I've been worse than the dog lately, pacing at the window, staring outside at the (extremely) slowly dwindling snow in the yard each day, waiting for Spring to finally arrive. When we moved here to Massachusetts, we were warned about this; what starts out as a love of all that pretty, fluffy snow falling so gently from the sky turns slowly but relentlessly into that restless sweet-Jesus-will-winter-EVER-FREAKING-END feeling you get after several weeks of not seeing the ground through a blanket of cold, wet white shit. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, we the sun seemed to remember that people in Massachusetts also need a hint of warmth. The temperature was hitting around 60 degrees during the day (but still plunging back into the low 20's at night, as a kind of "don't get cocky, bucko. This can all change and we can roll in the glacier anytime we want to" reminder from the capricious Yankee weather fairies). However, this new-found warmth has created a couple of hints of life returning slowly outside, with buds showing up on trees in the yard, and some irrepressible greenery thrusting up through the melting sludge still scattered in shady spots. This has all made me even more restless than before, and anxious to get on with some of the Big Plans we have for the house this year. What with the move and then all the hijinks and the lead removal, it was pretty much all we could do last year not to let the house kill us. But this year... this year is different. I've got plans... Before the winter set in fully, I had built these raised beds in preparation for a spring and summer of bountiful garden. But before I had time to do anymore than get the frames up (three 8' x 16' beds), the snow came, and I have spent the entire winter looking at them full of that white, frozen crap instead of rich earth. Imagining them growing their cornucopia of vegetables and goodies to fill our larder. Finally, with the thaw, I called up the local farmer down the road, who brought out a few loads of soil, to fill my waiting emptiness. Just getting the truck in and maneuvered into reasonable proximity was a bit of a trick. The snow still lingering at the bottom of the slope posed a challenge, as did that beautiful, obnoxiously in-the-way stacked stone wall that runs parallel to my lovely raised beds. (It seemed like such a good idea to position them there originally...) But three truckloads later, we were in the gardening business! And there we are - 25 yards of mixed soil and composted manure, filling my garden beds with their lovely, lovely potential. OK, so you can see from the picture that "filling" the beds is kind of an approximate thing. We settled for "reasonably close". Or at least "not too far away." How about "sort-of next to?" I was so excited to finally get the dirt, that I just shrugged and grabbed my shovel. About a yard or two of soil laboriously tossed from the pile into the bed frame later, and I knew I was going to need some kind of better system. Meet my system: "Hey honey, let's all go out and spend some time in the sunshine together!" Somehow, I have enough shovels for all of us. That's some good planning on my part, eh?. Even the Critter got into the act. She seemed to think it was some kind of game to be allowed - nay, encouraged - to get dirty. "Hey Daddy... what's 'manure'?" "Cow poop." "Oh. Um. I think I'll stand over here and take care of Squirmy" Squirmy was in little boy heaven. He spent time making mud pies, checking out what the rest of us were doing, and probably consuming his own body weight in nice, clean dirt. I mean, dirt and composted manure mix. I tried to ignore this. I figure, I'm going to grow some parsnips in that stuff, and feed them to my family, so what the hell. He's just getting a head start. And he makes a great supervisor. "Oy. Woman. You missed a spot." This didn't last long. My Bride isn't one to let the boy forget his place, or who really wields the power in our household. My neighbor finally took pity on our efforts and scooted over with his tractor, complete with a front loader, and finished the last 80% of the earth-moving. And we lovingly shaped and scooped and heaped the soil into nice, even beds, which will wait out the next several weeks of night-time frosts until they can receive their seedlings and sprouts. Though I come from a long line of very successful gardeners - my Mother could coax flowered wallpaper into a bountiful harvest, given a trowel and few scraps of potting soil - this marks the first time I've been anything more than an occasional guest participant in the gardening racket. I've no idea if we're going to actually harvest a single tomato or radish, or how much we're going to be raising this just to give the local deer population a break from all that hard foraging work. But what the hell. Doesn't that dirt look lovely? Even the dog looks impressed. Our other neighbors (not the one with the tractor. The ones from Manhattan that decided to try the "country life") were so impressed, that in a fit of excitement during a shoveling break, we've decided to till up another spot of land about 20' x 30' in addition to the three beds we just created, as a shared garden between us. Because we are apparently into self-inflicted pain. And in a few weeks, we get our first-ever chickens!

Last week, I had the marvelous opportunity to visit India - something that had been on my list of things to do for years. It was a work related trip, so a good part of the time there was spent looking at the inside of meeting rooms (which looked remarkably similar to the meeting rooms in Massachusetts, or Liverpool, or any other drably soul-crushing business locale), but fortunately, we timed the arrivals of our various parties so that we could take pretty much a full day and get out to see some of the sights. Part of the purpose of this trip was to gain a better understanding of the people and culture, in order to create more productive and sustainable working relationships with partners; the best way to do this we could figure out was to hit the streets and be tourists! We were in Hyderabad, which is sort of the Atlanta of India (wait... go with me on this one): it's vaguely in the South East of the country, with a booming investment in infrastructure and high-tech. The people are nicer than you expect to find in a city that large, and it's more multi-cultural than you'd think before you got there, but you still want to be a little skeptical of their Chinese food. It's a mix of northern pace and southern tradition, with a pride in their heritage and their tradition of hospitality. And you can buy boiled peanuts from a guy on the side of the road. He served the peanuts in a paper cone made from a page torn out of a high school chemistry text book, and drenched in fresh lime juice and chili sauce. Holy crap, that's good eats. Two of the colleagues we had traveled with were actually local to the area, either native to Hyderabad, or having spent a significant portion of their youth in the city. One of them (our chief guide) was very protective of our western, white-boy sensibilities and stomachs, and bodily threw himself in front of me when I tried to buy an unidentifiable but deep-fried chili pepper from a street vendor. I wanted to be irritated, but then he pointed out the large rat running across the table, and I grudgingly moved on. I broke almost every rule I was given regarding what to eat while I was there - street food, pre-cut fruit, local versions of Coca-cola. I did avoid the tap water, and despite my efforts, I didn't get to try "Chicken 65", a local bar-snack/post-hangover food with pant-loads of chilis, but there's always next time. Fortunately, over the years, I have created a such an insulating component of Diet Coke in my intestinal track, that nothing disturbed my digestion during the trip, despite my adventurousness. Besides seeing some of the special attractions like museums and the Nizam's palace, or the ancient fortress at Golkonda, we hopped into some of the little mini-kart "auto rickshaws" and scooted over into the Old City for some street shopping. Riding on the streets of Hyderabad at first felt like we were taking our lives into our own hands. There are few rules other than "he who is bigger gets the right of way" and "honk until you annoy the guy in front of you into moving over". The honking was incredible - it was constant. You honk when you're irritated. You honk when you're happy. You honk to say hello. You honk because your wife just called, and asked you to pick up some Chicken 65 on the way home. It's how the city communicates, and between that and the periodic calls to prayer ringing out over the Muslim Old City throughout the day, the city is never really quiet. But the traffic had its own pace, and a rhythm that kept it flowing, without a single accident in all the time I was there. In part because no one ever moves really fast, and in part, I suppose, because if you grew up with it, the understanding is intuitive. Which is good, because seeing a family of 4 or 5 tootling down the road with few helmets, sidesaddle on a motorcycle, with a sleeping infant in the mother's lap, was something to make my western eyes look twice. Certainly there were elements of the drastic contrasts between rich and poor that I had heard about. And there were the occasional packs of stray dogs and some of the pressing heat during the peak of the day, but just as when we visited Cairo the incredible vibrancy of the street life was enchanting. The 22 hour plane ride(s) home, and the crushing sense of jet lag for days afterwards: not so enchanting. But overall - worth it.

I got passed this on Facebook, by an old friend who 'tagged' me in his list. For those of you not on Facebook, that's probably a good thing. It's strangely alluring. But I enjoyed writing my own random list, so I thought I'd share it here, in a "get to know me" kind of way. 1. I was in the army for several years. Ok, you knew that. When I joined, I thought I wanted to be an Army Ranger. Because jumping out of functioning planes while carrying a heavy load sounded like fun. Also, I was slightly inebriated. Then I sobered up and settled on a job that didn't involve plummeting intentionally to the ground. Sometimes I still regret not doing it. 2. I like musical theater. I still can and do sing all of the parts to "Jesus Christ Superstar" when playing the album in my car. My family does not let me do that when they're with me. 3. My favorite three tv shows of all time are Family Ties, Firefly and Gilmore Girls. I am not ashamed. 4. My mother still makes finger quotes when talking about "computers". She also thinks that I am, somehow, involved in the making of "computers". Even after I've attempted to explain that it's more loosely based on the use of "computers" than the manufacture of them. But who am I kidding. I can barely explain what I do for a living to most people. 5. 3.14GB of my iPod - or 2 days, 9 hours and 32 minutes of play time - is consumed by Bluegrass. 6. I have tried out for Amazing Race with my buddy George twice. I'm still convinced that he and I would kick ass. Which is why they didn't put us on the show. Because we would make the other contestants seem pitiful and sad. 7. I relish 'bonnet and bustle' movies (e.g. Berkley Square, Wives & Daughters, etc.). I've watched 'Pride & Prejudice' (the Colin Firth, 5 hour version, not the pansy Keira Knightly version, which not even Dame Judi Dench could save) so many times that my Bride got sick of it. 8. I've read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" several times. I have to limit my reading of it, however, because I become a callous preachy asshole for the duration. 9. I told my daughter that popcorn comes from chicken poop. Little Amish women in the midwest feed special corn to their chickens, and then collect and clean the by product, package it and sell it to us to pop into popcorn. When she expressed doubt, I told her to ask her teacher what chickens ate. She, of course, answered corn. My daughter thinks I am a genius. My bride thinks I am going straight to hell. I think it is worth it. 10. I love kayaking, snorkeling and diving, and any kind of water activity. However, I am terrified of the things the live in the water. I refuse to touch anything I see while kayaking, snorkeling and diving. Also, I am a terrible swimmer. 11. I still occasionally collect and paint Warhammer figures, though I haven't played in years. My inner geek, it *roars*. 12. I broke my first car by never changing the oil. It was summer in Atlanta, and that dashboard light was on for a week or so. Who knew? 13. When we were 13 or 14, my buddy and I took a bulldozer on a joy ride through a construction sight in the middle of the night. For all of about 12 feet. We thought we were the most daring couple of guys on the planet. He later got arrested and thrown in jail for trying to outrun the cops in his Pontiac Firebird. When he was 16. Not when he was 13. I was never arrested, but I did get a speeding ticket for pacing a cop doing about 110 once. My girlfriend at the time thought I was an idiot. Looking back on it, she was right. 14. I attended the former Georgia Military Academy from the 1st grade through the 9th. We had to stand at parade rest in P.E. I received 49 hours of detention in my 9th grade year - mostly for uniform violations, but one time because I said "shit" in front of the girl's swimming coach's hearing. (He was later fired for propositioning part of his swim team). I attribute the time spent in detention hall to my later success in being able to write 500 words on any topic you choose. Seriously. Go ahead and try me. 15. I was the Rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof, which we took to the main stage of the ... um... crap... it's a big summer meeting where lots of high schools go to show their plays and work on stuff. In Muncie, Indiana. Oh, never mind. It was high school, and in Muncie, and I played a 80 year old mostly-deaf rabbi. How big a deal could it have been? I still have the t-shirt, though. 16. We named our daughter and first born after our grandmothers, with much soul-searching and full of meaning. We chose the name for our son and second born because we thought the name was cool. I think that might come back to haunt us later. 17. I have, at various times, had wild crushes on Annie Potts, Bernadette Peters, Helen Hunt and that chick from Buffy that was also in American pie. All of them except Helen Hunt have red hair. I think Helen Hunt would look good as a red head. 18. I have 8 saws that plug in to the wall in one way or another. I have 4 saws that don't plug in. I need more saws. 19. I cannot keep my closet tidy. I try, and have made attempts at various organizational systems. I know people that keep their closets more well organized than Martha Stewart. I hate those people. 20. I have gone ice skating exactly twice. I left blood on the ice both times. My 6 year old daughter can skate backwards after just a few lessons. I have reached a stage in my life where I accept that I will not be the master of every endeavor. From now on, I will sit outside the rink and drink Glühwein. That I have mastered. 21. My high school graduating class was >250. students. I remember 3 of them. I'm not sure that all 3 remember me. 22. My life goals include (but are not limited to) publishing a book, playing the banjo on a stage that I don't own or have paid to use, and reading all of James Clavell's books. 23. I have drunk (drank? drunken? drinked?) moonshine. I have never smoked marijuana. 24. My nickname in the Army was "biscuits". I am occasionally tempted to put that on my business card. 25. In 2009, I am buying a dozen-ish chickens and planting a sizable vegetable garden. Not because I care about what goes into the supermarket packages, or because of the fragile state of the economy. But because I want my children to have a connection to what it takes to take care of things. And because I take pleasure and satisfaction in doing things the hard way sometimes. I'm perverse that way. There is a 70 year old man inside me, itching to climb out and talk about how things used to be. I aspire to be crotchety.