Is it spring in the Pacific Northwest? I've been seeing cherry blossoms on trees for almost 2 weeks, now, along with crocus buds and full blown snowdrops. The rest of the bulbs have shoots several inches out of the ground, and the magnolias have their fuzzy silver buds. I've even seen red leaf shoots on rose bushes.
But the real kicker was the rhodo I saw blooming on the way to the kiddos' school this morning.
At the long term care facility where I am doing my social work practicum, I was recently 'trained' in administering the MMSE, also called a 'mini-mental.' It's a brief, language-based test of cognitive abilities in dementing adults. If one scores within a certain range, one is eligible for funding for Aricept, a drug for early to mid stage Alzheimer's. One is not to prompt the test taker at all while administering this test. Five out of the 15 points come from questions related to time and place orientation, such as, what day is it? Where are we? One question is, what season is it? If they say the wrong season, they get a zero. However, if they're off by a week, you can give them the point.
Spring doesn't 'officially' start until the end of March. That's a month away. And it has snowed in the Lower Mainland in March the last 4 years. However, based on observation, one could easily say it is spring right now. Would the dementing patient loose a point for saying it's spring?
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