my neighbor bruce was back in town for the weekend and we made plans to take advantage of this warm spring day in the middle of winter and go for a river walk around the charles. i was working this morning, coordinating with two different clients about projects due early next week, but i stopped to make some ramen for lunch. at 1pm i went out and met bruce and went down to porter square and grabbed the train to kendall, where we then walked to the river and proceded in a counter-clockwise direction.

a lot of people were out running, while bruce and i marveled at the fabric known as lycra. we crossed the mass ave bridge and made it to the other side of the charles river. we saw some ducks diving into the water. bruce said they were scoters, i said maybe mergansers (only because that's one of the few duck names i know). turns out they were in fact red-breasted mergansers, who spend their winters here in new england.

once we got to the hatch shell we crossed over the sky bridge and headed to the boston common. i saw a robin, harbinger of spring, perched up in a tree. ducks were happily swimming in the swan boat pond, instead of wading on frozen ice. amongst the mallards and the canada geese was a single white domestic duck, like an albino mallard. if that duck could talk, it must have great stories, like how it escaped from a farm (narrowly avoiding being eaten) to live amongst the wild fowls of boston. we went to frog pond to watch the ice-skaters going around in circles like fish in an aquarium tank. a few looked like pros, skating backwards faster than most people could skate forward. i don't know how to skate but i love to learn, only because i like falling down and making people laugh. i'm funny like that.

back in porter square, bruce came with me to the bank, where i deposited enough money from freelance work checks to double my bank account. safely at home, i installed director onto my ibook in preparation for a weekend of coding magic (weather permitting of course, like if it's nice out, i won't be home, natch).

when evening came, i went out with my friend gary. divorcing from his estranged wife this week, i went with him to her place so he can pick up the last of his things. "i'll be back in a second," turned out to be 45 minutes of me waiting in his minivan. i was starving and all that i had to eat in the car was two pieces of dentyne gum. when he finally returned, he apologized profusely but said he had a few things to say to his now ex-wife. we had dinner at the mayflower restaurant in watertown, a large bowl of lamb hot pot with a plate of fish fried rice. i played grief counselor the rest of the night, and our low volume conversation was only interrupted by the shouts of "shit shit shit!" from the woman behind the cash register who seemed to be suffering from sporadic bouts of tourette's, all the while a little boy nearby was quietly reading a book on a friday night. for some reason it all felt very nostalgic.

i got a ride home and watched another riveting episode of battlestar galactica. cylon sharon continues to stay hot for the show, despite trying to kill herself by smashing her head against a reinforced glass window. her unborned hybrid baby? a cure for cancer. the president? she lives, although each episode she gets a little bit more ruthless. corporeal cylon six: "no means no, doctor balthazar! i don't care how smart you are! or how much you think i'm your girlfriend in your fantasies!" next friday's episode: battlestar galactica versus the colonial mob? you're going to sleep with the fishes! in space!