Spring/Sprung

A glorious day in Greater Waltham. Temps in the low 60s (?), sunshine, people walking around, and--because it is St Paddy's Day--lots of people wearing shades of green that they probably shouldn't be wearing. Light mint, for instance, never really looks good on anyone, and if you wear it today to show some sort of affinity for your Irish brethren across the pond, well then you are just trying too hard.

Today is my first day with both Andres and Celia. We spent the better part of the morning walking around downtown Waltham, which included a trip through the green in the center of town and across the Moody St/Charles River bridge. I've never seen the water that high; it was still flooding down around the Industry Museum, and I now know why Gov Patrick was visiting the dam the other day.

Andres loved seeing the water. He also loved seeing two trains (we couldn't keep walking until they were fully out of sight), waving to passing trucks (sadly, many waves resulted in exasperated responses of "daddy, he didn't wave!"), and running and diving on Waltham Common. Celia hung out with me in the Bjorn and fell asleep pretty quickly. We retired to Cappy's after our walk and Andres ate a whole slice of pizza (which is proof that he DOES eat, because we don't see that at dinner time) and he continued his game of waving at everyone. He was rewarded on our walk home when he got two guys in a truck to wave and honk--though, in truth, I think the honk came from somewhere further down the street (not that he noticed or cared that much).

I'm still waiting for my basement to get unflooded/undamp. This happened on Sunday night, probably about 3 minutes after I emailed a colleague that I was sorry to hear about his flooding, and added "thankfully we don't have to deal with that." I knew I should not have written that. So I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon wetvac-ing the carpet in my small finished basement and hauling all of our belongings from out of that room.

But all is much better today, I think...the dehumidifier is running, and it's easy to forget about potential mold problems when it is so nice outside. Celia and I are on the porch now enjoying the day...I could get used to this in a hurry. And I fear what my productivity will have been reduced to after 10 weeks of this!

Dinner tonight is cod with artichokes (I think), steamed veggies and couscous. I'm starting my cooking rampage slowly and mainly relying on old favorite recipes (monday was chicken parm, ravioli, homemade tomato sauce). It's going well so far but I know that getting outside my cooking comfort zone will take some work.