You can't quite tell from today's weather, but it's the first day of spring. Pike Place Market celebrated this seasonal milestone with their 11th annual Daffodil Day. We spent a couple of hours downtown, at our station in front of Pacific Place, handing out our share of 30,000 daffodils to complete strangers.

We quickly discovered that there are two types of people in Seattle: those who brighten up when presented with free flowers on an otherwise drab corner, and those whose expressions wilt with cynicism or annoyance as they cross the street to avoid them.

A merry mailman pulled his truck up to the light with a huge smile and said, "I know a lady who would really love some of those!" We gave him a dozen. An adorable elderly lady was thrilled with her unexpected bouquet and gasped, "Isn't this just beautiful?" We gave her a few extras. Most of the suits just shook their heads. A family of four approached our turf, giving us sideways glances, and then turned us down flat. Maybe they didn't want to carry around fragile blooms all day. Maybe they're worried about the seasonal evidence of climate change. Maybe they hate spring. We'll never know.

All in all, delight won out over disses, and we walked away from empty flower buckets with the feeling that winter was already a distant memory. Happy Spring, Seattle.