March Drearily Marches On

   I'm usually not bothered by the weather, but this month has gotten to be a bit much.  According to the weatherman we're on the way to having a month with rain every day but one.  I need some sunshine for a few pictures (of a couple of trees and bridges)  I plan to take but there's no particular hurry with the subjects.  It's not like they're going away or anything.  I'm walking and riding my bike -- it's just necessary to dress for the weather and I have all the needed clothing -- so the rain and gloom isn't actually affecting what I'm doing -- But it's TIME FOR A COUPLE DAYS OF SUNSHINE --
   I finished a painting today.  It turned out OK -- better than I thought it would.  It's for a window in a cabinet door that will be exposed to sunshine so I didn't give it a great amount of thought or effort --  but I don't want some dreck hanging around claiming to be my work. 
   I'm still going to the gym (with Bob D.)  three times a week, and a couple times a week I also do some weights here at home.  With that exercise, the cycling and walking, I'm beginning to get back into decent shape -- and about time -- I only now feel like I'm getting back to normal, physically.
   dw and I are planning some sort of small trip to celebrate our 20th anniversary .  It's amazing, it doesn't seem nearly that long.  About the only time it really registers is when I look at early-days pictures.  Good Lord! I was slim, trim and fresh faced  -- it's no wonder the dw babe went for me   :-)  .  Where we're going hasn't been decided but we'll doubtless head for some sunshine. 
   Reading wise:  I started "Boone's Lick" (Larry McMurtry) and after two-thirds or so I skipped to the end. The book was fine but I wasn't in the mood for it.  Now I'm reading "The Best American Science Writing" -- a collection of twenty essays.  The ones I've read have been interesting -- and if one is dull, I just move on to the next.  Reading light.  DA

  

Spring

    It surely hasn't sprung yet, although I did get the lawn mowed a couple of days ago and I've been doing some outside work.  I cleaned and re-arranged the back patio.  Using half of a broken laundry tub (I cut the edges to square, and cleaned up  some jagged places) and a piece of granite picked up for free some months ago I made a nice outdoor coffee table.  And I placed a couple of large planters on the west side -- we'll plant some climbing sort of plants and get  afternoon shade.  It'll be a pleasant space this summer. 
   The suet feeder has finally been widely discovered and is very popular.  The usual small lbjs (little brown jobs) still arrive in squadron strength and for the last few days a northern flicker and blue jay (separately) have been regulars.  A couple of times a crow has taken a few bites.  And the crow looks REALLY huge compared to the other birds. 
   (dw -- watching the crow -- "Where do crows nest, do you know?"  DA:  "I don't know, trees, tombstones, maybe."  dw:  " O, of course.  They nest in the top of masts."  DA:  "Well, I suppose but ---"
And I got it eventually -- fortunately I'm usually not that slow)
   Starlings come by and whenever I see them I chase them away -- a foul bird.  And so far I haven't seen any robins  (turdus migratorius -- an unfortunate name) -- For three or four years robins nested over the patio but they haven't for a while.
   And the marriage plans of Prince Bill and Kate are still closely covered in the news.  Why does anyone care?  At least on this side of the Atlantic, wasn't the Revolutionary War about this sort of stuff.  The Windsors pretty much define unearned privilege.  At least in this country the privileged are defined by their wealth -- which (for the most part) they stole fair and square.  DA

Pi Day

      Pi day has come and gone and no one sent dw or I a card.  Not a great surprise since we didn't send cards but doesn't Pi day have more significance than St. Patricks day?  After all, without pi, we wouldn't have circles.  Moreover, Pi day is also Einstein's birthday and without him we wouldn't have the space-time continuum.  To celebrate the occasion I bought a pie (mmmm, pie!)  which wasn't particularly good but it was on sale and was a PIE.  (mmmm, pie!).
    More bike trouble today.  The rear wheel started wobbling on my ride to the gym.  After climbing I looked at it and found a broken spoke.  I did some adjusting on the other spokes and rode home, passing three bike shops -- all of which were closed.  None of it was a big deal, I just rode more slowly -- enjoying the heavy rain that started when I passed the first closed bike shop.  This afternoon I put the bike in the pickup (rather than ride) and took it to a shop.  They replaced the spoke, trued the wheel and replaced the inner tube (the old one was heavily patched) for $28 -- seemed reasonable to me.  The bike mechanic said I might have damaged the spoke when I tightened it without holding the spoke steady -- putting too much twisting tension on the spoke.  Oh well.
   As part of the new healthier me, I'm buying low/no cholesterol margarine.  The next to last one I bought was Smart Balance.  Both dw and I thought it had a fishy taste (just what you want with a butter substitute) but I dismissed it as a taste aberrancy, until the other morning while eating fish-flavored toast, I looked at the ingredients label.  Smart Balance puts fish oil in its margarine.  Fish oil is a healthy oil, but I don't want in on my toast, or anywhere else it doesn't belong.  So I tossed the Smart Balance and bought something else. 
   Reading:  finished "Fermat's Last Theorem" (Amir Aczel) which is more interesting than it sounds -- although a bit heavy with math.  Nearly done with "The Horizonal Everest" (Jerry Kobalenko) a history of exploration of and J. K.'s hikes around Ellesmere Island -- very interesting (needs more pictures) writing about a place I'd like to see.  And I just started "The Grave of Alice B. Toklas" (Otto Friedrich) a collection of un-connected essays.  O.F. was (is?) a reporter -- Time, Newsweek, etc -- and I've read a couple of his other books.  He's a good read -- well written entertaining history.  DA

Bloomin' Fleurs

     I talked to Rosemary L. (my sister) earlier, inquiring about Drew L. (her number two son) who lives in Okinawa with his daughter Tricia.  He was unaffected by the giant earthquake, which was far enough away from Okinawa that damage was minimal (I don't know about any damage from a tsumani).  A relief to everyone. 
     Since I haven't anything more to say about the quake -- either witty or profound or enlightening -- I'll just ignore it.  (Although watching television and seeing people walking on the beach -- in spite of the tsumani warnings -- reminded me that Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' can sometimes lead to a useful culling of the herd)
   The crocuses are in full bloom with the earliest ones starting to fade.  Daffodils are blooming everywhere (although our particular plants seem to be retarded) and the tulips are in leaf and starting to show buds. 

--- "Consider the daffodil.  And while you're doing that, I'll be over here going through your stuff." Jack Handey ---

    I'm back on my bicycle as of today.  I rode down town for a couple of errands -- about 11 miles round-trip.  The short lay-off caused me to lose some of my keen bicycling edge, although I'm not back to where I was a few months ago.  Then, on one occasion, I was passed by a girl with magenta hair, wearing flip-flops and smoking a cigar.  (But even then, not to be immodest, I passed a guy riding no-hands and playing a guitar)   The ride bothered my hand a bit -- it's still bruised -- but shifting positions on the handle bars provided adequate relief.   The ride was uneventful with excellent riding weather.  Scattered clouds, no rain, light breeze and cool -- a perfect day to be on a bike. 
   Yesterday I drove about 20 miles north to visit a friend Terry L.  We were frequent climbing partners for 10 years or so, and we've always been good friends.  He was my best man when dw and I married.  Over the last few years we've been out of touch, save the occasional phone call or Christmas card and a visit was long overdue.  It was an excellent visit.  He and his wife built a lovely house on the Clark River and he has the life he has always wanted.  He is something of a recluse, though not in a tousled-hair mad-gaze way, and seems quite content to spend his days messing with his books and reading (he's a book scout with a large -- 2000 books or so -- library of collectable books).  He's an autodidact and remains the only person I know who read "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" only because he thought he should. 

    --- Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man ---

    A couple of days ago dw and I watched "American Splendor" a movie about and by Harvey Pekar (who wrote the same named illustrated novel series)  It's an excellent movie.  I'm presently reading "the Polysyllabic Spree" by Nick Hornby --- a collection of essays.  Not his finest work, in my opinion, but still a good read.  DA

And I'm reading Patricia Cornwell's "Portrait of a Killer"... really, which would you rather read???  What's a polysyllabic spree?  Probably should read the book and find out, eh?  "American Splendor" was worth watching even if I didn't know who Harvey Pekar was in the beginning.  We also watched "My Favorite Year" with Peter O'Toole - one of my favorite movies and hard to believe it was made in 1982.  That's 29 years ago!!!  Yikes.  That's all.  dw

  

"Crash" -- Bicyclist Nonpareil

   Riding home after my Thursday session at the gym, I had an event on my bicycle.  At one point on my usual route home I cut through an alley and go a half-block on a sidewalk (avoiding two stop lights).  Thursday a storm drain was blocked, forming a large puddle that was over the curb and covering part of the sidewalk.  I proceded along (slowly)  -- perhaps not giving the location all of the attention it required --  aiming for the wheelchair cut-out in the curb.   With the puddle and all, I missed the cut-out, hit the curb  at an angle, and got dumped off my bike onto the sidewalk.  No real damage was done.  I bruised my hand and hip (and have been stiff for the last three days), and the bike was untouched.  (the handlebars got skewed but I just held the front wheel and twisted them back).   I found it difficult to maintain my image of a cool bicycling dude while laying on the sidewalk with my feet in a mud puddle.  The image was further tarnished with the slow-motion epic of standing up.  (cue sound effects:  murmured curses, moans and groans).  The rest of the ride went well -- largely because I didn't stiffen up for a couple of hours.  An instructional moment I didn't really want. 
   Otherwise the week has been uneventful.  dw has been working nearly every day.  (as usual a mixed "blessing").  Two Wisconsin friends have each gotten wheaton terrier puppies and have been sending cute puppy pics.  I've finished a painting that I'm undecided about.  It might get painted over.  I read "Beatrice and Virgil" by Yann Martel.  (the author of "The Life of Pi")  It's sort of a novel about a novel about a holocaust play (and not as convoluted as that sounds) -- I thought it was good, but not nearly as good as "Pi".  And that's my literary criticism for the moment. And so it goes.  DA

     "I got nothin'."  Well, maybe I could comment on the puppy photos.  They were pretty cute.  Still not getting a pet, though, as we are gone too often.  And yes, I have been working more lately.  Complained I wasn't getting enough hours and now I am getting plenty.  Be careful what you wish for...  It's a good thing that I'm working as it keeps me busy.  Other than that not much is going on and I am eagerly awaiting a sign of spring/summer that doesn't involve a lot of rain.  So far no luck but I have enjoyed the blooming daffodils and crocuses that are popping up in the middle of the yard.  And with that I will say adieu.  dw

Blizzard of 2011 Reprise

  We woke up to a scant inch of snow this morning but by the time I left for the gym at 8:30 it had started to melt.  Of some interest, the snow area seemed to be limited to a radius of a couple of miles centered on N. Portland.  The rest of Portland, including the West Hills (1000+ feet higher than the rest of the city) didn't get any snow.  I had expected some trouble getting over the West Hills to get to a doctor's appointment scheduled after the gym, but I had no trouble at all. 
   The doctor said it's all good with my heart.  All the tests came out positive except for tri-glycerides so I'm now expected to swallow four capsules of fish oil every day. 
   I went to the store to get the fish oil capsules and to get my prescriptions refilled -- more on that in a moment.  I was looking at the bottles of fish oil -- making sure that whatever I bought wasn't made in China (as far as I'm concerned, if it's made in China it's probably not worth eating, and it might even be toxic) -- anyway, while looking I discovered that one can still buy bottles of liquid cod-liver oil.  The same foul horror I was forced to swallow when I was a child.  A chill went up my spine.  I picked up a bottle and looked at it with the same morbid fascination I would have toward an oozing carbuncle.  I can still remember, nearly 60 years after the fact, the thick fishy oil coating my throat and mouth. 
   On a related note.  One of my prescriptions -- Plavix -- has seen a price increase of 23% in six months.  My cost was $100 with my insurance picking up the rest of the $440 price.  Could that increase be related to the drug company's patent that is due to expire at the end of the year?   Might things like this have something to do with the rapid rise in health care costs? 
   Otherwise not much is happening.  dw has been working more often.  I've been exercising and doing some things (art stuff  and other projects) around the house.  The weather has been typical late winter early spring -- wet and gloomy with an occasional hour or two of sunshine.  Reading:  I finished Pliny and some unexceptional mysteries and now I don't have anything at hand that's interesting.  Tomorrow I'll go to the library and look for something.  DA