back at the beginning of spring

I am visiting rysmiel and papersky in Montreal, where it's just the beginning of spring. Beginning as in, Papersky was pleased to hear me report having seen snowdrops in bloom this morning. As it happens, while spring in the Seattle area is both slower and much further advanced, I didn't see any snowdrops there, so I'm also pleased by these. And the twittering birds sound right. (There's nothing wrong with crows, in fact quite a bit right about them, but they shouldn't be the only birds I notice.)

The flight out here, with the weird screw-in earplugs in my ears from takeoff in Seattle to landing here, including the connection in Dallas, was fine, though long. We've not done much; dim sum yesterday, and company for meals today. Papersky is gaming with them, a game that requires exactly four players, and I have been getting a bunch of reading in. I read Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves on my kindle yesterday and this morning, and am now partway through one of rysmiel's Anthony Price novels. Clearly, what I need to get back is the knack of reading actual books in the United States; but if I can do it in Montreal it ought to be possible in Bellevue or Arlington.