PotpouriAn Update on Recent Stuff

And here we have a picture, from Wyoming, of a cedar waxwing tossing a crab apple into the air and catching it. I found it in SFGate.com and immediately had to add it to our collection of wonderful stuff about these lovely birds. One of the things about them that I really like is that, when they are at rest, if you get close enough, their feathers seem to have been carved from wood. Actually, when I was in high school, I thought that was how they got their name -- assuming that the wood involved was cedar. Actually, they favor cedar trees and the waxwing part comes from the colors on the tips of the wings, which varies according to their diet.

And here, also from SFGate.com, is a photo from Juneau, of a brother and sister digging their car out of the snow. It took about an hour.

The snow fall has finally fallen off. Yesterday morning was the first time since last Thursday that the Care-A-Van could get up to my place -- I did go to work on Tuesday, taking cabs both ways. Nice to be able to get back to my normal routine.


Also yesterday, the weather was so nice (in the 30s) and between merchants shoveling and the rain the sidewalks were clear enough that I decided that I was going to have something for lunch that I hadn't fixed myself. So, instead of making a roast pork sandwich and eating it at my desk with tabooli, I got to decide. Go across the street to Rainbow Foods and get something healthy and good to bring back or down the hill to be waited on? Down the hill it was, as I sauntered down to The Wild Spice Grill, our upscale Mongolian barbecue, seen in this photo. The standard MB choices are not exactly like any MB that I ever went to in California or Fairbanks or Anchorage. In all of those places, you fill your bowl, and they bring soup and rice to the table. Not here. We fill our bowl, including rice or noodles, and they add a totilla like item. And they don't serve it in the bowl, but rather on a lovely rectangular oriental plate. I don't include the rice or noodles in mine.

Or, they also have a menu that includes Jamaican jerk chicken sandwiches and a number of other exotic dishes. And they make their own gelato.

Walking down hill was wonderful. After being cooped up for almost a week, just to be able to walk down the street felt so free. Smiling and saying hi to people, looking in the windows of two art stores, laughing with a couple of toddlers, breathing in the fresh air. Ah, I hadn't noticed how very cooped I'd been until I got out.

And, finally, go to Zits . This is so what I was talking about.

In A Nutshell follows.