Yesterday’s annual Thank God Winter Is Over Thank God It’s Spring Daffodil Party—the fifth April we’ve invited friends out to the wilds of West Virginia—was a success. Good friends, good food, good conversation. The first guests began to arrive at noon, they continued to come and go in waves, and the last guests left (not counting our overnighters from New York) shortly after 9:00 p.m.

The body count this year was 35, with many repeat visitors as well as a few newcomers. One of those newcomers was … Scott Edelman.

Check him/me/us out below. (And just in case you don’t remember, I’m the Scott Edelman on the right.)

In addition to sharing the same name, we share the same age. Scott Edelman (the one on the left), a diplomat with the State Department, is 37 days older than me. This is the first time we’ve met in the flesh. We became friends via Facebook last year, and since then have been befuddling each other’s friends, since it looks to them as if we’re commenting on our own status updates. We decided it was time to finally meet, and the daffodil party seemed the perfect time, so we crossed our fingers and hoped a chrono-synclastic infundibulum would not result. Luckily, no cosmic event occurred as part of this meeting.

As for the daffodils …

We learned this year that you can never quite predict how a blooming season will turn out. Though we did have daffodils in bloom, they were mostly gone, while last year’s party, held one day later, had more than 3,000 in bloom! (I know because I counted.) It was partially due to the 90-degree weather in early April, but mostly (I think) due to the nearly four feet of snow that covered the ground here for almost a month. That snow acted as insulation and warmed the bulbs, causing them to burst slightly earlier than they might have otherwise. I could be wrong … but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Irene suggested that next year, we pay attention to the predictions made by DC Cherry Blossom Festival as they pick the height of their own season, and use that as a guide when scheduling our sixth daffodil party. So the decision as to whether the next party turns out to be April 9 or April 16, 2010 is out of our hands.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll see you there!