You Know it's Spring in Lisbon When:

• The ice on the pond looks unsafe to walk on.

This is when you move to the indoor skating rink.

• I can walk my dog in shorts and a T-shirt.

If I took Polly Pocket/Happy Princess steroids

1. I can keep the windows open all day and get rid of that closed-house smell

Better check yo'self...

• The old men sweep the road sand off of their front lawns with push-brooms.

Damn that grass SPARKLES.

• The bikers (motorcyclists, not bicyclists) wear leather jackets instead of insulated winter coats.

Okay, it's not quite this intense. Yet.

• One day of rain turns front yards into lakes.

Granted, the flooding generally lacks African wildlife. 

• Music emanates from the house that's so run down I though it to be abandoned (haunted or newly occupied?).

Bass bumpin' specters. Fantastic

• The ice has melted off of the street curbs, revealing the many, many liquor bottles (and other miscellaneous articles of trash) that line the road.

This is not proper road-building material. STOP LITTERING.

The birds are chirping (SO EARLY) and the sun is shining (for a day at a time; this is still New England). Soon enough, the buds will flower, grass will turn from yellow to green, and everything will look alive and happy. Except for me. Though I'm named after a springtime month, I have worse allergies than anyone you've met in your life. Pretty much anything green, fresh, or beautiful will turn me into a sneezing, watery, unattractive mess. I go through boxes of tissues like a teenager who just got dumped; the only difference is, this is my entire life (read - my environmentalism takes a serious nosedive (heh, I made a a pun) every spring). Major props to my prescription allergy medication, which I've been taking since the 7th grade. Without it, I am 100% UNABLE TO FUNCTION. Yeah [prescription] drugs! 

WELCOME SPRING! 

I love hate have mixed feelings about you...