{"id":13255,"date":"2025-02-28T09:07:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T14:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=13255"},"modified":"2025-02-28T09:07:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T14:07:58","slug":"summoned-and-answered-first-of-the-season-and-things-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=13255","title":{"rendered":"summoned and answered, first of the season, and things to come"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Things were warmer in D.C. this week, which, I&#8217;m not going to lie, makes it easier to find things beautiful. Here are three such moments:<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spriteshoots\/54356230078\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"First of the Season\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54356230078_f05b5415ea_w.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" alt=\"First of the Season\"\/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>1. It has been the chilliest winter in years, which means that I utterly misled people about playing outdoor volleyball through the colder months. But last Sunday tickled 50 degrees and I summoned folks to the Mall for the first time since mid-November. (The beach venue at the Paris Olympics has nothing on where I get to play&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spriteshoots\/54356227548\/in\/photostream\/\" title=\"Snowdrops\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54356227548_ccdf5ca420_w.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"323\" alt=\"Snowdrops\"\/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>2. Rudi mentioned on my birthday that his social media was showing the year&#8217;s first snowdrops. The place where I&#8217;ve seen them most often in the past has kept their gates locked in recent years, so I had to wait an extra week until someplace more well trafficked popped.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spriteshoots\/54356207769\/in\/photostream\/\" title=\"A Promise of Things to Come\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54356207769_a71d3e90d4_w.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"A Promise of Things to Come\"\/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>3. It was so warm earlier on Wednesday that I headed up to the park to read and write some correspondence before meeting my friend Chris for a drink and a catch up. By the Spanish Steps, the daffodil heads were visible. Later than most years, but coming. And soon. (As an aside, cherry blossom peak bloom has been predicted for a month from today through the end of March. Squee!)<\/p>\n<p>How about you? What&#8217;s been beautiful in your world lately? Oh! And before I forget, there is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/seven-planets-will-gather-in-the-night-sky-this-weekend-heres-what-to-expect-during-the-rare-alignment-180986134\/\">Great Planetary Alignment<\/a> this evening right after sunset (in D.C. Peak time varies based on your location. Check the link). Head someplace with a clear view to the west just after sunset to see all the planets of our solar system arrayed on the same plane. (A few will require access to binoculars or a telescope to view, but the rest should be visible with the naked eye.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Things were warmer in D.C. this week, which, I&#8217;m not going to lie, makes it easier to find things beautiful. Here are three such moments: 1. It has been the chilliest winter in years, which means that I utterly misled people about playing outdoor volleyball through the colder months. But last Sunday tickled 50 degrees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-three-beautiful-things"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>summoned and answered, first of the season, and things to come - sprite writes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=13255\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"summoned and answered, first of the season, and things to come - sprite writes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Things were warmer in D.C. this week, which, I&#8217;m not going to lie, makes it easier to find things beautiful. 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