Good morning. Spring officially begins this week. For those of us who've been white-knuckling our way through winter, it can't arrive soon enough.
Season openerWhen does spring begin? For some, it's the second Sunday in March, when we turn our clocks forward by an hour in the United States. For others, it's when they first realize they've finished dinner and it's still light out, or when the first crocuses poke up through the snow. Is it when you can go outside without a jacket and not feel a chill? When you pack away the down bedding and down jackets for another year? In the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox will officially take place this Tuesday, March 19, at 11:06 p.m. Eastern. This year, impatient as ever for winter to end, I decided to skip my usual routine of fidgety calendar watching and see if I couldn't do something to hasten spring's arrival. It's only a three-hour flight from La Guardia (rainy, cold) to West Palm Beach (sunny, 81 degrees, slight breeze), and from there an hour's drive to Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, the spring training home of the New York Mets. Even with the traffic of more than 7,000 fans descending on the ballpark (a subway series matchup with the Yankees, a hot ticket) and the few extra minutes you'll need to make a quick change from jeans to sundress in a CVS parking lot, if you leave New York before dawn you can easily make the trip from winter to spring with enough time to grab a Nathan's hot dog before the first pitch. Sitting in the stands, watching baseball on a day so balmy as to have been cooked up in a lab to make a visiting New Yorker question all her life choices, it felt laughable that one might sit at home and wait for spring to arrive. Here in Port St. Lucie on a Tuesday afternoon, weeks before the season's official start, cheery fans were decked out in team merch, drinking Modelo Especial tallboys and snacking on peanuts, reeling off stats, heckling the players. Here, spring was already happening. Baseball devotees are known to anticipate the onset of spring with a special fervor. In February 1971, John Hutchens wrote in The Times, "He is beginning to emerge from his cotton‐wool haze, the hopelessly addicted baseball fan for whom life — if that's the word for it — has amounted to nothing much since the last play of the 1970 World Series." This is the kind of hyperbolic perspective on the seasons I identify with. I'm not a die-hard baseball fan, but I know the agony of which Hutchens writes, the way life seems to be on hold during the winter months. Jerry Kraus, a snowbird from Utica, N.Y., who works at Clover Park during spring training, seemed to have the right idea, leaving the Northeast for Florida when the weather gets dicey. He was so in sync with the springtime vibe that he caught a foul ball right in his hand. (Baseball's not Jerry's only sport; he runs a Wordle league in which participants are given rules for letters they're not allowed to use for their first word. On the day I met him, the rule was "No worries," so your first guess couldn't contain the letters W, O, R, I, E or S.) In his 1990 book "Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball," George Will tsk-tsked descriptions of the game as "unhurried" or "leisurely," calling such observations "nonsense on stilts." For the players, he writes, "there is barely enough time between pitches for all the thinking that is required." But for this casual spectator, "no worries" could be baseball's official motto. Being outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air, things do feel slower and easier. The fretting slows down. I love that baseball has long been considered America's national pastime. A pastime is something that makes the passing of time pleasant. Isn't that what we're longing for in the winter months? Something that makes time not just tolerable but enjoyable? By the time I left Florida, it was pouring rain and even a little chilly. How was I supposed to take springtime home with me, I wondered petulantly. It was still raining in New York when I landed. Spring isn't just weather, of course, and it certainly makes no promises about rain. I'm trying to resist cliché, to keep from saying something akin to "spring is a state of mind," even though I wish it were. I went looking for spring and I found it where spring breakers find it every year, already in full, exuberant swing in the Sunshine State. My own official shedding of woolen garments and denunciation of seasonal funk will occur on Tuesday, when spring finally arrives. But having experienced 24 hours of spring's full pageant, my own little preseason, I feel slightly pacified. Perhaps I can be patient as spring establishes itself, offer the season a little grace as it clicks into place. (N.Y.C. temperature as I write this: 36 degrees, but there's definite blue among the clouds.) For more
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📚 "James" (Tuesday): Last year, Percival Everett's "Erasure," a milestone in the author's varied, brainy, slippery career, became the basis for the lacerating publishing satire "American Fiction." Now Everett returns with a new novel, a reconsideration of an American fiction staple, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." This version puts Jim, not Huck, at the center of the raft. Can you step into the same Mississippi twice? 📺 "3 Body Problem" (Thursday): An epic spanning more than 400 years and a couple of solar systems, Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy was never an easy prospect for adaptation. But D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, the producers behind "Game of Thrones," know something about unwieldy source material. Joined by Alexander Woo, they've transformed the first book into a thrilling, hurtling series for Netflix.
Chocolate Guinness CakeYou don't need an excuse to bake Nigella Lawson's deeply fudgy chocolate Guinness cake. But St. Patrick's Day is as fine an excuse as any. The stout gives the cake a pleasing burnt-sugar bitterness that's echoed by the bittersweet cocoa powder, and enriched with sour cream. The top is crowned by a softened, fluffy cream cheese frosting, which you might — as Maria, a reader, suggests in the recipe notes — spike with a little Irish cream liqueur. Bake it today to serve tomorrow; this moist, rich cake gets even better as it sits.
The hunt: A New York academic decamped to the Philadelphia area with $500,000, and a townhouse in mind. Which home did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $550,000: An A-frame cabin in Grand Gorge, N.Y.; a recently renovated 1915 bungalow in Columbus, Ohio; or a 1911 house in Wenonah, N.J. Lower fees: A powerful real estate trade group, the National Association of Realtors, agreed to eliminate its commission rules as part of a legal settlement. The change will likely reduce the cost of selling a home.
In pursuit of the Birkin: A bag designer at Hermès has the fun and formidable challenge of creating a new masterpiece. Fitness fads: Viral online exercise challenges like the 75 Hard might get you in shape in the short run, but may not help you build sustainable and healthy habits. Cultural fit: The private members' club Soho House is opening a new outpost in Portland. Some residents are confused. Traditions: Mariachi, a Mexican wedding standard, is evolving for a new age.
Replace your household essentialsSpring-cleaning season is a good time to check in on some essentials around your home that may be past their prime. Your toilet brush, for instance, should be replaced every few months, or when you see the bristles start to bend. Your toothbrush? Every three months. And your smoke alarm should be replaced 10 years from the date it was manufactured. Here's our full guide to when and why you should make some swaps. — Elissa Sanci
Men's college basketball: The N.C.A.A. tournament brackets will be revealed tomorrow night. Before then, you can check out some of the top teams in their conference tournaments. Here are a few to watch today (all times Eastern).
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was victimize. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week's headlines. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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Shuhet legjenda e futbollit shqiptar, Bejkush Birçe ndahet nga jeta në
moshën 81-vjeçare
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Futbolli shqiptar është në zi, pasi është ndarë nga jeta legjenda e
futbollit Bejkush Birçe. Birçe, një nga emrat më të mëdhenj të futbollit
shqiptar, dh...
Hace 2 horas
