John's New Look

Facial hair style #2 going up on Flickr. Note the picture of Hannah passed out on the floor after seeing her dad with a handle-bar moustache for the first time.

Sad spring flowers. Pitiful. 

I was going to do this whole photo blogging extravaganza on the fight to the death between Winter and Spring, but frankly, Spring really is just not trying. A few bulb flowers (crocuses) have braved the cold since the snow-drops emerged from under the results of the early-March snowfall (hence the name-get it?), but they are pitifully few and far between. I�ll post my sad, sad picture of them after this.

Then when I got home with Hannah after school, IT DARED TO SNOW! Only a few flakes, but still! The nerve! That is on top of the recalcitrant piles of snow in every shady spot, including in front of our house. (But it is even worse as you go up the hill north of us to the next village; there is still a 2-foot high pile of snow where the snow plows deposited it earlier.) So you get a photo of a neighbor's glaciated driveway. And to the dog who took a crap on it: my sentiment exactly.
 

From the Mind of Nee

John said I should start collecting all my „unique utterances“, meaning things that no one in the world has ever said before, in all likelihood. That’s a polite way of saying “all the crazy crap that comes out of my mouth” (although there’s not enough paper in the world for that). So here are the few we could remember (going back 10 years), but that have become the stuff of legend around Chez Nee:

To John: “Baby David Crosby can kiss my butt!”

To Hannah: “Quit kissing Lenin and eat your dinner!”

To John: “Quit rolling my shit up!” [shit=car window, in this case]

Running on Half a Brain

My Palm PDA is not just a personal organizer, it is like a portable second brain. In the time I've had it, it has become the second half of my soul.

So I was crushed to discover that it had completely crapped out on me and all my data was wiped out. Fortunately, I had backed it up recently, so it wasn't a complete loss (except my copious scribblings in NotePad, *sob*); I could reload most everything from the desktop software, but I still feel betrayed. It was like waking up to find a stranger in bed with you (unless that stranger is Johnny Depp, rrowrrr!).

On the other hand, finding my PDA blank was also somewhat liberating. No lists of things to do and vocabulary to learn hanging around my neck anymore! (Until I reloaded, of course.) I'm *so* tempted to go back and dump them on purpose. And also a bunch of the email I've been hoarding that I mean to "do something" with, "someday."

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free. (Nikos Kazantzakis)

See, Nikos Kazantzakis gets it!

John's new hobby: shaving

Since we are currently between semesters, and John has put a note on his door that students who need to reach him should just email him, he felt it was time for one of his hair purges. So this morning, he shaved off just a bit of his beard. Click on the link under "Fotos" on the right to see the initial results. You vote: David Crosby or Lemmy Kilmister?

He plans on altering the beard every couple of days, so check early, check often.

THAT IS IT! I am sick of your crap, Mother Nature! We are through! I mean it! This is war!

The dark patch among the snow in the neighbor's yard is where the water table has risen so high that the springs in the area are backing up, so to speak. It's not visible in the picture, but water is gushing out of the ground in several spots in the green area.

And in other news, dinner with friends was a success. John made chicken enchiladas. Yum!