It's been a long, dreary winter in Seattle. After a horrible, wet Saturday, last Sunday was glorious, the first nice day in weeks. Then the cold and rain came back. It snowed on April 1st, for Pete's sake.

And now we have another lovely weekend, with promised highs in the high Sixties tomorrow. I did some yard work today and cleaned the grill and outdoor furniture. We've invited a handful of friends over for dinner tomorrow night.

I love Spring. The winter recedes, the weather grows warmer, the young plants appear, the dormant trees bloom, and all is right with the world.

I dread Spring. My nose itches, it runs, it blocks up, it explodes.

This year, my eyes itch too. A lot. It's really, um, irritating.

Our neigh­bor­hood was built in spurts. The brick Tudors, like ours, were built in the 1930s. The houses adjoining mine were built in the years after World War II.

There's a house for sale a few doors down that's very like ours. We snooped around on Sunday during the open house.

Our house was built in 1931; the other, the year before. Ours is slightly deeper, but the floor plans are very similar. Theirs has no eye­catch­ing yellow brick trim. Our kitchen was remodeled in the sixties, taking over part of the next room. Theirs never was and it's tiny. Our basement is half finished and it had a bathroom added …continue.

When we bought our house in 2000, our interest rate was about 8.5% on a 30-year loan. A couple of years later, we refinanced it down to 6.875%, which reduced our monthly payments by several hundred dollars.

Today, we signed the paperwork to refinance it again, down to 4.75% over 20 years. That drops our monthly payment by another $300, which is most welcome, as Emma's unemployed.

All of these are fixed-rate mortgages. We're really not fans of adjustable-rate mortgages: too many horror stories about people starting out a low rate and not being able to cope when the rates go up.

We went through the same guy each time, Sanjay Pitroda of …continue.

Ow! Ow! Ow! It's Friday the 13th and I ransomed my car this evening from the shop for over two grand—more than half of it labor. I think I'm in the wrong line of business. Maybe I should be a grease­mon­key instead.

The clutch was worn out and the flywheel needed replacing, which required taking out the trans­mis­sion.

We've only had one other comparable bill with this car and it has over 90,000 miles. We're not doing too badly overall, except that the other bill was late last year.

Feh.

We were watching An Engineer's Guide to Cats on YouTube when I looked out the front window and spotted these two looking in. They climbed up the six-foot gooseberry frames to the windowsill.

Meet Whiskey and Guinness, from next door. They think they own the place. When it's hot in the summer, they've been known to stroll in and wander around our living room—while we're in it.

I left the back door open for a few minutes one Saturday morning, while packing the car. I came back in and found Whiskey just inside the back room. He scarpered when I yelled at him and I slammed the door behind him. It …continue.

Zits. Somehow all those ads on TV for acne cream never quite tell you that zits continue after your teenage years.

This post was brought to you by the small but annoying pimple that appeared yesterday. Feh!

I knew three of my grand­par­ents; they all died after I reached adulthood. My mother's father, George Victor Clery, died 12 days before I was born, on March 3rd, 1965. I was to be named Vincent after my father, [Charles] Vincent Reilly. Instead, I was christened George Vincent Reilly. I was the first grandchild for both the Clerys and the Reillys. I think I must have been a welcome dis­trac­tion.

Ironically, my parents had gotten married on his birthday, March 30th, the previous year, and he didn't live to celebrate their first an­niver­sary. The timing was partly in his honor and partly because it was Easter Monday. Catholics were not allowed to …continue.

Emma, Eric, and I went to Gay Bingo this evening. It's a monthly fundraiser for the Lifelong AIDS Alliance. This is not your grand­moth­er's church bingo: the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are the ushers and the show is MC'd by a drag queen.

Every Gay Bingo has a theme. Tonight's was the Love Boat, the campy 70's TV show. Many in the audience dress for the occasion. I wore the nearest thing to a lounge suit that I had; Emma ac­ces­sorized a nautical top with a scarf. We brought Jill and Dick the last time we went. They have an enormous collection of costumes and they were some of their choice Fifties …continue.

My talented wife got back today from four days at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival in Tacoma. As you can see from Emma's Flickr page, she's knit a lot of beautiful pieces.

I'm hoping she will revive her dormant blog and write more about some of her projects. She does have some writeups at Ravelry (Facebook for knitters) under her username Emma, but that's only visible to members.