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H got onto the journal she wanted!! They called a day late (two days late, actually, i guess) but she's in! Bit of a rare honor for a first-yearer!

Walked N downtown. On the former railroad tracks. Apparently no one has walked the stretch from Whitney to the train station in a while. Not all winter anyway. Lots of fallen trees to climb through, thornbushes encroaching, and the soggy area under the bridge appears to be more like a foot or two of water, which at unevenly frozen was quite interesting to walk over. Rusty broke through but fortunately was able to back up.

Recipes of Udupi South Indian Vegetarian Cuisine's frozen Onion Rava Masala Dasa ("Rava Style Onion with Crepes, Stuffed With Flavorful Potatoes & Onions") with Chutney is quite good, and can be bought at the Natick Indian Grocery store on route 9 just beyond the Oak Street crossing (towards Wellesley).

As tweeted: on equinox, marking 7 years of war on Iraq, walked with 20 people to remind town we're occupying a couple countries and ruining lives.

From the common where the vigil always is to the army labs. No blockade, no action. Police facilitating our crossing at intersections.

And media representation - somehow i ended up talking to the press about PWGD and Visions Unite!

Well, here's an e-mail i just wrote on the topic:

Walked in a commemoration and protest of seven years of war on Iraq, from

Ate a banana from the ground while walking Zelda. Nope, New England isn't growing bananas but there was a store bought one lying on the side of the road... hey, they have skins.

Now let's try to ensure that isn't the high point of my day.

Oh yeah, had cereal with coconut milk, as I've had no soymilk around for forever and rather a lot of coconut milk cans... not bad.

Mocking bird eating my mulberries! Sitting on the little pine tree's upper branch trying to wolf it down. Pretty funny.

A yellow-orange bird that likes mulberries. With a black-and-white design on the wings. A bit smaller than a robin.

Maybe that's orange-yellow, comparing it to the goldfinch, now also in the mulberry tree (and the goldfinch is yellow, not gold, incidentally).

They're tearing up the tracks by our house in Natick, Massachusetts.

It's very strange the way it's being done. In the middle of the summer, rather than in the spring (when the train stopped running), so I rather doubt we're going to see a bike path on it this year. Also, the rails have been pulled from the ties (and some railroad ties dislodged from the ground), and put on the side. What's the point?

I still wish it had become a commuter rail plus freight, with a bike lane beside it-- or better yet make room for pedestrians and bicycles on the roads.

Keep rails rails,

Somewhere in the army labs, in the vicinity of the baseball diamond I assume, there's been a lot of people making news– it sounded like a huge crowd this morning, and now a smaller group doing karaoke. Loudly and fairly enthusiastically, if not too well.

Zelda is a little upset. She ruffs at it every once in a while.