Saturday, a young woman was stretched out in the grass on the slope of Kite Hill reading a book titled, Tantric Orgasm for Women. She seemed oblivious to the activity around her -- the little kids hopping up the hillside path, the couples lolling together on blankets, the folks in biking gear resting with their bikes at the top of the hill, the frisbees flying, the kites bobbing in the caressing breeze. Whatever hold the book had on her, the glorious day was surely enough to make her body feel more warm and alive.

Somebody finally flipped a switch in Seattle. After weeks of gray skies and unusually chilly days, the sun was suddenly back and the air was warm. Windbreakers and fleece were instantly replaced by shorts and t-shirts and even a bikini or two. I went down to Gas Works Park to wallow in the weather, climb Kite Hill and see my fellow citizens liberated from a winter that has held on too long. It was the kind of day that reminds us locals there's no place finer than Seattle on a sunny day. In the distance to the east and west stretched snow-capped mountains. Between the park and the skyscrapers of downtown, Lake Union sparkled. Sailboats, yachts, ski boats and kyaks cut across the water from every direction. Float planes landed every few minutes, somehow finding a stretch of lake to land on amid the bobbing traffic.

Later in the day, my wife and I drove over to Madison Park and, after a pleasant walk through the neighborhood where we lived in our DINK days (Double Income, No Kids), we had a fine meal outdoors at Sostanza Trattoria. The Italian beer was good and cold and I gulped it down the way you do on a hot summer day.

I realize it's not summer, yet, and I've lived in this town long enough to know the dependably warm weather is still two or three months away. In fact, the gray skies were back on Sunday. Still, Saturday was a reminder of what I call The Amnesia Season, those days of July, August and September when it's easy to forget the long weeks of damp gray. It's those dazzling days that seduce us Seattle folk with the sensual gorgeousness of this city.

It's a little like a tantric orgasm on a metropolitan scale.