turn from 59 to 60. 

Sixty would be nice. It’s not much more than 60 inside right now (the nighttime temps still prevailing). Sixty would feel balmy and Florida-like to me, stuck mostly inside at the tail end of what’s beginning to feel like a very long winter.

Fifty-nine, on the other hand, still has a chapped, windswept feel. 

Before finishing this post, I walk out through the garage to pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway. It feels pretty darn warm already. I can feel the difference in my bones. There’s a skip in my step as I walk back in the house.

I try the phone one more time. It now tells me that at 4 p.m. it will be 61! That’s more like it.