Flower!

This morning our electrician dive friend, TD,  and his wife, BD, came over to do a little work on the rental side of the duplex--hanging a new dinette light, mounting a new combination smoke and CO detector, reprogramming the garage door openers, and installing a wall bumper over a hole the lock button had knocked behind the front door.  BD and I were looking at the bulbs sprouting and look at what we saw.  Crocuses!  Blooming!  Little bright yellow spots of promise of Spring on the way.

It was a gorgeous sunny day.  The temps got near 50 degrees so in the afternoon I got my iPod and earbuds all organized, tucked my wallet into a shoulder bag, and walked over to the birdseed store for some suet pellets and so I could "legally" listen to the first installment of The Walk.  Except it wasn't on my iPod.  When I hooked the iPod up earlier it had said it was on there but somehow it wasn't.  So I selected a book I'd copied onto it from CDs and listened to that.  I was quite disappointed and more than a little peeved.  Still, the walk was lovely in the sun and spring warmth and on my way back home I passed a car parked at the end of our block and discovered that I knew the man just getting out of it.  He's the brother of a guy I went to high school with and who was in my old writing group (small world) so we stood in the sunshine and chatted for a few minutes before he went back into the house where he's a caregiver for some developmentally disabled men and I toddled on home--to sit right down at the computer and see if I could fix whatever kept The Walk from fonging onto my iPod.  I fixed it so I guess that means I'll have to take another walk tomorrow.  Oh darn.

A bluejay came back to the peanut wreath a few times today.  Naturally by the time I got the camera up and turned on it flew up into the tree but I managed to snap a single shot of it there before it flew off.  There was also a nearly-yellow goldfinch flitting around but it either hid behind a feeder or flew away just as I snapped the shutter button.  I had a few blank frames.  I deleted them.


Even though there isn't a drop of Irish blood in my veins I rustled up a "traditional" supper of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots.  I found a nice, fairly lean 3# flat brisket that I did in the slow cooker with too many potatoes, etc. all day.  It was totally delicious and I've told Durwood that he has to eat the rest of it.  I've got two different, 2-serving's worth of WW suppers in the fridge so I'll just heat up some corned beef etc. for him and some of one of the others for me.  That way he'll have what he wants and I won't be eating salted beef for three days or so which would screw up my weigh-in--which comes bright and early Monday morning.

March 17--Henri Rousseau (Le Douanier), The Environs of Paris.  Lila raised the shade of their hotel room window.  The faded chintz curtains framed a view of the Seine River as it flowed into Paris but it was nowhere near the view of the City of Lights she had hoped for.  All she saw were factories spewing yellow-brown pollution into the sky and a pair of black smokestacks that reminded her of the heavenward pointing finger of a fire and brimstone preacher back home.

Well, I got neither the taxes organized nor the rental side's windows washed today but I got a lot of other things crossed off my list, with TD's help, and I did get in a walk even though I didn't get to listen to The Walk while I walked.  The corned beef was a big success and there's always tomorrow.
--Barbara