Warm December

Out my window - geraniums still in bloom this 28th day of December 2015 - pansies too, and my tyme plant is full, remnants of basil hanging on. It's been a warm December, 70 degrees yesterday. On Christmas Day, Friday, with two of my regular Friday walking buddies in downtown Bethesda in the rain and warmth, we shed jackets. Streets and sidewalks, usually busy with traffic and shoppers, this day stores were closed. Dunkin' Donuts, we found open and busy; we stopped for tea and sat outdoors greeting others like us, non celebrants, coming and going, discussing how unusual - this never happens. It does, it did, I tell. I remember, it must have been about forty years ago, on Christmas day, I cycled through the hilly streets of Mount Washington in Baltimore to the country roads and back - wearing shorts. I don't remember another "shorts" Christmas Day.