I should fess up that I have rarely used a recipe. My genius is to open the refrigerator door, look in the pantry, wait for inspiration, then make something with what is at hand. Only in my recent ventures into Indian cuisine have I used a cookbook. Even that I gave up when I discovered the wonders of manjulaskitchen.com.

I have a picture of a 2007 version of my meatloaf. I am sure it included the signature Wheateena and oatmeal, canned tomatoes, and ketchup coating. I must have had a lot of onions and green peppers hanging around This one seems less gloppy than many that Jonathan and Andrea would remember. Maybe I got distracted and it was desiccated by a bit too much time in the oven?

I took special pride in making my meatloaf with so many additives that it looked as though the refuse from the grain aisle at the food coop had fallen in the mixing bowl along with a seasoning of hamburger. Oats was always a starting point along with plenty of chopped onions and green peppers. I also regularly added Wheetena, bulgur, even leftover brown rice. I always topped the mixture off with a coating of ketchup. But, even if put two eggs in to give it some structural glue, the meatloaf never actually loafed. It was always gloppy.

At some point, Jonathan thinks the late seventies, I was awarded a family medal. It is now seriously faded, but a medal nevertheless.

As everyone around here agrees, this has been a long winter. And just this week we had warnings of another snow storm on April 1st. Fortunately this turned out to be just a bit of rain here.

So, I turned to the back yard, the parts not run over by backhoes during our sewer project, and found signs that Spring is upon us. It remains a mystery how these plants survive the cold nights. Last week we had temperatures in the teens.

Then, I recall from Cambridge that there are flowers that pop up right in the middle of the snow sometimes at the end of February and more usually in the first two weeks of March. Here are Snowdrops on March 8, 2004 in front of our old house in Cambridge.

Time will tell about how well this building functions as a library and public building. Part of this result will depend on the library staff being inventive and welcoming to public events in the lecture hall in the second basement and the other open spaces in the building. The new building does not have the encompassing warmth of the old building with its dark woods and somewhat less vast spaces.

If you are interested in the “green:” aspect of the building go here for a review of those features (a PDF file).

I went to for a visit.

View from Broadway of old and new library

1st floor looking back to entrance and stairs up on right (red)

from stairway to 2nd floor towards entrance and circulation

study area in stacks on 2nd floor

Teen Room in old library building

kids area in 3rd floor Children's Division

Computer area in old building

Middlesex County

848 sq mi

population 1, 465, 396

density 1,780/ sq mi

Columbia County

land area: 636 sq mi

population 62,363

density 98 / sq mi

Cambridge

land area 6.4 sq mi

population 101388

density 15,767 / sq mi

Estimated median household income in 2007: $58,850 (it was $47,979 in 2000)

Cambridge:	$58,850
Massachusetts:	$62,365

Estimated per capita income in 2007: $41,093

Cambridge:	$41,093
Massachusetts:	$32,822

Estimated median house or condo value in 2007: $558,800 (it was $331,600 in 2000)

Cambridge:	$558,800
Massachusetts:	$366,400

Hudson

land area 2.24 sq mi

population 6, 925

density: 3,094 / sq mi

Estimated median household income in 2007: $29,891 (it was $24,279 in 2000)

Hudson:	$29,891
New York:	$53,514

Estimated per capita income in 2007: $20,111

Hudson:	$20,111
New York:	$29,885

Estimated median house or condo value in 2007: $171,611 (it was $76,100 in 2000)

Hudson:	$171,611
New York:	$311,000

Saturday, with more than a little help from our friend Chris Brown, we moved an old love seat downstairs and out to the “barn”. As we were lugging this gem down the stairs, Chris said “Let’s put it out on the street and someone will come and take it away.”

I replied, “Well, in Cambridge that would be a completely safe strategy. We once put an old metal office desk on the street only to see it scooped up by students living across from us literally within minutes. But, I am not so sure about putting old furniture on Warren St. in Hudson. I have never seen anything like that here. But, lets put it in the alley. Plenty of people go by out there.”

So, that is exactly what we did. I came back a bit later and put a sign on it, “Free”.

Later that night I went out back and saw that no one had taken us up on our “free” love seat. Then, I flashed back to a memory from our Western Ave. Cambridge days. During a move from one side of the street to the other, we left an old sofa bed on the side walk. In the middle of the night we awoke to fire engines dousing a fire set in the sofa. With that in mind, I pushed our love seat a bit closer to the edge of the alley and a bit further from our very combustible barn.

Next morning, I went out to the barn and opened the door. The only evidence of our love seat was a slightly crumbled “free”.

I am still surprised by the ways flags are used. Maybe I am stuck in the 1960s when this would be described as “desecration” and in some quarters lead to a stay in the local lock up.

This tree in front of our old house at 52 Kinnaird was the size of a forearm and perhaps 15 feet tall when we first moved here in 1978. Now it towers over the house at probably 75 feet in height.¶