This is so good.

Woman holds a purple T shirt up that that says Saint Paul Squirrels Are Hot.

OMG my child gave me one of those when I visited her in St Paul back in 2021.

Our R mayor won reelection. I guess people really like watching old-boys networks creating "market rate" housing" while the riverbanks fill up with tents. Also, he denounced T*&@%p, so the local Rs can feel good about themselves again.

I don't read a lot of memoir, but within the past year I read Jill Ker Conway's The Road from Coorain (1989) and loved it. I wouldn't say it had an original structure, but something about it got to me.

Screenshot of an Instagram post with a picture of an indignant tabby cat on a red couch and the post "For various reasons I don't post much on social media anymore, but I do still write regularly about what I'm up to on my personal blog (described by various readers as "domestic," "wholesome," and "jolly"). Recently the poorly supported and non-user-friendly platform I use announced it is shutting down for good at the end of this month, so I'm writing at blogger. I'm not migrating over old content, and the historian in me is working on coming to terms with the ephemeral nature of, well, everything." https://sandy983.blogspot.com/

sandy983.blogspot.com

Construction site fence with a sign "Project Funded by President Joe Biden" and the rest is obscured by weeds.

On my walk: the sign that time forgot

Chonky woodchuck on a closely mown lawn..

Today's walk:

A rusty underpass, paint patches covering graffiti, the latest layer reads "Capitalism Is A Disease."

Today on my walk:

My veg garden is mostly feeding local critters. Someone is nibbling all the young cucumbers to stubs, and a brazen chipmunk picks cherry tomatoes then eats them on the deck in full view of me and the cats.

Are they hiring?

Those are the almonds that inspired me.

The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook Bring the Mediterranean—from Italy and Greece, to Morocco and Egypt, to Turkey and Lebanon—into your kitchen with 500+ fresh, flavorful recipes.

I'm finding myself cooking out of this a fair amount recently. www.americastestkitchen.com/collections/...

For comparison, here is some dork and his gorgeous dog standing next to same Rhodo in 2004:

Massive dark pink rhododendron in full bloom.

Today the backyard hit Peak Rhododendron.

I was just thinking today about how much I love/d Laura Ingalls Wilder's books (talk about problematic in hindsight), and now you have me trying to remember what Tom Robbins-era me dove into. Asimov?

Car bumper sticker "The Internet Was A Mistake" and a second sticker "Doing My Best."

There's a strong case to be made.

I was taught by a department store bra fitter when I was a teenager to hook at the front and twist back. She said it would fit better that way. I've done it that way ever since.

grassy lawn filled with dandelions, forget-me-nots, violets

No Mow May, Day One.

Forgot my alt text: small skunk with a very wide stripe forages on a front lawn.

I stopped my run this morning to tiptoe carefully past this little guy.

New York Lt Gov Delgado speaks into a mic in front of a person holding up a No Cuts to Medicaid poster.

Yesterday Delgado talked about the need for love and systemic change and made us feel like our tiny Binghamton rally mattered and I hope he's planning to primary someone soon because I would stay a registered D to vote for him.

A rally outside Binghamton high school with people holding signs saying Save Our Schools and Congress: Protect the Department of Education.

I don't know if it made a difference, but it did make me feel a bit better to spend 45 minutes outside the high school this afternoon rallying with a bunch of other people about the importance of the Department of Education .

Several feet of uncleared icy sidewalk between two long cleared stretches.

I spend much of my winter walking around yelling at people in my head about this sort of BS. One of my favorites was these neighbors who clearly don't get along too well. Not nearly as impassable as your example, the pettiness of it almost made me laugh.

Maybe a hundred people crowd around a speaker at a snow and ice covered park.

A peace-dove puppet made from papier-mache and a sheet blows in the wind over some protesters.

Not My President's Day in Binghamton was a hundred people, give or take, braving brutal wind chills and icy streets at Kennedy Park.

Vase with flowers on park picnic table in snow

This might just become my "things I saw on my walk today" account.