Spring arrives here on the East Coast at 12:57 today. I may still be on the wrong side of the Anacostia River, but I am confident that this will signify the official end of this awful winter. It was something to hope for through this last storm. I have a pal back in Michigan who snapped under the relentless pressure, and is going to take sick leave to get the hell out of the state to get warmer.

He doesn’t seem to care where, precisely, and perhaps that is the point.

The word equinox is derived from the Latin words that translate loosely to “equal night.” Days and nights are approximately equal everywhere and our happy sun rises and sets due east-and-west. This is a challenging time at Willow, since the late afternoon sun floods in through the tall glass window at the street end of the bar, and can make it a challenge to raise the glass of happy hour white without being stunned by the dazzle.

It was leaden and dull last night, so there was no danger of retinal damage. Rafael, the energetic bartender, is moving to his own rhythm at Willow, and yesterday afternoon was his last regular shift. He got a position at what he calls a “Speakeasy” style bar-within-a-bar downtown, an interesting experiment. He took off his formal black shirt when he was done and came over to the civilian side of the bar to have a beer to commemorate the solemnity of the occasion. He explained that the way this little ten-stool joint worked was that he would be counseling food parings to the patrons based on what they were drinking.

“Interesting concept,” I said. “As soon as you are comfortable, drop us a line and the Regulars may pay you a visit.” I am going to miss Raf- he was always changing up his look- shaved head, goatee, no goatee, hair back, almost like his face was always doing back flips. Plus, he served. He was Coastie, knows his stuff, and works his butt off with a second job as a pastry cook. He plans to have his own place within four years. That takes energy, a feature that I have come to admire as I lose mine.

We talked about whether the winter was really over. As you know, at the equinoxes, the tilt of Earth relative to the Sun is zero, which means that Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun. Old Jim would remind your that the tilt of the globe relative to its plane of orbit, called the ecliptic plane, is always about 23.5 degrees, which is why the wine seems sort of piled up on the left side of my glass.

(Orbital mechanics 101. “You are here.”)

The long range forecast is calling for another Polar Vortex event next week. I remember getting snow back in Michigan as late as May, but I am desperately hoping that we can stay above freezing next week, and that will be the end of it.

My correspondents desperately tried to get me riled up this morning over some of the more patent nonsense that is abroad in the land, but I had to let it go. The Aussies reported some objects in the water in a position in the southern Indian Ocean that would be compatible with the isochronal position data last received by the Inmarsat satellite from the missing Malaysian jet.

I certainly hope so. Then they could start the search for the black boxes and all the mystery will be revealed. Or not. The flight data recorder will only have the last moments of airborne activity to water impact, if that is what happened, and thus the critical minutes when the aircraft deviated from the flight plan occurred thousands of miles away over the South China Sea will have been lost hours before.

And maybe that is the point. I don’t know.

I do know about Spring. It is coming and I think I will be able to find it.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

Twitter: @jayare303