It seems as if we went directly from winter to summer.

People are out on their lawns in T-shirts, raking leaves, while a few feet away stands a gritty snow pile.

Kayakers skim along open water on still mostly frozen lakes.

Golfers in shorts dig their errant drives out of the remaining snow drifts along the edges of fairways as green as they were last fall.

In psych terms, it's call "cognitive dissonance." Regular folks just call it weird.

Weird, but welcome.

The flowers are up; the snow banks are down.

Ice-out is imminent or perhaps has even occurred by the time you read this.

The Red Sox are playing well, and the bass and trout ought to be biting any day now.

And we heard tell of a loon seen alighting on one of the lakes.

That's our "be happy" list. We're sure you have your own.