So ends winter. Even in a warmer New Mexico, I'm never sad to leave that season.

My president made a quip on the "Tonight Show" about being good enough to bowl in the Special Olympics. Even though everyone laughed, apologies were given to the Special Olympics. Isn't it funny that the best jokes are at someone's expense? A polack, a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar...

I planted rose sticks in my back yard this weekend. I haven't planted anything outside in years. I guess this breeding thing makes you cocky about your abilities.

My alma mater loses in the second round of the NIT in basketball. I'm sure your alma mater is finished as well. No matter how much money, publicity, attention, recruitment, renovation and practice my local Lobos get, they always do about the same. I've been in Albuquerque for over 16 years, and we all say 'Go Lobos.' And they always go.

My daughter has now survived two full seasons of the year. I think she just might make it.

If you received billions of dollars from the government for saving your incompetent ass, don't you think you might want a million for yourself and 100 of your friends? After all, you're too big to fail.

I cleaned out the old fire pit that an old roommate and I made over a decade ago in the back yard. The old roommate is no longer living, but the fire pit just needs some special attention to revive. This is the difference between animate and inanimate objects.

New Mexico has just repealed the death penalty. Long live the convicted felons (in a little tiny box)!

My fiancee is now twenty-one years old. I've silently waited almost three years for this to occur. She came home yesterday with a bottle of red wine that she bought herself. I think I'm going to like this new development.

A fellow cab driver got T-boned last week much in the manner that I did about four years ago. They say the negligent driver (running through a light) hit him at 45 m.p.h. The cab looked busted, but nothing like the smashed up version of my cab. I still hold the record for nastiest accident in recent Yellow Cab history. I don't think about it very often, but I am very lucky to be alive.

Doesn't it seem like we've hit the bottom with this recession? Every company has had a chance to fire all of its incompetent or expensive employees, the stock market sold off almost as much as it could, and life still goes on in America without too much hullabaloo. Maybe we all deserve a bonus.

After a couple months of not reading anything but a play I directed, my brother hooked me up with a novel called Citizen Vince and a book of poetry by Bukowski. I'm thumbing through both of them. Sometimes you need someone else to get you reading again.

Last night, we had a dinner party with my in-laws (my fiancee's brother and wife). Maria and I cooked a homemade pizza and a carrot cake. I'd never made a carrot cake in my life. Both turned out looking homemade but tasted pretty good. I'm not sure how many dinner parties I've hosted? Not many. We ate and drank and carried on until the baby couldn't stand it any more. Then, of course, the party ended. The baby calls the shots on many things. Is this domestication?

Yesterday was probably the warmest day of the year. Now that spring is here, the weather will go up and down and all around. Kind of like the thoughts I have in this column. Tis the season.

Chris Jungle is just starting to bloom.