Saturday.

Oh, the joy!!  I can really believe spring is here.  Early spring, yes--but spring.  Most of the snow has finally melted though some of the pots still have ice on the surface where the melted snow has refrozen.  But I saw green--real, growing GREEN in four pots.  The tansy, strawberries, pyrethrum and oregano.  We expect three days in the fifties starting tomorrow followed by forties.

Conversation at the local Barnes & Nobel:  I made the trip only because I had received the rebate resulting from the settlement of the lawsuit over fixing e-book prices.  Barnes & Noble, Amazon and others were hit with it.  I had been thinking of getting hard copies of several books to replace copies I have on my nook so this seemed a good time to do that.  I found two easily enough (in the gardening section) but the third was somewhere else or not in stock.  I asked one of the clerks who looked it up and walked me over to the nature section to find it.  As we walked I told her "I have two of these on my nook and I hate them on the nook.  The side bars don't translate well to the e-book page."  "I probably shouldn't tell you this," she said, "but I have a nook also but I use it to play my games.  I don't like to read on it.  I can't flip back and forth between sections easily."  Hearing that I confessed, "I find that clumsy and frustrating, also, and it is too hard on my eyes."  I have given my nook a good try and I won't totally stop using it.  I do have a couple of games I like to play as a break from other activity but most of my books will be old fashioned paper copies.

Just checked my e-mail and one of my roses have just been shipped!!  When it comes I will pick up some garden soil and plant it in one of my large pots.  I will keep it inside until the gardens thaw out enough to plant it outside.

This just boggles the mind.  Seven years in and no one knows for sure what caused kidney failure in more than 600 dogs and a few cats.  They haven't identified a specific causative agent or company.

Al Jazeera's The Stream had a program concerning the legalization of marijuana and its possible consequences.  Part of the argument concerned whether legalization (where it has occurred) has or has not lead to increases in crime.  This article says recent study results say "no."  What struck me about the discussion on the Stream was the almost religious fervor with which the partisans claiming that legalization of marijuana held their position without ever producing any support for their conviction.  They were asked directly at one point what study or other evidence they had and they gave none.  One bemoaned the fact that they had no statistics about how many auto crashes, or robberies or other crimes may have had involved stoned participants.  But my thought on that point was "we don't insist that alcohol be banned or sold only through government dispensaries though a lot of drunks are involved with auto crashes (many of which are fatal) and may well be involved in other crimes."  Why is there such a difference in perception between the two "drugs"?  And have we learned nothing from Prohibition?