A week above freezing, and the local mood is buoyant. Wife is happy: the worst is over!

I hate to be that guy, but do people not remember every single March ever? There will be snow, and it will come in great waves and bury everything so it looks like Christmas, and pitch everyone back three months in their mental outlook. Yet we hope and delude ourselves. There’s always a day you remember, a certain year where March did not pound our head into the turnbuckle six times, where Easter was green and clement, and we think that’s the norm. I wonder what this says about people. Something good, perhaps, and something not so good. The charitable reading: hope springs eternal, etc. The cynic’s view: we refuse to learn from experience.

Or maybe we do, and that's why the barriers you see are up adn ready.

Lovely, isn't it. 

Well, let's see what detritus I picked up over the week, and neglected to share with you.

The other day I came across this pecular pole. It wasn't there a week or two ago. It's wood. There was another across the street.

Actually, there were poles on all four corners. Stuck in the sidewak, stabilized with rubble.

I know we're not owed any explanation, but it would be nice to have a sign that gives a curious flaneur a clue. Will lights be strung from pole to pole during a street repair? No, they usually use mobile lights embedded in immense cement ottomans. (Ottomen?) Divining rods to call down healing celestial energy? What?

In the grocery store, there is hope:

Crackle has nothing to do, so he's just pretending to conjure something.

Seen in the Burbs:

I know who I'll call next.

All of the glamor images showed the other side. It has the setbacks. Alas, that side faces Hennepin. This is the clear, unobstructed view.

As I keep saying, we'll see. Right now we have views like this, which did not exist a year ago:

The weekly sweep:

Annnnd our friend the Larking, which has declined to participate in the "novel profiles that add an exclamation point to the skyline" competition.

Fast work, as always:

And that's that! Thirty years in the pokey! A life completely wasted! Next!

Solution is here.

I don't have much on this show. It's a creep-show / horror / odd turn of fate thing, with an opening that might have been a cliche at the time.

I don't have much on this show. It's a creep-show / horror / odd turn of fate thing, with an opening that might have been a cliche at the time.
		This background music about an early 20th century trip to France sounded familiar.

It has to be based on a real song that said "early 20th century, maybe France, certainly high class," since it was used in the 50s to illustrate life on the Titanic.

		It was hard to go to far away places once; then it was easy. Then it was hard again.

		It's not enough to consume yeast. It has to be - well, you know.

That'll do! See you around. I hope you enjoyed your visits, and I thank you for your continued patronage. Next week: more of the same, but different.