On one of the coldest days of the year, of course (e:Paul) and I go to the Botanical Gardens with (e:hodown) and Zoey.

A bunch more desktop style background picture taken. It's so easy to take nice pictures on a sunny day there.

I noticed a bunch of the orchid plants have flowers that look like large insects. I wonder if they were selected for that intentionally by gardeners or of it was natural.

the citrus plants were done fruiting there. They had ponderosa lemons which are huge - Paul wants to buy 20 of them.

Prickly pear cacti remind me of Basra. I wonder how his winter in the desert was.

Last night we went out to Coco with (e:mike), (e:dave), Tony and Maria for Maria's birthday.

There was way too much food to be had. (e:terry) and I split a veggie pizza but I don't think we even dented half of it after the frites.

Then we went back to have coffee and cake. I wanted to make a Chetna-styled sponge with white chocolate, lemon zest and curd with raspberry jam - but after cleaning the house all day, we ran out of time and had to buy a coop cake.

For future reference:


The sponge was dry. The baker would not make it on the bake off.




(e:mike) and (e:paul) got her another set of her favorite dishes as a present.

This was an action packed week in Allentown.

On Monday night, right after we went to bed, an ambulance flipped over at Delaware and North after an SUV ran into it.

They really need to take the rest of Delaware down to three lanes. It's too crazy aggressive on the four lane part.

Then on Wednesday, Bill's Deli on Allen was raided by the police. They found crack and guns by the counter. It always seemed so obvious to me - there's always the same few guys who circulate inside and outside the store all day long, always on cell phones, greeting people who drive up.

(In googling for the article, I found (e:tinypliny)'s review of the store)
(e:tinypliny,39934)
Weirdly enough it's still open. It makes me wonder about the other businesses in the building, like the one selling Nintendo 64 games, $5 hoodies and VHS tapes.

Governor Cuomo came to the medical campus to announce a Buffalo billion pharmacy company subsidy at Conventus. There were black SUV's swarming everywhere that day.


And they are now possibly using an old lab freezer as cadaver storage around the corner from the office of (e:paul) and I. We found that out after some real craziness Wednesday night at the office.

This was a ridiculous weekend. Between Goz Gozah for (e:dianne)'s birthday and (e:Robert)'s birthday Saturday there was way too much crunkness.

The Goz Gozah drag show.

After the dancing was done, (e:paul) and I went to both Thirsty Buffalo and closed out the Pink. This was the most straight night of my life in a long time.

We hung out with Nathan after the pink at our house. He had his own theory of physics that I wasn't really ready for at 5 am - or ever really.

The next day (e:terry) and I went on a long walk around the city and to the coop. He managed to find both a knife blade and chunk of sharp glass within 500 feet of each other on Linwood. Here he is ready to shank someone.


Saturday was (e:robert)'s birthday which was another fun time.

On the way home from work Thursday, (e:Paul) and I went to Cafeology for a coffee.

Something was strange, because they were open for two more hours, but were cleaning up - even though the shop was full of people.

It turned out it was a Pure Ink poetry slam

The surprise art made me feel awkward. I couldn't listen to the first two poems because I was trying not to laugh - by thinking about programming design patterns. I wasn't trying to be an asshole but it was so unexpected I didn't know how to react.

After a few people went up, I calmed down and was able to listen. There was a girl who had a poem about remembering everything men say to her, a poem about Cat in the Hat, and one about the Sunday bike ride. Some just sounded like babbling, and some were actually pretty good. To me, reading poetry seems less about the content than the delivery.

(e:paul) thought about reading his old (e:poetry) but didn't go up. I wish he did.

it made me think I would have no idea how to write a poem. Maybe I could read a program. But then I thought of how I can make up songs about butts, (e:paul) and (e:terry), dogs all the time and I don't even realize it. Maybe I should have recited one of them - could I be a poet and not know it?