High spring

monshu figured the key to replicating yesterday's lentils was the chicken jus so damned if he didn't roast a whole chicken tonight to get some. While it was tasty enough, the standout at the meal was the root vegetable mash pancakes. Parsley root, it seems, gets sweeter when you fry it. We both ate out on the deck and had a cocktail their beforehand. For some reason, the mojito recipe in my cocktail book calls for lemon balm instead of mint, so I made it with both. Good, but and improvement? Hmm.

Afterwards I went for a stroll around the hood: Up to Pratt, down Ravenswood, and then back around through Edgewater Glen to our place. On Big Tim's street I saw the letters "MBRACAA" printed in yellow chalk on the sidewalk in front of a frame house. All that comes to mind is some crazy dialectal form of ubriaca "drunk", but who knows really?

In the alley two blocks over, I saw a chubby field mouse go scurrying and cornered him against a garage door. I thought about capturing him for the cat, but there was nothing convenient to hold him in except my shirt. He also looked ill. Just the fact that I could catch up to him was evidence he wasn't at full strength, and as he stood there is seemed he hardly took notice of me at all. Every few seconds, he would convulse as if suffering a silent hiccough. I watched for a while to see if he'd keel over or what, but squatting in boots is hard on my feet, so I left and caught a glimpse of him hopping after me and then stopping again.

In one of the sunnier lawns, I saw columbine in bloom. They also had Dutch iris and peonies in the bud. The elms are ready to drop their seeds and I'm starting to acquire the suspicion that anything which hasn't leafed out yet isn't going to. It looks like the winter was especially hard on English ivy. I haven't seen any greening out. Our neighbour's garage was covered, but now it's all brown and the only fresh green is from the Boston ivy--though how it made it all the way to that wall is a mystery to me.