when the monstrosity next door went up two years ago, i thought the construction had driven out the bunnies.

today’s snowfall suggests i was wrong. yay wabbits!

last week i was kvetching about monday’s late-winter snowstorm and subsequent single-digit temps. today it’s nearly 65 degrees at 9 a.m. yay, march.

###

atheists are responsible for the dwindling percentage of christians in the united states. (maybe they’re eating them?) and i should move to vermont. except for that cold thing.

nifty charts here.

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almost everything i read online this weekend was about death and dying. one friend’s father passed away in late february. another friend’s mother, over the weekend. my great-uncle, on thursday. g’s grandmother was hospitalized with chest pains. then a friend’s dog had to be put down. isn’t spring supposed to be a time of rebirth?

###

as i tweeted on saturday, the best time to watch watchmen is the 9:00 showing. with the coming distractions and a run time of 163 minutes, it means you’ll be out of the theater at five to 12:00. freaky. even freakier: billy crudup’s blue CGI dingle, which doesn’t dangle much.

great flick, btw. and fantastic use of leonard cohen on the soundtrack (and muzak tears for fears), but other people differ. (contains some spoilers.) although i have to ask: how do you put together a 3-hour movie set in 1985 without a single duran duran song? they’d released duran duran, rio, and 7 and the ragged tiger by that point!

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i’m not much of a batman fan, but the first issue of neil gaiman’s two-part “death of” is storytelling at its finest. and what a story it is.

###

and finally, in news of the sane, today obama will “issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence.” the circular argument about that itself being political influence that will affect scientific decisions aside, it’s good to see obama continuing to dismantle the politicoreligious machine of the bush administration.

from his prepared remarks:

“This Order is an important step in advancing the cause of science in America. But let’s be clear:¹ promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

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¹ am i the only one who would be happy if obama excised “but let’s be clear” from his vocabulary? i’m getting tired of being lectured at.

from the last storm, which was also the first snow of the winter. it became more ice than snow, as winter storms around here are wont to. the ice globes can’t be good for the tree buds, but they are pretty.

the more it goes
(tiddly pom)
the more it goes
(tiddly pom)
on snowing.

and nobody knows
(tiddly pom)
how cold my toes
(tiddly pom)
how cold my toes
(tiddly pom)
are growing.

the more it snows
(tiddly pom)
the more it goes
(tiddly pom)
the more it goes
(tiddly pom)
on snowing.

and nobody knows
(tiddly pom)
how cold my toes
(tiddly pom)
how cold my toes
(tiddly pom)
are growing.
     -a.a. milne

silk longjohns are by no means the most alluring of intimate clothing in my lingerie drawer, but on mornings like this one (and relying on public transportation, as I do) I’m happy to wear them.

late january, and the first significant snow of the season. tonight it is supposed to turn into ice & freezing rain, which is only proper as I’m scheduled to drive up to delaware for a meeting in the morning. joy!

###

in other news, you know you spend too much time online when you find yourself muttering, “delete, delete, keep, delete” as you sift through the stack of snail mail on your entry table.

so, i’m in boston.

“but laloca!” you say (you, my mythical readers) “weren’t you just in new mexico?”

yes, yes i was. and it was lovely – temperatures in the upper 40s, barely a cloud in the sky. even the ~4 hour drive from albuquerque to las cruces was nice, as it bathed my retinas (and thereby some winter-suffering brain chemicals) in sunlight. and i returned yesterday afternoon.

and now, not even 3pm, i’m in boston. and there’s sludge everywhere, leftover from the weekend’s snowfall. but that’s not the story.

the story is one of hotel nickle-and-diming, and how moderately-priced hotels (holiday inn, hampton inn) have free wifi internet access¹, while upscale hotels (embassy suites, omni) charge you for it. and that annoys me. not because i’m paying for it (or anything on these trips, for that matter – that’s what an expense account is for, yes?), but because they’re charging for it.

i’d write more, but i’m a presentation short of a meeting and must actually work. carry on.
___________________
¹ the boston hotel i’m in at the moment doesn’t have wifi of any flavor. so i’m plugged into an ethernet port (one of at least three macs currently using the system). and paying for it.

day two of The Gentle Rain that Drove DC to Suicide. gray. dreary. chill. and not in that warm, fuzzy, go-for-a-walk-and-raise-your-face-to-the-sky kind of way. more like the hunch-your-shoulders-under-your-umbrella-while-puddles-seep-into-your-socks-and-passing-cars-soak-you-to-the-knees kind of way.

which is why i’m going to new mexico tomorrow.

well, not actually. i mean, i am going to NM tomorrow, but it has nothing to do with the weather here. it’s a *sigh* work thing.

but at the moment i’m on the bus, slogging my way downtown (or so i imagine – the windows are far too fogged up to see where we are, and we could be heading off 66 and into the river. i wouldn’t complain.) toward certain doom the office. and yes, my socks are damp.

and likely blisters on her toes in the morning, and horrible cramping in her feet during what’s left of the night. but it’s all good. toujours gai, archy. toujours gai.

happy new year, everyone!

when i was much younger, my grandmother would load up the trunk of her aging volvo sedan (over the years she had at least three, but it didn’t matter what year it was, or how long she’d had the car – it was always aging) with branch trimmings from christmas trees to take to church for her sunday school class. invariably, she’d leave a branch or two in the car, and the sap would perfume the passenger area for months. i loved riding in the back seat then, sitting bundled up in my winter coat and watching the world go by.

it was drizzling this morning as i headed in to work.¹ it was a morning for sipping hot chocolate in front of a picture window at a coffee shop, or at my kitchen table. street scenes or backyard tranquility, the weather and the hour were conspiring to keep me inside – or at least wishing i were.

but i was trudging through the gloom, making my way from the gym on 14th to the office. sidestepping puddles and skirting the occasional bit of trash, my head down and hoodie up. i glanced around occasionally to make sure i wasn’t about to walk into another person (usually not a risk at that hour) or an immovable object (always a risk), and to check for oncoming traffic at the intersections. but mostly head down, watching drops of water arc from the toes of my shoes.

and then i smelled it. it was faint at first, but after a few steps i was in the middle of a cloud of pine-scented heaven. i stopped. i pushed back my hood, straightened my back, and looked around.

the garden district was taking delivery of a shipment of wreaths and what i can only describe as bonsai christmas trees. a few employees were moving the pine boughs from delivery racks into the store, but for a brief moment i was alone, in the rain, surrounded by one of the happiest smells i know.

_________________
¹ actually, it is still drizzling, and if the weather forecast is correct, it’s going to get heavier and heavier until we have a full-blown rainstorm this afternoon.

at 3:00pm, it was snowing sideways outside my office window. it isn’t snowing now, but it was. winter is here.

oh, and if you’ll keep it under your hat, i’ve a secret to share:

i have a fur coat. not a real one. just a shearling. and i eat lamb, so i figure it’s okay. and it’s waaaarm….