Did you see that?

Wow. If you blinked, you might've missed it. I hope not, because it was something to behold. Yesterday — barely a week after snow and permafrost had brought life in Puget Sound to an icy halt — someone went and stuck a single day of late spring smack in the middle of January.

54°. There were still traces of a snowman's carcass across the street on Monday, and on Wednesday we get 54°. The groundhog's alarm doesn't even go off for 9 more days, and people are throwing frisbees to dogs out there. Isn't there still some football going on, somewhere? Screw that. Tell me about pitchers and catchers, baby.

I spent most of the afternoon walking around all dumbfounded and giddy. Everyone on the street had the same expression — we looked like the last scene of War of the Worlds, when the machines have all mysteriously died and the survivors slowly emerge from the ashes and the rubble, confused and exhausted, tears of quiet joy and relief streaming down their sooty faces.

Today we're back down to normal. 42° and gray. A bounce back up into the 50s is predicted for this weekend, but I think that's just mass hysteria among meteorologists.

The downside: I think the lawn woke up. I may be mowing again within the week. And I have to assume the weeds are already laying out a plan of attack for their big spring offensive.

This is hands-down the weirdest winter ever. I'm not letting my guard down — we'll probably see seven feet of snow in April.