A hardwood Daruma doll caught the evening light through the window of the front door.

First of all, how long have the 80's been "retro?" The 80's were just ... ah ... okay, they started twenty-seven years ago. But retro? Really? I mean, I know those eyes. That's Morten Harket looking up from a cartoon page in the video Take On Me by Norwegian boy band a-ha. I wasn't into them but I watched a lot of MTV and that one got a hell of a lot of air time.

Retro. Huh. Dammit. That's what happens when I'm not paying attention, I guess.

There's just too much violins on State Street these days ...

... Oh! Never mind

Handy

Scribed into the concrete on Carroll Street beside the Anchor bank parking lot.

I must have walked past these hands hundreds of times and never saw them before because the sun has to hit the pavement at just the right angle.

I think the Roman numerals are supposed to be the date: 9 - 29 - 8 1

I can't read the name below. Maybe "Nate?"

Knitty Gritty Mil-City?

It's some kind of knitted golden fabric, zip-tied to a ginko tree on MLK Boulevard. Does anybody know what this is about?

[ADDED 5-27-08: It turns out to be the calling card of whoever owns this MySpace Page. ]

From the corner of Broom and Main, the new Dane County Courthouse looks ... kinda scary. Almost like it's going to eat the houses across the street.

The skeletal remains of Sacred Heart Hospital as they sat baking in the August sun.

Developers picked it clean, intending to use the carcass as a frame on which to build another downtown condominium, but plans hit a bump and the design had to be jiggered a bit, so it sat like this for quite a few months.

There's a hole in front of it big enough hide a herd of elephants. It's a good thing we didn't get a lot of rain last fall.


Construction's coming right along now that they've got all the details ironed out.

If I've got my head around the concept, this is going to be the glass-faced tower of condos at 309 West Washington.

First the robins, then the kids

Robins aren't the most reliable measure of the coming of spring, you can take that as gold. I've seen robins scratching through six inches of snow, looking in vain for a stray bug or worm. They come back way too early.

But grade-school kids picnicking on the lawn of the capital — now, that's a sure-fire indication that spring has finally come. Gladdened the cockles of my heart to see them out there today.

The Vein in Dane

Some kind of creeper &mdash I'll have to check it again after it's leafed out to see if I can figure out what kind — has been encouraged to climb the spiral ramp to the parking lot at the Monona Terrace. With all its leaves temporarily shed, it looks like nothing so much as a network of veins or nerves stretching across the bare concrete. And made the foundations of the Terrace look creepily alive.

The Max Wahl apartment building is 75 years old this year. Old Max had a flair for a grand entrance, didn't he?

The cryptic notice "This Entrance" has been amended by some wag to read "This is France," which makes about as much sense as the original, now that I think about it.

After a magnificent dinner at Peppino's starting with crab cakes and ending in orange and pumpkin cake with coffee, I finally noticed the sprig of rosemary growing from a pot in the window. How did I miss that? As I got up from the table I pulled a single leaf and held it to my nose to savor the rich aroma. Wonderful.

Spring slattern of seasons
you have soggy legs
and a muddy petticoat
drowsy
is your hair your
eyes are sticky with
dream and you have a sloppy body from
being brought to bed of crocuses
when you sing in your whiskey voice
the grass rises on the head of the earth
and all the trees are put on edge

- e.e. cummings

On, Wisconsin! Come snow, or sleet, or gloom of winter storm ...

I'm sure by this time the whole 'snow in April' theme has been done to death by dozens of Wisconsin bloggers, but I took the pictures and I've been slogging through the stuff all day, so I'm going to post, dammit!

I'll do this guy next, just to get the statues out of the way.

I can never remember who this guy was, other than he died in the battle of Chickamunga, and he was Norwegian. My memory, scrabbling around for something to call him, comes up with Sven Chickamunga.

He's looked better.

The wind-driven snow flocked all the trees in capital square so they stood out from the background as if they were lit from within. This stand of trees along Pinckney were very nearly incandescent, even in the early morning gloom.

Some courageous soul dared to walk the narrow, snow-covered granite curb running the length of the sidewalk leading up to the capital and an hour of the day that I can hardly walk a straight line on level pavement. Bravo!

Grace Episcopal is a commanding presense on the square even on an overcast day, when it's cloaked in a muting blanket of snow.

Flocked bikes locked up to a rack at the top of State Street.

The top of State Street has always seemed like a cozy place to me, and especially so on this frozen morning when my destination is Michelangelo's coffee shop (the awning marked "coffe" to the right) for a piping hot beverage.

We're all hoping that, by this time tomorrow, the snow will be gone, and we can eat our acorns without having to dig through the white crap to find them.