I planted the oriental poppies today. I'm afraid I may have damaged one badly, I hope it recovers. The other 5 went in well and I have high hopes for them. I got to use the compost finally. I put it down around the poppies and through some of it around the back yard in places that I'm not going to plant but still hope will become lush with life. I hope everything grows well.

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.

From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):

Things to try. — Try popcorn for nausea.    Try cranberries for malaria.    Try a sun-bath for rheumatism.    Try ginger ale for stomach cramps.    Try clam broth for a weak stomach.    Try cranberry poultice for erysipelas.    Try a wet towel to the back of the neck when sleepless.    Try swallowing saliva when troubled with sour stomach.    Try eating fresh radishes and yellow turnips for gravel.    Try eating onions and horseradish to relieve dropsical swellings.    Try buttermilk for removal of freckles, tan, and butternut stains.    Try taking your cod liver oil in tomato catsup, if you want to make it palatable.    Try hard cider -- a wine-glass three times a day -- for ague and rheumatism.    Try taking a nap in the afternoon if you are going to be out late in the evening.    Try breathing the fumes of turpentine or carbolic acid to remove whooping cough.    Try a cloth wrung out from cold water put about the neck at night for sore throat.    Try snuffing powdered borax up the nostrils for catarrhal "cold in the head."    Try walking with your hands behind you if you find yourself becoming bent forward.    Try a silk handkerchief over the face when obliged to go against a cold piercing wind.    Try planting sunflowers in your garden if compelled to live in a malarial district.

This is the only way I'm going to actually post, so i'm going to do it. Here we go. This is a post. I've been quite busy the past few days. invalid_userid came down to visit. We had many good conversations. I haven't seen her in 4 years. We had fun. Her, purpleglitter and I went to Mount Auburn Cemetery yesterday. Huge garden cemetery. Beautiful place. We actually got to go up to the top of the tower. It's usually closed. But yesterday we climbed. Wonderful. Now for something completely different. Yesterday I saw my urologist. (you see, I have certain rules I follow. One of those things is that a stream of consciousness post only closest of one paragraph(no returns(you can see i'm a programmer at heart: as i embed my parentheses.)), which makes it harder to segway) Back to the subject at hand, yesterday I saw my urologist. He stuck his finger up my butt and gave me antibiotics. he also told me to stay to no more than one caffeinated beverage a day. he threatened me that if I don't get better this time they're going to stick a scope up me. Oh, what fun that will be! Ugh. So I better get better and if that means sticking to one caffeinated beverage a day, I'll do it. That is all. Good.

purpleglitter drove me to my pdoc appointment, which I thought was at 10:30am, but turned out to be at 10:00am. Luckily, I arrived at 10:20am, and was able to at least get in a short session. She increased my Geodon by 20mg, so now I take 60mg in the evening and 40mg in the morning.

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After my appointment, purpleglitter drove me around Mount Auburn Cemetery. It was very rainy, so purpleglitter didn't want to get out of the car. After driving around a bit, the rain let up, and we walked up to the tower. The view of the Boston skyline over the multicolored trees and silent gravestones was breathtaking. The wind ripped past me as I stood on the precipice above the garden of the dead.

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After Mount Auburn Cemetery, purpleglitter took me to Punjab Food & Spices a.k.a. the Chai Café. She bought me a yummy Indian lunch, after which we enjoyed cigarettes together on the benches nearby.

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Last, but not least, purpleglitter's power is back on. Yay!

Lake really didn't want Clover coming over. She broke almost all of our nice glassware and a plate for good measure. Shirley wanted to cut very badly, but we had to comfort Lake, who was horrified at her outburst of anger.

We ended up renting "The Family Man". Lake liked it, I didn't.

L