i've had a craving for a turkey + cranberry sauce + stuffing sandwich for weeks. when i used to work on broad street in boston there was a great sandwich shop that carried this; they called it the "larry bird." then when i worked in kendall square, there was a lunch place that had something similar. so i was excited when i discovered a nearby cafe carried this thanksgivingesque special: good food cafe in west cambridge (2378 mass ave). it's a little bit hidden and the sign doesn't really stand out. i had to park and then walk down the block before i found the place. i bought my sandwich ($6.83) and raced home to eat it. verdict? i really want to like this sandwich but it wasn't what i expected. everything would be fine except for the stuffing, which had too much rosemary and made the sandwich tasted somewhat bitter. the bread was also a little hard and scratched the roof of my mouth. so i won't go back there for the larry bird, but i may want to try their reuben sandwich one of these days.

with temperature in the 70's, i made my way down to the arnold arboretum in jamaica plain to do some early season flower watching. i parked along the centre street gate. what's out: plum and cherry blossoms, forsythias, magnolias, some rhododendrons.

going up bussey hill, i ventured to the asian collection, where there were a lot of fragrant winterhazel. in the secluded grassy knoll, an at-home-dad was having a picnic with his kids and a woman was basking in the sun with a book.

one of my favorite flowering trees, the dove tree, was still bare. likewise, nearby, another favorite, the fragrant paulownia, was also bare, but i could spot some flower buds forming. a mourning cloak butterfly landed on my shoulder. i tried to take a photo of it but it flew away.

as for birds, i saw a pine warbler and then later a hermit thrush.

i walked down bussey hill towards the direction of the three small ponds below the lilac collection (nothing on the lilacs so far). what i thought to be an out-of-place boulder by the side of faxon pond turned out to be a large snapping turtle. it was trying to cross the road to get to rehder pond. there was a crowd of people watching the spectacle. at first the turtle was timid, retreating back into it's barely-fit shell. but then it decided to make a dash for it, lumbering at a remarkably fast pace. what surprised me is snapping turtles look so dense, but when they stand up you can see they're actually pretty skinny. when the turtle finally reached the other pond, it quickly disappeared underneath the water.

after i got back home, i left soon afterwards for belmont where my mother was making some peking raviolis for dinner. since it was still early, everyone was outside doing yard work. while my mother and sister raked the lawn, i was busy digging out a profusion of yellow dandelions blooming by the side of the house. when i returned to cambridge i watched on tv the first regular season meeting between the red sox and the yankees at fenway. red sox would end up winning in extra innings on a youkilis homerun (and thanks to jason bay for tying the game with a 2 run homer against mariano rivera).