This weather is almost astonishing in its California-ness. Blue skies, sunlight for most of the daylight hours, temperatures in the high 70s, and lots of dry wind. I suppose, on second thought, it’s more like a typical spring day in Merced, but that’s neither here nor there.

Wildflowers are popping out all over the complex. The robins and the starlings, with their shiny-coal feathers and their striking long yellow beaks, were out in force all weekend, poking around the grass for food. The squirrels were not quite as mobilized, but they made their presence known. A black cat from across the fence terrorized the beagle briefly.

The twentysomethings across the “yard” from us played some ball for a while this afternoon, but it was otherwise very quiet this weekend, which is curious considering that they were out almost every night during the week tossing Frisbees or tossing their pigskin. Maybe they work weekends, who knows.

This weather, though undeniably pleasant in a generic sort of way, makes me feel incredibly lethargic and useless. I find it amusing that it has finally been proven beyond a doubt that this so-called native Californian does not really have any deep primordial longing for stereotypical Californian weather conditions. Not that anyplace in California other than San Diego necessarily has those stereotypical conditions (if you think LA does, check out the eternal smog-yellow sky and then get back to me).

Those fanstasies that people are supposed to have about escaping to Tahiti or Maui or some other tropical island with palm trees and piña coladas? I don’t have those.

The one silver lining that I haven’t quite been able to figure out is that my allergies seem to have suddenly dissipated. No clogging or asthma for the past three or four days, at least, and no pharmaceutical adjustments needed. Not sure why, but I’ll take the normalcy wherever I can get it.