Posted in weather on March 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I found this postcard in a shop on the way to Central Sq. It was made in Portland ME, around the time it cost one cent to send it anywhere in Canada, the USA, Cuba and Mexico, and two cents for anywhere else. I bought it to send to someone, but never did because I like it too much.
Posted in books I am reading, food, things we did, wildlife on March 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Late last night, while we were playing a bit of quiet cricket in the courtyard of our apartment, Mark saw a skunk. It was skulking around a car and had vanished under it and out into the night by the time mark had beckoned me over with hand signals and whispers. I thought I maybe saw it, but then, I also thought I saw a bear so obviously I didn’t. I am reading a book about bears at the moment and am up to the chapter on sloth bears of India; they attack a person every few weeks and prefer women for a number of reasons, most of which I don’t believe. Mark does a good impression of the way the skunk skulked and I am very pleased that he spotted a unique specimen of North American wildlife. They only smell if they are run over, or are attacked and then spray. When they spray they aim for the eyes and can hit with exact precision, up to fifteen feet away.
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Near Fresh Pond, the Cambridge water reservoir, is a stand of sugar maples. Two of these trees have pipes and taps coming out of the trunks and drip clear sap into a metal bucket. The bucket is covered with a roof but you can see inside through a gap. The gap was big enough for me to stick my finger through but a sign said DO NOT TOUCH. Even though I so badly wanted to taste that sap I didn’t. Even though I really, really wanted to. I thought I could smell it. I think it would taste like honey suckle. I’ve heard that eighty percent of maple syrup comes from Canada so hopefully I’ll get to taste some sap up there. Or I could go back and stick my finger under that tap. But I won’t.
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It is spring. We’ve been visiting Christina’s Ice-cream shop. There are forty homemade flavours, including prune and caramel, fig, rose, pumpkin, fresh mint, grape, cardamom and burnt sugar.
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The Decemberists were wonderful, and I loved them even before the whale came out in the encore, and before the drummer threw his sticks into the audience, and before the disco started up downstairs and the band made everyone sing “Hang the DJ”. My Brightest Diamond also played and I thought that they were also very good, and a worthy opening act for dancing practice. I will watch out for an economical copy of bring me my workhorse.
Posted in weather on March 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »
We had almost a foot of snow yesterday, it turned out to be quite exciting. The airport was closed and there were hardly any cars on the street. A good time to go skiing I think.
Posted in weather on March 16, 2007| 2 Comments »
I am done with winter but it seems it is not done with me. It has been snowing all day and it will probably snow all night because of some ‘winter storm’. Two nights ago I woke up in the dark to the sound of rain and I thought ‘what is that lovely sound? That sound like summer?’. Which shows that I am from a place where it rains quite a bit in summer, and also that it has been too freaking cold to have unfrozen water falling.
Snow is the silent suffocater I don’t love anymore. Hmmm, that swirling upward flake thing you just did was somewhat impressive. But no! Snow is not cute, snow gets the boot. Boooooo winter! You suck.
The only reason I am not out there taking you on is because I have blueberry pikelets (which spell checker is trying to change to piglets. Heeee, blueberry piglets) to eat, and in two weeks it will be April, a month where snow is banned. Like to see you getting snowy then winter.
I mean, not really. That wasn’t a challenge. Just saying that it probably will be a bit warm later on yeah?
Posted in food, weather on March 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Common things, a flower, a gleam of moonlight, the song of a bird, not things rare and remote, are means with which the deeper levels of life are touched so that they spring up as desire and thought. (Mr Dewey in Public and it’s Problems)
Spring air has got me a little dreamy, and the warmth and the retreating ice (not caps/shelf, just the slick thick stuff all over MA) has made me feel like a party. John Dewey’s comments on art, and a conversation with Mark about the percentage happiness my lily adds to my life, got me thinking. My list of common happy things would read;
Stargazer lily in empty whiskey bottle
One or three pieces of lime slice (my new favourite sugar form that incorporates shortbread, the Edmonds Cook Book lemon cheese pudding, minus the milk, and limes)
(click to enlarge)
I’d also add having a Sunday sleep on a couch bathed in spring sun with lime slice on hand.
In the vein of a week of spring weather I have a new resolve to not get stressed about getting my thesis in by June 30th. I’ll do my best but if there is lots to do (once my supervisors have read it) it wont matter all that much. Really. I’ve applied for three eight-ten hour a week jobs today, which hopefully someone replies to, which will be used to fund an end of study May trip to Nantucket/or the Grand Canyon/somewhere warm. I’ve finished a paper and almost another, and am going through my thesis like an I- doubt-qualitative-work-medical-scientist-judge. Did that sound like I was making a list of why everything is good? It is amazing what temperatures above zero can do. Now you should go and bake that slice. It is everything you ever dreamed of.
in the sea 
