First daffodils (at a neighbors’ in a protected place).

I see on our census form, which arrived today, that we are to predict the future—that is, how many people will be sheltering in our house on April Fool’s Day. Maybe we’re supposed to wait, but I’m guessing the mailing schedule people have no idea how much semi-junque mail piles up at this house, so that within about three days the form will be deeply buried beneath other need-to-do-something-with-this papers.

These aren’t my scribbles, but you get the idea, I hope….*

I spent way too much time today reading up on collective action, which is probably a highly snoozy concept to anybody reading this. The idea is that one plus one is more than two, more or less, when it comes to groups of people working (more or less) together.

2009 Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom got into this topic, but looked at a different aspect than I’m interested in…. Then again, if you are working from archaeological data, as I am, the whole thing is rather different from the get-go.

* BTW, this whiteboard is in the room where I wrote my comps, now a nice high-tech conference room. I still got tense being in there….

I just put this together—the info was right under my nose: best man at my mother’s first cousin’s wedding was Thomas Lanier Williams*.

And you know I’m not a name-dropper.

Of course, probably to a lot of folks, TW is not much of a name to drop….

* You may recognize his nickname, Tennessee.

I’m rather surprised this car is parked atop this sign.* Then, again, maybe the owner is angling for an insurance claim….

* Can you read it? It says “undermined” in the box, and uphill and downhill of the box are question marks!

Usually, the Dusty Past I think about is not my own, unless we’re talking deep ancestry, many, many generations ago.

Today, I overheard JCB & Mom discussing this artifact, and had to fess up that I had made it aeons ago…. If you can’t tell, it’s a pincushion, but mostly it’s festooned instead with needles, including sewing-machine needles….

We sure seem to be right in the middle of the Sad Season.

I’m very sorry to hear of the passing of Robert B. Parker, who invented the detectives Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall.

The list of those we’ve lost in the last few days, even not including Haiti, is long. Winters, I think, are rough in general….

In the interests of perking up your winter (and, for one very special person, birthday!), I’ve used a picture of some window dressing to counterbalance this rainy day. Yes, the snow is gone, and we’re back to a more normal Piedmont Georgia winter weather precip.

Since this picture inspires one to think about travel to another clime, let me note that the travel destinations I’ve been thinking about this week are NORTH, like southern Michigan and east-central New York—not beach weather at all in these fine months of January and February….

This is all I’m going to blog about the Conan-Leno situation: why don’t People mention how crappy Jay’s 10pm show has been? And I mean crappy.

Speaking of television programming, why do I feel so compelled to watch “The Mentalist”? Maybe I see parallels with interpreting archaeological data? Dunno….

This is one of the branches of Peachtree Creek, just downstream of the Bot Garden, getting a tuneup as part of the upgrades there and in Piedmont Park. Note the ice along the creekside toward the left. The milkiness in the lower right is sediment, though….

Last week I heard an interview with Laura Veirs, a singer-songwriter who I’d never heard of, and loved her songs and sound. So, I went to the Guru, and voila!, just like that, we (he) ordered her newest release “July Flame”*! This is especially cool because she is selling it through Raven Marching Band, her own boutique label.

Laura Veirs’s website, with two free tracks, is here.

And here’s the NPR story from Weekend Edition.

* July Flame, Veirs tells us, is a variety of peach. Lovely name!

I’m not privy to the art of window-dressing.

This lovely gown with a flower-bodice and velvet skirt is in the window of a fancy upscale salon around the corner called of all things Key Lime Pie.

I do like the idea and the execution; nevertheless, I detect no urge to make an appointment here.

New year. New decade.

Best in twenty-ten!

* I have no idea why this stuck in my head as the title for today’s entry…. (Readmore here, if you like.)