Today was my birthday. Our apartment-mate Renee made wonderful muffins.  Lois took me to the Stedelijk museum, where among other things we saw the chicken-and-egg-no-problem wall-painting by Tobias Rehberger, which was mystifying, though nicely lit.  Afterwards we went to Cafe 11, where I had spek (a kind of soft bacon, mmm) and she had mackerel, washed down with, respectively, gin and vodka.  It should be noted that the Dutch do not in general grasp the concept of the martini; when I ordered one I was almost given straight Martini Bianco vermouth.  Horrors. 

Here is Lois, riding through the Vondelpark, as we make our way to see an exhibit of photographs of East German interrogation rooms. 

My flight left San Francisco for Amsterdam at about 5 in the afternoon, and with the time difference of 8 hours, I didn’t arrive until 11 the next morning.  The KLM flight crew have titles borrowed from sea travel (e.g. “Purser"), and have a formality about them that is in contrast to the sensibilities and deportment of the typical American traveler.  They really want you to be comfortable, and, for those shy about expressing their desires, provide a handy amenity that allows you to communicate just how misanthropic you might be feeling.

Source: Los Angeles Times

It felt like spring today in Portland, on this first day of Daylight Savings Time.  The sun shone on the bicyclists, children, and gardeners.  I walked to Hawthorne Blvd. and was excited to see, written in chalk on the sidewalk, that the Waffle Window was open at Bread and Ink.  The chalk ad campaign was simultaneously misleading and necessary, it turned out, because recently someone had driven an SUV into the side of the building, damaging the Waffle Window and its surrounding bricks to the point where it was unsafe for waffle transactions (according to more temporary signage).  Thus the Waffle Window was being operated virtually, at a counter inside the main restaurant. 

Waffle in hand, I decided to walk to the garden store, to buy some leeks to grow in the garden.  My route took me past Greg and Beth’s house, and their front door was open, so I went in and found them with another couple sitting over a site plan of their property drawn in pencil on several sheets of graph paper glued to a larger plain sheet.  I could see on the plan, and on the ground outside, a large circle of gravel.  For the teepee that would be delivered soon.  A full-size Plains style teepee.  20 feet in diameter.  As a teepee is a temporary structure, it does not require a building permit, and my friends intend to use it as a summer sleeping area / guest room.

Greg and I ended up walking to the nursery together.  I bought seeds: three kinds of leeks, onions, and sunflowers, which I planted as soon I as came home.  Mm, sauteed leeks.  And pretty sunflowers.  Life doesn’t get much better.  It’s going to be a great year.

At the the drugstore, later, getting trash bags, I overhead someone, perhaps a religious person, say “You have to believe to receive.” Today, I do, and I hope I will.

I returned from the liquor and cat food stores this morning, and, as I was walking up the steps, smelled spring.  Early every February these little purple flowers bloom in the garden, giving us a false sense that winter is over when, in reality, there will be several more weeks of cold wet weather, during which these flowers will expire, and we will continue to hope for a more lasting warmth.  But for today it’s sunny and pretty and fragrant.  There are worse things.

“Some of us obsess about contamination, others about hurting people, and still others about symmetry. Almost all of us can find something to obsess about at a restaurant.”

No doubt you have a well-organized collection of takeout menus. 

link (NYT)

Am I the last person to hear about this?  For the past 13 years it has been possible to own a specific color as a trademark, as determined by the Supreme Court.  Will T-Mobile sue me over the color of my links?

“We conclude that, sometimes, a color will meet ordinary legal trademark requirements. And, when it does so, no special legal rule prevents color alone from serving as a trademark.”

QUALITEX COMPANY, PETITIONER v. JACOBSON PRODUCTS COMPANY, INC.

link