Air conditioning? Are you for reals???

As I type this at 10:30-ish Wednesday night, the weather in Minneapolis is a beautiful 60 degrees. Spring is finally here.

If you lived next door to me and opened your window, you'd feel a slight breeze that will pick up every once in a while and make my wind-chimes tinkle just enough not to be obnoxious (meaning: they aren't hurricane-force winds). The robins are out in full-force, pushing their red chests out as far as they can go while singing their little hearts out.

The air is free of bugs and fragrant with the scent of fresh lilacs and flowering crab apple trees in bloom. The grass is thick and green and inviting (well...except for the brown spots in our yard where Dexter has basically destroyed it...but that's a blog entry for another day...) and little bits of cotton have just started to float through the air.

On my way home from playing tennis with my friend Kelly, I saw a new family of geese waddling down the street, a herd of fuzzy yellow heads bobbing around delightfully at the fresh new world around them, while Mom and Pop honked nervously at them and to one another to keep them off the road.

It's such a beautiful, sparkling, new-car feeling compared to just a couple of weeks ago when Mother Nature was still considering throwing a good snow-storm at us for no other reason than she was in the mood to. It's so refreshing to take in all of the new smells and sounds that we've been without since last October.

Like my next-door neighbor's whirling central air conditioning unit.

Yep. It's a cool 60 degrees out, and Next-Door Nancy somehow finds it high time she got her Air Blaster 9000 up and running for the season. Granted, it was a hot day - I think it may have topped out around 75 at one point - but that's nothing. Next-Door Nancy's had this sucker whirring non-stop since the beginning of last week.

Now that I think about it, a couple of weeks ago when I was out trying to fill the dead grass spots in our yard (damn Wonderdog...), a repair man was on Nancy's patio working on it, and after he left she ran it full bore all night (trust me...it's right outside my bedroom window...).

Don't get me wrong - come July, I'm a lover of the central air just like the rest of the country...but to have it roaring non-stop on a night like tonight? I want to walk over, pound on her door and scream "Open a damn window, Next Door Nancy! You'll get a way better effect than your recycled air AND it won't cost you anything!" right into her face.

But maybe those wind chimes of mine get on her nerves...maybe I like them so much because they drown out all the whirring...

Ahhh, spring!