Sunny-Side-Up in Seattle

Looks like we get eggs this weekend.

The "sunshine" icon on my desktop always makes me think of a sunny-side-up egg.

Crazy. On Monday morning, when I started this post, it was snowing.

wtf?

It was just the occasional flake and it didn't last long, but still, wtf? No snow all winter, and we get snow on the third day of spring? Does that seem right to you? OK, an hour later there was even a little blue sky and you could almost call it sunshine, like, oh wait, spring, yeah, sorry, my mistake, I'm with the program now…

Who knew that whining could exercise that much control over the weather? I'll have to remember that.

When it's supposed to be sunny the "sunshine" weather icon still looks to me like somebody's trying to fry an egg on my desktop. I think the association is left over from life in rural Michigan, long ago and far away. We had a big garden, and when we canned tomatoes we'd throw the tomato skins to the chickens, who seemed to enjoy them very much. A few days later, the hens, juiced to the gills on carotenoids, began laying eggs with the most amazing florescent orange yolks. Kind of like the sunshine icon, only maybe sunnier. It took some getting used to, but even now, dog's years later, I still think grocery store eggs look hopelessly pallid and a little sad.

Tuffy has been posting pictures on Facebook (even some videos, because even though she forgot her camera, she had her iPhone and holy crap I love modern technology!) of a sumo tournament in Osaka. Another case where it would be nice to have some words to go along with the pictures.

Last week, in the course of stalking Scarecrow's grandfather, I found out he was an inventor. His Abrasive Mounting for Grinding Devices was patented on August 30, 1932.

Scarecrow didn't know anything about it, and thought it was pretty cool. And I got to send the patent to Scarecrow's brother, Tinman, the engineer, who, as it happens, makes grinding devices himself. So that was fun. And technical drawings are all done on computer these days, but back then it was paper and ink and a straight edge, and the result was a work of art. So that was fun, too.

You never know what's going to turn up. I was just trying to find out when PD Bates died. Which, by the way, I still don't know.

Spring in Seattle

The first day of spring in Seattle. Gloomy, gray, drippy, chilly — pretty much like the last day of winter. I was about to give up on getting any snow at all this year (Scarecrow said we got a little, once, but I didn't see it), and now they're talking about snow tonight, maybe. wtf? It's even supposed to be windy, which we don't get much around here. I'm listening for the Thump that means a black cottonwood branch has landed on the roof, probably made a hole, which will probably leak. We really need to do something about the roof.

I can see a little bit of green on the trees in the park across the street. I know it's just moss.

But it's light enough to see it in the morning, so that's something.

Browsing around the news, I found this, which has nothing much to do with the first day of spring:

Biogen Idec advances blockbuster MS franchise on two key fronts

Now, I know nobody would be developing new drugs if there weren't money to be made. But holy crap. This is all so clearly about the buckets of money Biogen Idec is going to make in this incredibly lucrative market, and it's so great that a higher dosage works better, because they'll sell more of the drug and make even more money! In the final line they finally get around to mentioning the effect this might have on the lucky people who have the disease the drugs are meant to treat. This really makes me cranky.

But hey. It's the first day of spring, so that's something.

0% Irish

I'm reasonably certain that, even on St. Patrick's Day, my ancestry is about 0% Irish. Scarecrow has a little, but it's a ways back, and pretty thin. He plays some Irish tunes, but I don't think that counts. The whole idea of green beer has always struck me as a little odd.

I'm fond of corned beef and cabbage, though, and Scarecrow just boiled up a mess of it. (Is it still considered boiled if he does it in the pressure cooker?) Anyway, corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, the whole nine yards. With horseradish, which may or may not be traditional, but since I'm not Irish I don't figure it matters. And a Black Butte Porter.

Life is good.

Bareit Is Ready for His Close-Up

I dithered about posting a link to the video the King County Library System made about how people (being, specifically, Scarecrow and me) use their library. However illusory the veil of Internet anonymity might be, I still find myself clinging to it. KCLS will probably make the video available from their website at some point anyway, but that’s OK because, really, how many people will find it there? Then I figured, what the heck? How many people will find it here?

The whippets, who have never been to the library and can’t even read, pretty much stole the show anyway. As you can imagine, there’s no living with them now.

Edited 12 March 2013, to remove the link to the video on Scarecrow's Facebook page, which was apparently protected by Facebook's privacy controls. (Facebook has privacy controls? Who knew?) Anyway, I'll post a functional link if/when KCLS makes it available from their website. If you'd like a preview, it's here, in PC and Mac format:

http://cardinalmedia.com/cardshares/KCLS-Symphony/

Edited some more on 17 March 2013, because I noticed the above link wasn't actually a link. Duh. I know you know how to get there anyway, but I try to be considerate about things like that.

Too Many Choices

My usual problem with blogging is coming up with something to write about. Recently, however, my problem has been quite the opposite. I have a list of a dozen or so topics that I thought might be fun. I even scratched together some notes for a couple of them. Since I can't decide which one to do first, I haven't done any at all.

No, it doesn't make sense to me, either, but there it is.

Tuffy just added a couple of posts to her blog, too, so I feel like I need to get off my sorry butt. Not that we're competitive, or anything. In fact, the competition, such as it is, is totally one-sided. I don't think Tuffy is even aware of it. But still.

So I'm going to make up my mind. I'm just going to pick one, and do it. This doesn't count.