Be on the watch for spring

We do seem to be having an unusual rash of bad behavior around here - tagging, street, racing, a brazen (and unsuccessful) home burglary in nearby Victory Lakes subdivision on Monday afternoon (bravo to a watchful neighbor who blew the whistle on that attempted residential coup d'etat), and fellow local blogger Island Drumz is reporting that two young women were recently accosted in two separate incidents within the parking lot of the Kemah Walmart on FM 518.

Probably won't be coming to a subdivision near you:  the suspects in the Victory Lakes break-in.  Photo credit not provided by local media reports, but presumably it's LCPD.  

Does all this represent what happens when spring fever gets thwarted by continuing unseasonably cold weather, or is it just one of those statistical small number blips?

We may never know the answer to that, but we'll see what happens when spring finally does arrive.

Yesterday, I almost got fooled into thinking that we were on the cusp of it.  I had to go to Galveston for a work meeting, and the place was wonderful for at least a few hours.  As I write this, another strong cold front is plowing through our area, but here's a taste of what Galveston looked like during yesterday's brief respite.

Despite the fact that the water is currently a remarkably low 52 degrees, the air temperature was approaching 70, with no wind.  These guys were pretty happy about the weather situation.

 

As the pelicans suggested, the atmosphere in Galveston was positively douce - not the English definition, which loses a lot in translation, but the French, which refers to a particular flavor of agreeable softness.  

I celebrated the momentary douceness by trying the poblano asparagus soup at the locally-renowned Mosquito Cafe. It wasn't bad, although I would have made it a bit spicier (but arguably, that would not have been very douce).  Those elongated objects in this photo are not french fries - they are strips of yellow squash.  A dish like this is best eaten by dunking the vegetables into the soup, because the soup is very rich.

Do you notice how the vegetable medley contains chunks of broccoli stems as well as the crowns?  Only real vegetable connoisseurs know to do that - much of our society assumes that the stems are not edible.  They are actually pretty good, although I'm a fan of peeling off the non-douce outer skin before adding them to any dish that I make.