Divining the Date When the Divine Buds Pop

The cherry trees around the Tidal Basin are sort of Washington's own Punxsutawney Phil: objects of deep and obsessive fascination.

We fixate over precisely when those pink buds will pop and how long the blossoms will last. Will a sudden cold snap retard the blooming process? Will balmy temperatures speed it up? And as for wind, let's not even go there.

Blossom experts scrutinize bud color, floret extension and something called "peduncle elongation." (I'm pretty sure you can treat that with a greaseless salve.)

Then there's the method employed by Jeff Stehr and his colleagues in the University of Maryland's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science: "We cheat," Jeff said.

Specifically, what he does is look at the two dozen or so cherry trees outside the Computer and Space Sciences Building at the College Park campus. They're an early-blooming variety, a two-weeks-early blooming variety. Jeff sent me an e-mail March 11 to say that the U-Md. buds had popped. His prediction for the initiation of Tidal Basin blooming sequence: Saturday.

I couldn't help but wonder if any of Jeff's counterparts in other departments -- botany, say, or horticulture -- might scoff at a physicist dabbling in their particular academic grove. Is there any science involved in what he does?

"Nope. By and large I just walk by them in the morning and say, 'Looks like we've got two weeks, guys.' "

Despite his close proximity to a clutch of bloomin' trees, Jeff still heads to D.C. for the big show. "The hundreds of famous ones, they have bigger blooms," he said. And the sight of all those pillowy blossoms reflected in the water and framing the city's monuments beats the view of the Terrapin football practice field.

Jeff has one more bit of advice: "The second that Bob Ryan announces that the blossoms are past peak, go down there. Everyone assumes that 'past peak' means 'dead and on the ground.' In reality it means that you get to walk through a snowfall of petals."

By the way, Rob DeFeo , the National Park Service expert who tracks the blossoms' progress, predicts that this year's peak bloom will be between March 27 and April 1. That's the day on which 70 percent of the blossoms of the Yoshino cherry trees are open. You can get information at http://www.nps.gov/nacc/cherry .

A Potemkin Birthday Cake

More from the office cake front: Stacey Phillips of Aldie, Va., works in the rehabilitation unit of a local hospital. She and some colleagues went in search of something sweet to eat during a meeting recently. They found a small store-bought birthday cake in a refrigerator. Someone had bought it for a patient, but it had apparently been forgotten. Stacey and her workmates decided to present it to the patient.

"Once the cake was taken out of the refrigerator, we were shocked to see that the bottom layer of the cake had been eaten," Stacey said. "The cake had been placed in the refrigerator in such a position that the nibbled layer was not visible. So what do you call a cake thief like that? The thief clearly operated in a stealthy and efficient manner without any regard for the fact that he or she was ruining a patient's only token of a happy birthday while being hospitalized."

I'd say that's pretty cold.

Love Me, Love My Dog

Barbara Leach of Northeast Washington read some of my recent dog-walking musings and wanted to make a point: "It is just amazing how many people expect everyone to love their dog. . . . These dog owners have the most amazing capacity to be rude, insensitive and uncaring, treating those of us who don't want strange animals running up to us with a great lack of respect."

Barbara thinks those expandable leashes that let dogs roam yards away are part of the problem. Even worse are dog owners who take their dogs to public parks and let them run loose. She dreads one particular corner of Stanton Park, where "all too often there are one or two dog owners who think their dogs are special, and these owners let loose to run at, jump on, lick the rest of us."

Of course, the end with the tongue on it is sometimes preferable to the other one. Too often, dog owners either don't pick up their pet's poop or, if they do bag it, they put it in their neighbor's trash cans, said Barbara.

Another nuisance: dogs that bark incessantly because their owners park them outside.

All true. I don't think these are necessarily the shortcomings of dog owners, though, just the actions of some dog owners. Maybe they just aren't aware of what they're doing. I don't know how you deal with people who are either clueless about their actions or who just don't give a damn. Clip this column and slip it under their door, maybe.

Hello, Wednesday; Goodbye, Friday

In response to readers who found my new, hopscotching schedule a little confusing, my column will now run a happily consecutive Sunday through Thursday. See you tomorrow.