it's only right that on the first day of spring it should be snowing here in boston. that is irony, that is funny! i don't mind, this winter season i've sort of ensconced myself in the cold weather, i welcome freezing rain, i welcome blinding sleet. by the time i left work (a sort of kind of late night for me, finishing up some code stuff, scott was the last man standing, i left him a chocolate bar) the snow had stopped and it was just raining heavily, once again coating the streets and sidewalks in a martin sheen of reflective gloss. i feel sorry for people who can't stop and admire how pretty everything looks after an evening rainstorm. the charm is subtle, it doesn't scream into your face like colorful spring bulbs emerging from the dirt or a blanket of white snow covering the local landscape.

for lunch i took a little walk to the food trucks. i haven't visited them in many weeks now (if not months), i felt it was time to refresh my memory over what i've been missing during my unintentional truck food hiatus. i passed newspaper dispensers along the way, all with the same cover story about how jane swift had decided to bow out of the gubernatorial race, her reason being she wanted to be with her children more, but most people understand it to be the fact that she had no chance of winning against mitt romney, her high poll number republican competitor. i've never been much of a fan of jane swift, but i feel sort of sad that she's leaving. not that i thought she was a good governor, but i really admired the fact that she was juggling her career with her own private life of three small children to take care of (where's that husband of hers?). i sort of saw her as a role model. i got the chicken pad thai from the old thai truck, just when it started to drizzle a little bit, with a touch of flurries. i made it back to the office before it started to come down hard, at the intersection contemplating whether i should just cross it like a normal person or close my eyes and try to navigate the dangerous crosswalk like a blind person using only the chirping noises of the street light indicators. does anyone know how they work? maybe next time.

this morning on the bus i saw sam and his lady friend. it's weird, we live just blocks away from each other, we work at the same company, yet we've never commuted together. you could say that today was the very first time, but it was totally asterisked because i got on the bus and i completely didn't see them, even though i walked right by them and sat almost next to them. you have to understand that when i got onboard the bus, i only have one purpose in mind and that is to either find a seat or find a good place to stand. it was only after a few minutes later did i realize who they were, and only because they were showing some heavy public displays of affection (pda), and i was thinking to myself, those two should really get a room...oh my god it's sam and his lady friend! sam and i then commuted together the rest of the way to the office.

and finally, coming out of my house today to go to work, i saw a ring-necked pheasant perched on a stone wall. a real, live pheasant! i've never seen one before out in the wild, i sort of stopped in my tracks and did a doubletake. instinctively i reached for my camera from my bag, praying to the gods of photography that that bird stay there long enough for me to get a few snapshots. when i first saw it i thought maybe it was a peacock. i know that 2 miles away at the mt.auburn cemetery there lives a peacock. it was all colorful like a peacock, but colored differently. i got closer, taking pictures as i advanced. it hopped off of the wall and ran chicken style across my neighbor's lawn. it wasn't a small bird, about the size of a chicken but with the long tail feathers about 2-3 times as long. it stopped to look back at me, then it ran into the backyard, bobbing its head as it went. a ring-necked pheasant! and right in my neighborhood! i don't live in the woods, i live in a very residential area, so it's very surprisingly to see something like that here.