Springtime in Palo Alto!

[ellarien]

I'm in Palo Alto, and it's spring, and there are spring flowers everywhere: purple magnolias laden with bloom; fragile pink and white blossom; camellias; primulas; iceplant; asters; cyclamen. Some trees are at just that stage of being about to burst into leaf that makes an almost illusory haze of green in the branches, and the grass is tender, vibrant green. I saw a white heron, or crane, or something, right by the San Jose airport -- I thought it was fake until it moved -- and a whole flock of little finchlike things with shiny white-gold chests, blue backs, and crested heads in a tree of white blossom.

It's amazing how much better I feel for having seen all this, and the green wooded hills, and the ocean.