Spring has arrived. Soon, the plants my sister and brother are sending me for my birthday will start arriving and I'll be able to put the compost to good use. They are sending me 3 butterfly bushes, 3 red latham raspberry bushes, and 6 oriental poppies. I'm very excited about gardening this year.

I haven't done any gardening since I rented the house in Columbia, Missouri and grew carrots out back. It was a very small house with a small yard, but it was a house with a yard and it was $185/month. Wow, that price seems great now, I couldn't rent a room for that around here these days. It's a different season here, in more ways than just not being winter anymore.

purpleglitter asked me to make one of my photographs from yesterday's set into a desktop wallpaper for her. I figured I'd go ahead and post it in case anyone else wanted it. I may go through and do the same to other photographs.



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purpleglitter and I just watched the Red Sox win the World Series again. I always like it when Boston wins big, I'll be running into people with big smiles for the next week. Not much beats the post-win glee around town.

I've been to Mount Auburn Cemetery twice this weekend. Yesterday, I went with Ila. We walked up the winding paths and climbed to the top of the tower. The sky was overcast, which served to deepen the reds, gold and purple that extended to the horizon in one directions and to the Boston skyline in the other.

Today, Skye had her bi-weekly lupron shot. After the shot, purpleglitter and I took her to Mount Auburn. This time we drove to the tower, and I walked Skye to the top. Today was sunny and bright and Skye was treated to what some have called the best view on the continent. She loved every minute of it up there. Skye in the sky.

I've been on the side of the police in the recent bomb scare incidents in Boston. The police were unfairly blamed for doing their jobs and doing their jobs well in those instances. That does not mean, however, that I believe the police can do no wrong.

In fact, there are many recent incidents that show there are real and significant problems with the police, including (but far from limited to) the Jena Six, the tasering of the student at John Kerry's speech, campus police breaking a high school student's wrists over crumbs, racial profiling, overuse of heavily armed SWAT teams for what used to be considered relatively minor drug offences, and police outright threatening to make up crimes.

We have secret prisons and the right to habeas corpus has been revoked. The police believe they can behave with impunity, because much like the soldiers responsible for the massacre at Haditha or the Blackwater employees slaughtering civilians in Iraq, the police within the United States are generally allowed to act with impunity when dealing with those outside the power structure &mdash they know they will not be held accountable for their actions.

That is why I get so upset about the whining that occurs in Boston whenever the police do what they are actually supposed to be doing — it draws too much attention away from the real problems.

A 27-year-old man from Ethiopia was arraigned today at East Boston District Court on a charge that he made a false threat to "blow things up" at Logan International Airport. Ermiyaf A. Asfaw, a taxi driver who lives in Washington, D.C., walked up to an AirTran check-in counter Saturday night and was asked by an agent why he had stickers on his luggage from Dubai. Asfaw responded that he had been there. The agent asked, "Were you there on business or pleasure?" According to prosecutors, Asfaw responded: "No. I'm Al Qaeda. I'm with them, and I'm here to blow things up." The agent responded that his statement was not funny and was against the law. Asfaw laughed, prosecutors said, and walked away from the counter. The ticket agent alerted a supervisor, who notified State Police. full story

What is it about Boston that attracts this special brand of idiocy? Sure, maybe the agent's questions were invasive, but I knew when I was 6 not to joke about bombs at an airport. They take these things very seriously. This is not some new post-911 thing, this is the way it's been as long as there has been high traffic commercial airports.

I just have to wonder "What the hell was she thinking?" She was asked by an airport employee about the strange device she was wearing and walked away. What did she expect to happen? People who are already blaming the police for this should put themselves in their shoes: they didn't know what the device or the putty she was carrying was and she refused to answer questions about it. What were they supposed to do? She's lucky be alive after a stunt like that. Use some common sense.

I'm back in Boston. I had a great deal of fun with My sister, niece, brother-in-law, and mom. Maddie is a little ball of energy. Well, not little, she's quite big for a 7 year old. Smart and creative, but I just can't keep up with her.

The day I arrived, Thursday, we pretty much stayed around the house and relaxed. My mom had already been there for several days and was already settled in.

Friday, Christian stayed home while Maddie, Bridgette, my mom, and I went down to Georgetown. We hit Lush and Godiva and went to Dean & Deluca for lunch. While I've seen central meter machines in parking lots, I'd never seen a central machine for street parking before. I guess it is more efficient than having a separate parking meter for each spot, I'm just not used to it. The biggest disadvantage I see with the central machine system is that if it breaks down it disrupts the use of a number of parking spots at once.

Saturday we drove into Virginia through wine country and went to Linden Vineyards (nothing to do with Second Live). That was my favorite part of the trip down. Relaxing doesn't even begin to describe the place. Surrounded by rows of grapes and vine watching the clouds shadow-dance on the Blue Ridge Mountains. The cigar Christian gave me to smoke at the vineyard not only went perfectly with the cheese and wine, but also with the surrounding tranquility.

Sunday, I got up later than I had planned, but not so late that it caused any hassle in catching my flight. Upon leaving, Christian gave me some cigars, along with a 15-pack of Rocky Patel vintage 1992s, one of my favorites. My mom gave me a wonderful dragon cane when I arrived at the house and I was a bit worried about getting on the flight with 2 canes, but I didn't have any hassle and the return trip from Reagan National to Logan went smoothly.

I had hoped to get some good bird pictures, but unfortunately my birding camera is not working. I noticed it my first day there. It seems to be a connection problem with the battery prongs, which should be repairable. But, I was glad to see that Maddie loved birds and birdwatching despite her father's hatred of them.

I'm leaving for Washington tomorrow (well, actually Arlington, Virginia) to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and niece. My mom is already there and are visits have been planned to overlap. As some of you might know, I've been vegetarian for 14 years but have been considering eating seafood for some time. There is a good chance that on this trip I will actually take the plunge. The prospect of ending 14 years of vegetarianism is a bit daunting, and I would be limiting my meat intake to sea-fairing non-cephalopod exotherms. I've gone over it again and again for years in my head, working out the logistics of my personal moral code, and I think I'm okay with it.

Haven't given much of an update lately on what I've been up to.

The weekend before last my sister, Madeline, and Christian came up to visit. I met them downtown on Saturday and my sister took me to get my first ever professional manicure. I had a lot of fun and Maddie is a joy. She is so huge, though! I'd swear she was 10 or 11 if I didn't know she was 7.

Last weekend, invalid_userid came down for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release. purpleglitter, invalid_userid waited in the long line in Harvard Square. Usually waiting in lines is boring, but with the crowd I had a great time. There were a couple profiteers who got in the front of the line and walked down it trying to sell their books for $50. I didn't see anyone buying, but I'm sure they found someone when they got near the end (which rumor had it was somewhere in Watertown). I was very excited to get merryperseis's register when I finally got my books, I had thought the odds of that rather slim.

zarthon took purpleglitter, invalid_userid and me out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the next day. Inevitably a lot of the book was left out, but I think enough critical stuff was missing that someone who hadn't read the books probably wouldn't be able to make much sense of it.

Sunday, we all went to the Museum of Science. The exhibits there have enough range to appeal to any level of scientific knowledge. We saw a demonstration of the still very functional original Van de Graaff generator built by Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1933, but my favorite part of the Museum of Science visit was the butterfly exhibit, where a large owl butterfly landed on my shoulder and sat there for a very long time just looking at me and occasionally stretching its wings. Looking into the butterfly's eyes made me regret all the nasty rhetoric I've spouted about exotherms.

Next weekend, our new landlord is coming to visit from California. She has not seen the building in over a year. I'm excited to meet her, she sounds awesome over the phone. She's trying to rent the unit next door, so if anyone is interested in a two-bedroom in Arlington, let me know.

At the end of next month, I will be heading down to see my sister in the Washington, D.C. area. My mom will be visiting there at the same time, so it should be a great trip.

My sister (ellynx), brother-in-law, and niece are in town this weekend and I got to spend quite a bit of time with them yesterday. When I got to their hotel room, Madeline gave me a star sticker decorate my cane with. It glitters with sticker glittery fabulousness.

We went to Chau Chow City for lunch and planned to go to the Boston Aquarium and this chocolate buffet, but the lines to get in were far too long at the aquarium and we got the time wrong for the chocolate buffet and missed it. However, I ended up walking around downtown Boston popping in and out of shops for most of the afternoon with my sister, which was definitely not a disappointment.

In the evening, my sister and I joined back with Christian and Maddie and met up with Christian's parents for dinner at Umbria. I didn't get to talk much with Christian's parents last time I met them, because the environment was very noisy. After dinner, Bridgette and I had some more time together and as always evening conversations with my family are filled with surprises.