An apple tree is indeed in bloom, a couple of blocks away--espaliered against a fence, politely stay holding its little white flowers away from people passing on the sidewalk.

The Hunt has been riding again - chunks of trees have been appearing on the wet sidewalks when I walk home, and the wind from the north sometimes makes it colder at the end of our walk than the start. Once a seagull was perched on the lamppost at the corner.

It appears to have rained while I slept. Good.

I had to go to San Jose today - and cats were throwing themselves at me to be petted. Including a pretty little tabby who turned away from a nice bit of beef jerky to wreathe herself around my bag. And as I was walking wearily home with bags of library books, the hairy grey cat, who I haven't seen in a while was throwing him/herself on the sidewalk asking for a tummy rub, and didn't once try to lacerate me. Hopefully he/she will find a warm bed tonight, it's forecast to freeze.

A candy cane in a flower bed in front of an office building - but mostly blue, with red and yellow stripes. A harbinger of spring, I suppose.

Two men were digging a deep hole in a corner of a flowerbed in the park. Judging by all the mud, a broken sprinkler pipe.

Continuing rainless, sunny days and clear, cold nights. A huge yellow waning moon on its side near the horizon last night as I left for work.

First I dump recyclables in the container at the end of the driveway. This alerts the four-footed residents; occasionally a cat flees from under the car, or on the fence, and as I climb the steps onto the porch and put down my bag to extract my keys, I hear barking. I open the door onto a dog's snout. Usually it's Bear, grinning and wagging his tail, with the housemate's dog behind him, barking in frustration. Bear sleeps in my room, which is closer to the front door. Sometimes they fight it out as I approach and the housemate's dog tries to escape through me, as formerly.

Once I am all the way in, they loudly demand food and the housemate's dog also demands that only he get fed. I set up a child gate in the hallway and grab Bear's food bowl from on top of a stack of library books in my room, then go into the kitchen and set up another gate between it and the dining room, leaving Bear on the dining room side. By this time the barking is deafening, so I close the housemate's bedroom door. Then I can also flip the kitchen light on, which helps me find her dog's food bowl where it's got kicked. I then require her dog to sit and feed him. He proceeds to wolf his food in between trips to the gate across my feet to bark in fury at Bear, who is barking for his food. I get Bear's food assembled, slip in a fish-oil capsule for his hair, reach over the gate into the dining room and set it in front of him. By this time the housemate's dog will have almost finished devouring, except for the several bits of kibble he will have scattered around in his frenzied trips back to menace Bear. I point them out to him or stick them back in the bowl, and open the back door. I usually also have to remove a third child gate from the screenroom door - the housemate keeps it up after sunset so she doesn't have to chase him around the yard in the darkness to get him to come back in. He usually jumps up at me at least once in his exuberance. Sometimes he's so busy telling Bear off that he runs back in before he's relieved himself. But usually these days he pees in tremendous haste and gallops back into the house, skidding on the vinyl, before properly finishing. He runs into the hallway, and I shut the kitchen door on him. Tremendous barking ensues.

By this time, Bear has almost finished eating. I remove the gate to the dining room and he comes scuttling out through the kitchen, legs splaying on the vinyl, and bounces out into the yard. There he first pees at length where the other dog peed, then checks out the yard and pees in various other places, runs through the flower beds a bit, and then squats and takes a large shit, usually under one of the trees in a pile of leaves so it will be hard to find and clean up. And kicks the leaves about a bit for good measure. Then he usually moseys down the fence line and pees in the general direction of the neighbor dogs. Then he is ready to be called in and goes running and skittering ahead of me back into the house, through the kitchen - briefly checking the other dog's bowl - and around the corner into my room. I shut my door for safety. Then I open the kitchen door again so Mr. Barky can dash out into the yard to make sure Bear hasn't magically removed it to another dimension or eaten it all or something. I then bring in my bags from by the front door, remove the other gate in the hallway, and I get to go to the bathroom myself. Then I quietly turn off the kitchen light, reopen the housemate's door, and go into my room where Bear is either lying on the bed or drinking from his waterbowl. On a weekday, if the housemate insists on remaining asleep, I wake her about 20 minutes later. If it's a weekend, I let her lie and the dogs will see to it when they decide it is ball time.

The neighbors are usually well awake by then.

The birds have obligingly left a 9"-wide trail of berry-tinted droppings from the bush by the porch steps to the housemate's car, across the hood, up the windshield, and over the roof. Very decorative.

They did inventory at work yesterday - during the day, so I didn't have to deal with it except that like everyone else I had to pre-count a set of merchandise. When I returned from my weekend on Wednesday night, I noticed two boxes of chocolate bars and a line of cans of energy drink sitting around. Donations from the liquor store next door. It soon became apparent why - all massively expired. Some of it just coded and covered in dust, the rest of it with "best by" dates in 2010. So I took and have now eaten an aged Toblerone. I have told my co-worker to pitch the lot if I have to miss work tonight.