Tomorrow is the first day of spring here in the Southern Hemisphere. The high temperature today was 81F (27C). Beautiful, beautiful day. They are forecasting a "severe storm" for tomorrow. Besides being the first day of spring, tomorrow is my birthday. But because of the spectacularly good weather today and the storm forecast for tomorrow, we decided to celebrate today. It was a great decision.

At first we planned to go to Valizas, a hippie beach town five km. south of here, where there is a very good restaurant. But Sandy chose to drive through our little Aguas Dulces on the way out, which was another great decision. (We've been here at our beach house since Thursday afternoon, and will be going back to Atlántida on Monday.) We were surprised to find that Frog's, one of our favorite Aguas Dulces restaurants, and arguably the best, was open for lunch although we are in the off-season.

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, the combination of the wonderful weather, great music on their sound system (Blues,Klezmer, and Bossa Nova), wonderful food, artesanal beer (I know, it's a Spanish word, sorry) and a delightful chat with Marta, wife of Miguel, the owner, plus solicitous service from our favorite waitress, made everything just perfect.

Both before and after that, we spent delicious time on our deck overlooking the ocean. We also had the pleasure of taking our doggie, Betty, on a couple of beach walks, on which she romped in the water, getting her belly and legs totally soaked. A good time was had by all.

I have to say that this was one of the best birthdays I've had in years, and I savored and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. Maybe I should start celebrating it on the 22nd instead of the 23rd as a regular thing--it seems to work out well.