fri 01-01-99 Out to Circiut City in Dedham to replace the tuner with the defective selector switch in Sharon. Had to buy a black receiver. Got lost trying the find my way out of the parking lot and stopped at super stop and shop.

sat 01-02 To the indian place in central square with Valerie to celebrate the beginning of our second year. They have the buffet on weekends.

sun 01-03 Wind and rain. Skipped church and hung the lamp Valerie bought a while ago.

tue 01-05 I seem to be angry at everything, I seem to be setting myself up for it. I went to the photo shop the get five copies each of two pictures, was warned they were three fifty each, and went ahead anyway. I should have said no, I should have gone right back and retrieved my negatives. When I got them I asked why they were so expense, I only paid twelve dollars to develop and print twenty four pictures at five by seven, the same size. I was told the price was comparable to other one hour in house photo places. On the way home I was hoping the pictures weren't as good as the ones from the supermarket so I could go back and complain. They weren't. The dirt on the window stood out more and there was an extra white spot. I think will go back and try to just ask them to do better. If they won't, I'll go to a drug store.

thu 01-07 I got a refund on the pictures.
Walking home from work while it was cold and clear and not yet dark, through the lower part of a bare hedge set on a low stone retaining wall, I saw over a hundred crows spread out across the still green grass of a large lawn on the front and side of a large brick house on a corner.
I hosted the LWB discussion this week. Fifteen people showed up and sat on the chairs and floor and talked about poly spirituality for three hours. They ate most of the ginger cookies.

fri 01-08 It started snowing this afternoon. It had added a third dimension to the sidewalk when I walked home in the dark through the traffic.

sat 01-09 Dark and wet and warm, some rain in the puddles, southwest wind moving the branches of the trees. High and far away, seen against the fast moving clouds, a crow wheeling to escape two birds, they break off pursuit and turn upwind.

sun 01-10 At the Family Tree discussion. If B is poly and involved with A who does not want to be in a poly relationship, is it wrong for C to become involved with B if A doesn't know about it? It was argued no, because A should know that monogamy doesn't work, or that B would cheat anyway. No one agreed, they said C was being stupid. Since polyamory is responsible non monogamy, and B was acting responsibly, B was not poly.

tue 01-12 Big meeting at work today, about the changes the new head of computing is making. The move to the new location was put off for a year, they're keeping the lab system we wrote for now, they're getting rid of most of the consultants, and some of the managers have resigned. Afterward, Howard was talking to John, the new head, who said he had things for me to do. Elaine's been talking to him, she wants to reassemble some of the old crew. Things sound hopeful. After that, seven of us went to lunch at Sterling's and had a brainstorming session like we haven't had in ten or twelve years. It felt good. I said I would translate my program tree from miis and voluteered Howard and I to translate the lab log in from magic.

wed 01-13 Joe had a call from an irate doctor asking that the five minute time out be changed to thirty minutes, since it makes him log in two or three times per patient. Joe gave me the call and I agreed the time out was annoying, but the change would effect the whole hospital, and said if I could change it for myself I would have done it. He laughed and said he would like something like the old drinking duck toy, that would press a key every so often. I said if he wrote me I would forward the letter.

thu 01-14 I had two things I wanted to go to tonight and knew I had to miss one but didn't want to miss both, so I went to the LWB discussion on community in spite of the snow. The roads were worse than I thought but I made it there, I just couldn't go up one of the hills I tried to. It was interesting but not as good as I had hoped, the topic ran out half way through. Coming home, the worst part was getting out of the parking place. I was on a corner and had backed half way out when some LWBers stopped to give me a push on their way to the T.

fri 01-15 When I got near work this morning, I met Valerie trudging through the rain and snow the other way. She said her round table discussion at the hospital had been canceled and she would leave her stuff at my apartment and meet me for lunch later.
I got the note the doctor promised wednesday, added a comment saying lot's of people would like this and maybe it's time we looked at it again, and forwarded it. Got a call from my supervisor asking what this was about, and a note from John saying he thought it made sense.
On my way to Chef Chang's to meet Valerie, I had to circumabulate a large lake at Brookline and Park Drive caused by the snow and rain. There were more on Beacon, and a crew working to clear the drains. I had udon noodles with fried rice, she had spicey green beans.
There were three notes today from people saying they couldn't make last night's discussion on community because of the weather and hoping the topic would be revisited soon.

sat 01-16 The car crunching through frozen snow outside sounds like fireworks crackling.
Valerie fell slept for an hour after a late breakfast. She wanted to sleep last time I saw her, before her wednesday overnight, but I said I wouldn't wake her, and she took a nap the time before that, after church in Sharon and before the Family Tree discussion in Woburn. She's cute when she's sleeping, I wanted to take a picture.
Rode with Valerie on the trolley after noon on her way back to the mystery hunt at MIT and got off at Tower Records. I wanted Kuhlau's grand quartet in E minor, for flutes, that we heard at first night. They didn't have it, but I did get three CD's of his other flute music since everything was on sale, and two cheap Bach CD's to fill holes in my collection, the orchestral suites and musical offering.

sun 01-17 Warm and sunny, sidewalks mostly clear of ice. Walked up Commonwealth from Tower to Star. A white seagull with black wingtips sliding across the blue winter sky above me and the trolley tracks. Sparrows as lumps in the top of a bare tree in front of a store.

mon 01-18 Sunny and warm. My data line wasn't working so I called repair service. It was hard to hear. They said they could send someone out today, but it's a holiday I wanted to walk over the hill to Bread and Circus for a samosa, so I said tomorrow would be better. When I looked out the back window it was completly overcast with fast moving low clouds, a wind from the west, and rain rings in the puddles next door.

tue 01-19 A new crescent moon above the lighted windows of the hospital and a few dark clouds.

wed 01-20 I couldn't decide what take out to get for dinner, so we had bagels, with honey and jam and chips and lemon humus and cranberry juice.

thu 01-21 Met Valerie at Burger King near Jordon Hall after work. We ate at Star of India, had the vegetable combination with vegetable curry instead of the vegetable, and went to the LWB discussion. There was a magnificent view of the Christian Science mother church, with one of the dome lights slightly the wrong color. Without a topic, the discussion didn't happen. I wore my Maui Dive Co tee shirt, and someone said they had just come back from there. It was raining a little as I walked up Mass Ave to the auditorium stop.

fri 01-22 I got the program tree working, that I started on last week. Lisa asked why was wearing my coat and I said it was cold in here. She said it wasn't.

sat 01-23 Low clouds and mist, rain earlier, wind from the east. Walking along Mem Drive before the River Street bridge, I saw a duck a little way out in the Charles, with a large white spot on either side of a black crest at the back of its head, which it kept turning to look at me. It was smaller than a mallard, had a pointed black bill, and was black with brown sides and two narrow white stripes on the wings near the tail. It dove like a cormorant and there was a brown duck waiting in the center of the river. A hooded merganser, I had never seen one before.
Where the walk widens out into a park near Harvard, there is a tree that used to lean out over the river, and has now fallen onto the bank. It has dark gray bark, rough with moss and lichen growing on it. With the leaves gone and things wet form the rain and mist, you can see the contrast of the smooth yellow new growth growing up ten and fifteen feet high out of the fallen trunk, from which new roots have sprouted.
McIntyre and Moore is gone, as was mentioned elsewhere. Got two remaindered books at Harvard Book Store. The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom, whom I confused with Harold Bloom who wrote The Book of Q and American Religion, with a blurb that says evil is a by product of nature's strategies for creation, a flattering quote from the Washington Post, and a chapter entitled "Are There Killer Cultures?" And America & Lewis Hine, about which I had read in the Daedalus catalog and was interested in, a book of photographs of poor and working people from the early part of this century. The pictures enable you to understand what life was like for the people in a way words and description can't. And still they say so little, one image, one instant of time to represent an entire life.
On my way home I saw two male and one female mergansers, and the three stone arches of the Western Ave bridge, with the Double Tree hotel alone in mist behind it, where the coke sign used to be. On the other side of the bridge I saw the other female.

tue 01-26 Found on the web today a picture of the Supergirl tee shirt I saw displayed in the basement window of the comic book store in Cambridge saturday. The store here doesn't have it. She's awfully thin.
Reflected light on the clouds earlier, a dark break in the center. The stars are out now.

wed 01-27 When I walked into the office this morning Howard had his digital camera set up. I had asked to get some pictures. In the afternoon we went up to four Stoneman to visit Dave. We learned yesterday he had leukemia. He used to work with us but is younger and complained about not being able to drink beer for five years after his treatment.
Was supposed to meet Valerie at Green Street station. Got home just in time to leave, had to stop for gas, couldn't go down the street I planned because it was one way, got lost and wound up on Washington Street, got there two minutes late, and my horn didn't work. She was standing in the big window in front reading and as I was about to get out of my car she looked up and I waved and she saw me. We went to Centre Street and found that the Indian restaurant Jay recommended, Bukhara, wasn't crowded as he said it would be, so we ate there. The cauliflower and potatoes and peas and potatoes. We got extra garlic naan because we had it as an appetizer and the cook made more with our meal by mistake and they let us have it free. They wrapped our leftovers and then we waited a long time for the check, while I worried about the time.
I got lost again on our way to the discussion, got out the map, circled around, recognized streets I'd walked and driven before, missed the street, drove in another circle, and parked in the same place I did two weeks ago in the snow. We sat on the floor, and when it started to get crowded Tamara gave up the big round chair to the two of us. More people came and they moved out the coffee table. Then more people came and we scruncked up and people stood in the doorway. We set a record, thrirty seven people in their moderate size living room. People made an effort to talk one at a time, and things went well. Until the end when we all stood up someone said wait for the count of three and everyone jump up in the air at the same time. It was decided this was not a good idea. It had started to snow when we left.

thu 01-28 It was still snowing this morning. Not much had accumulated. The Moody River was a broad gray stream between the undisturbed snow on the wide paths of either bank, with snow on the gray trees leaning over it. At work I wanted to take a picture out the window and we waited for someone to walk by.
Still trying to get the program tree to understand option readers. The program names are stored in files as executable code that sets variables and does anything else the programmer felt like doing.

fri 01-29 Still snowing this morning, and only a couple inches accumulation. Dinner with Valerie at Chef Chang's after her doctor's appointment.

sat 01-30 Paged this morning while meditating. Out to the grocery store at two. Got a small shepard's pie, chips and lemon humus, carrot and chocolate cake, and peach and lemon sorbet. Valerie came over for dinner while Ken and Judy were at a party in Cambridge.

sun 01-31 Went to the second UU history class after church, then with Valerie the new members reception and gallery walk at the MFA. Passed some parking places, then traffic was stopped before the museum, but I went around the corner and found a spot. It was crowded. We got some cookies and punch and wound up on walk four, and then went back and looked at some of the things we passed. Indian art on paper and Islamic ceramics. I wanted to see a painted glass vase I had noticed and it turned out to be a lamp. Round and blue tinted, it could stand or hang from several little handles around the outside. I did not see anything to hold a wick. We looked at japanese robes, some with bright colors, some subdued, all asymetrical, one with a thousand tiny tie dye spots in shapes and flowing patterns, underneath the embroidery; and swords, with metalic sheaths with intricate inlaid grasses, dragonflies and beetles on the guards, knobby rayskin handles with different brass ornaments under the cording, and blades with carving and patterend edges. The cafeteria salad bar had roasted eggplant and at least three kinds of olives. Took Valerie up Huntington to Back Bay station.

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