(It is just about time for patio seating at Willow. We are raring to go.)

The crowd was pretty thin at the office on April Fool’s Day, and for a perfectly good reason. The First Pitch was being thrown on Opening Day at Nationals Park, and more than 45,000 Washingtonians figured that a blustery day in the low 60s at the ballyard was better than an afternoon at the office.

I hung on through the afternoon, listening to the game on the radio. While it is a little premature to announce that the Nats are going to have the best record in baseball and sweep the World Series, I will go with the prediction.

Right-handed phenom Stephen Strasburg is off the inning restriction he had last year after Tommy John surgery on his arm, and he hurled seven shut-out innings while outfielder Bryce Harper poked two home runs to shut out the Florida Marlins, two-zip in a quick game that ran two hours and ten minutes.

Stras was not interested in strike outs- he wanted the Marlins to swing. The game was over long before the afternoon was, and I tuned back to WTOP radio to sample the local traffic, weather and lunacy.

Nothing more on the Aryan Nation, and whether or not the home-grown prison cartel has declared war on law enforcement in Texas and Colorado. It will be interesting to see how the Rangers- and the FBI- sort this one out, but there is failed policy in every direction. Illegal border crossing has increased in anticipation of some sort of immigration reform, and with the undocumented come the Cartels and their human mules. The Sinaloa gang, like Los Zetas and the Gulf boys, have eliminated the middle-men like the AB or allied with them to entwine their tentacles in more than a thousand American cities.

The gangs that provide the foot soldiers for drug trafficking account for most of the violence in those municipalities, but for some reason we don’t talk about that policy failure, or the one that will reduce the number of Border Patrol agents actually patrolling the border. Oh well, this is another of those messes that have all sorts of constituencies, and there aren’t even many good intentions on this particular road to hell.

I shut off the computer and wandered over to Willow, where like the Nats, Tracy and Deborah are getting the patio ready for Spring. The sign is out, directing diners to check with the Maitre ‘D station inside, and the flowers are potted and lovely.

I sighed. Time to get plants in the ground down on the farm, so there will be some sweat equity on the menu along with a trip to the nursery this weekend. I walked in and sat down next to Jon-without and Old Jim. Sabrina was tending bar and the sun shone bright through the glass window at the back of the Amen Corner.

We did not talk about a single policy failure, or threat from enemies foreign or domestic. It is time to worry about Strasberg’s arm, and think how different this world will be by the time we get to the heroics of October.

(Sabrina the bartender. All photos Socotra).

The happy hour white tasted like Spring.

It is about time.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com