On the balance, this has been a good week, (and it still can end up a good week assuming the drain augering and fixing goes smoothly tomorrow morning, but I'm trying to not think about it).

A few high points in the last week:

- Work has been rewarding. This week I worked on: php, shell scripts, sql, perl, and WebObjects. I have challenging tasks, and more importantly, I have a plan; and the things I do will make my group's jobs easier. This is most excellent.

- Last Saturday afternoon, I participated in a community witness that went more smoothly than we deserved (given the weather forecast, number of participants, and the structure of the event). And the food at the reception was excellent. And it included home-made lemon meringue pie.

And we learned that our Quaker Meeting is going to have another wedding, next year. The couple met on Lavalife. He's 70, she's 50.

- Ye's sushi with my sweetie.

- semi-wild strawberries from the front yard. I've eaten a few, and they're delicious.

- In a week, I'm seeing a huge pile of Friends at FGC Gathering, in Johnstown PA this year. I'm fairly intentionally making the week a challenge for myself, as instead of taking a workshop, I'm doing service work. Which could be draining, and it could be extremely rewarding. The only thing I know would make the week better would be if melted_snowball were able to come, but I expect we'll both do OK. My car will have at least one rider, and possibly 1-2 others if they get their acts together. I don't know any of them, but that's fine. We'll talk about workshops and figure out who we know in common...

- And not one but two successful real-estate hunts among friends! chezmax & the_infamous_j bought a house locally that sounds well-suited to them, and sulle_stelle bought a stunning-sounding house in Tampa! Both were long shots, of a sort. Congrats, guys!

This afternoon there was still a snowbank in the shadow of the house by the side of the driveway, where our tulips are planted. So I shoveled it away, about a foot of snow deep, to expose what I thought would be bare ground.

But no- there are tulip shoots. Each a few cm tall. I'm amazed.

Also, I will be surprised if there is any snow at all by the time I pick up melted_snowball tomorrow night. It's supposed to be 17 tomorrow (62 F). Woo!

Also, I can't wait to see what the neighbour's yard looks like. Y'know, the one who replaced the big garden with lawn, and then the tulips came up anyway last year. He spent a while digging them up, but Mother Nature might have other plans.

Also, the Quaker planning meeting tonight went better than I'd even hoped. I will go away for a week utterly unstressed about this event. I just need to procure a data-projector I can borrow for the 26th- which is going to be tricky, as I'm between jobs, even if the University wanted me to borrow their projector to go off-campus... Hm, does anyone want to loan me one for a Saturday this month?... ;)

Anybody know what this is?

http://coder.com/daniel/photos/mystery-flower.jpg

There are some in our front yard, and google isn't being much help.

I was going to plant morning glories for the front trellis, but every single person who knows plants has said, "watch out, they will take over."

This evening, I talked to a gardener who repeated the line about taking over. They're annual, but unless I'm strict about picking up the flowers all spring (summer?), the seeds will germinate everywhere they can reach, the following spring.

"Oh oh," says I. The trellis is just on the edge of our lot, and the flowers would be planted in our neighbour's grass, and she's a bit particular about her grass. I know this because she was worried when I asked her if she minded me planting morning glories just at the edge. I promised her I'd investigate further before planting.

Jeanette, this evening, recommended Clematis. It's perennial and has pretty blue flowers. And doesn't muscle out the grass or require daily flower/seed cleanup.

...The tulips finally sprouted, but they seem to be a week or so behind everybody else's. Either we have worse soil, late bloomers, or everyone else is more gourmet with their plants' feedings and waterings and little Plant Waldorf School. I wonder if we can send ours for tutoring.

melted_snowball's pastry post last night reminded me of a discovery I made yesterday- City Cafe makes awesome chocolate croissants! Yesterday was the first time I've been there early enough in the day to actually eat one. It was a fluke that any were left at 2pm; apparently they're usually gone by 10am.

( Gardining... behind the cut )

Last night's dinner was finishing off the duck that d. cooked while he was here. Duck-thighs and asparagus, yum. I've put some fat in the freezer, stock in the fridge (ready for some sort of soup tonight; if I can find matzo meal it'll be matzo-ball soup), and a couple of duck-burger patties in the freezer too. Duck is such a good thing.

I came home to tbiedl plus two sprog (*) sitting and chatting with dan; they brought over Professor Wormbog and the Zipperumpa-Zoo specifically because I mentioned it fondly the other day in this journal; I read it to C. (who's three). T. offered to loan it to me, with a wink (which nicely forestalled one of her problems, of a certain assertive small person demanding that book be read to her 89 quadrillion times.) Hey, I'm willing to help out. *shrug* Which is how I got a kid's book on loan this evening.

We all went out to the yard, and discovered our neighbour two doors down, digging in the gardendandelion patch next-door. He said that our neighbour will be tilling it under in a few weeks, so any flowers we want, we should probably come rescue. Sounds like a good challenge to me. My mission is to figure out the ones that T. and dan recommended, dig 'em up, and plant them in our yard. Bonus points if they live more than a month; double bonus if they come back next spring.

Rover seemed to have rolled in something awful, so d. gave her a bath. Go boyfriend go!

I took d. out to celebrate passing his citizenship test; we went to the Bookshelf Cafe in Guelph. The food was OK. My appetizer was super: fried fish-cakes on top of mango and apple slices. My main course was so-so deconstructed mu shu with tofu, but it wasn't as good as the mu shu my sweetie makes. Our server was a bit over the line on being friendly, on toward flirting. Well, no, she was well over the line- she touched my shoulder a buncha times, and consiprationally told me about falling off the wagon on her Cleansing yesterday (she ate a piece of chocolate). d. suggested that maybe the two were connected, and she thought maybe I was a bar of soap? Y'know, to help with the clensing. Hm.

*Sigh*.

I'm thinking it's bedtime.

(*) who came up with this term for progeny? I forget. Anyway I like it.