First Spring Ocean Walk

This past weekend, the weather here in Massachusetts was great. Nice and balmy 55 F. Ideal conditions for our first spring walk of the year at Crane Beach/ MA.

Snow days in March?

Looks like that March will start for us in MA with a punch, better double punch. Two winter storms are heading our way and the forecast for our area calls for up to a foot of snow.

Even my boys, who may have a snow day on Monday and get a chance for earning good money with snow shoveling, are disappointed. They are, like me, tired of snow.

The past two days were nice and balmy, and we just started for the first time since Christmas to see the lawn again; and even better, the first flowers emerged.


I can't believe, this all will be over in a few hours.

Christmas tree farm and first snow

It was snowing yesterday - the first snow of the year. We had planned to go to a Christmas tree farm with a nice farm store and trails for hiking and the snow made the trip just perfect.







Our trip was to Brooksby Farm in Peabody, MA. Click here to find other Christmas tree farms nationwide:
http://www.christmas-tree.com/
http://pickyourownchristmastree.org/

20 years...and engagement rings

and still together.




My husband and I, we had yesterday our 20th anniversary. Since I had to work late because of my evening class, we postponed the "real celebration" to Saturday when we will see the theatre play "Rock'n Roll" by Tom Stoppard.

Fittingly to the topic marriage, I read today an article in our newspaper about legal issues concerning engagement rings. The article was about the question "who gets the ring if the wedding is canceled?" I found this article very interesting because I'm used to a different custom:

Men in Austria or Germany normally don't buy expensive diamond rings for the engagement. The custom is that the future husband and wife put at their engagement the wedding bands on, but on the left ring finger. A married couple wears the wedding band on the right finger.

Well, since things are different here and some men apparently spend a fortune for 'The Ring', the legal question seems appropriate.

The article explained that the regulations are state law. In Massachusetts and in many other states, if the wedding is canceled the ring has to be returned to the giver.

Like always, there are exceptions to the rule. The ex-fiancee may for example be able to keep the ring if the day of the proposal coincided with her birthday or Christmas. Then she can argue it was a personal gift.

Another exception could be extremely bad behavior of the former groom: Cheating or domestic abuse might give her the better cards for keeping the ring should it come to legal proceedings in court.

Income tax, marijuana and greyhounds II

MA's Governor Deval Patrick is happy with the outcome of Tuesday's election. Not only because of Obama. Patrick has another reason to celebrate: The majority of voters rejected an initiative to abolish state income tax. At stake has been 40 % of the state's income.

Personally, I'm glad that the voice of reason was stronger than the love for the own (filled) wallet. Hospitals, bridges, highways, schools - their construction and maintenance are expensive and how else are we going to pay for it if not with taxes?

The other two ballot questions in MA were approved: Voters were in favor of decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana and they voted for the ban of dog racing. The four greyhound tracks must close by 2010.

Income tax, marijuana and greyhounds

What do have income tax, marijuana and greyhounds in common? All three are topics of ballot questions in Massachusetts at the election next week.

I'm particularly curious whether MA voters will vote in favor of eliminating the 5.3%income tax. This would wipe out 40 % of the state budget and I can't imagine how MA then will pay for police officers, firefighters, teachers, social services, health care......On the long run, if approved, I expect property taxes and sales taxes to go up.

Ballot question 2 is about decriminalizing marijuana possession: If approved by voters and then also put into law, a person stopped by police with one ounce or less of marijuana will face only civil penalties instead of criminal penalties. It would be then more like a traffic ticket and nothing will show up on the criminal record.

And with the third question, MA voters get the opportunity to ban greyhound races. This was tried twice before but always defeated.

If the polls are right, there will be a NO to question 1 and a YES to question 2. Question 3 is too close to call.

Shaving Cream Fight

This weekend, we celebrated town day in Arlington. While Saturday provided an opportunity for the businesses in our town to showcase their services,



Friday night was the highlight for our kids.

I don't know, who started the tradition, but for years now, several hundred youngsters meet on the night before town day on the athletic field in front of the Boys and Girls Club for a shaving cream fight. It's always a lot of fun:

TS Hanna

I just found out on weather.com that even we here in the Northeast got a tropical storm warning issued. That's a first for me - it never happened before in the almost 10 years we are now living in Massachusetts. The weather today was very warm and sticky so far and cloudy with rain in the morning. Before lunch, we went swimming in our neighborhood lake - could have been the last time for this year - and now we are waiting for Hanna.

But whatever will hapen here in the Northeast, it will be most likely nothing compared to Haiti where Hanna killed almost 170 people...

Soccer champions

No, that's not about the EM (though we are all very excited about today's big game Austria vs. Germany).

Sascha was playing yesterday with his team for the championship in the U16 of the Bay State league.

Both teams have been undefeated in their previous games, and they truly were equally strong. They tied 0:0. After overtime and penalty kicks,

our Arlington team emerged as winners and qualified for the play off. Tomorrow evening is their first game in the Massachusetts Tournament of Champions.

Back to normal

Big relief - we are back to normal. The past couple of days have been brutal. With outside temperatures close to 100 degrees, there were not many places to escape the heat. One of them, the beautiful Crane beach, north of Boston. Something we never experienced before: Parking lot full on a Sunday in early June, and even the water looked tempting despite 53 degrees ocean temperature.



Unfortunately, on Monday and Tuesday the kids had to go to school. No AC there. The superintendent of our schools told parents they could keep their kids home. It would count as excused absence. The college, where I'm teaching, also has no AC and it felt even at night like being in a baking oven. A few students left early because of the heat - to be honest, I envied them....

Bird feeding by hand

On Easter sunday, we decided that it is finally time for a hike again. The sun was shining brightly, though the temperatures were more on the cold side. We went to the Ipswich River

Sanctuary of the Audobon society in Massachusetts.

After about an hour hike, we suddenly came upon a couple of people, standing completely still with outstretchend hands. As it turned out, they had bird seeds on the palm of their hands, and were waiting for birds. We didn't have seeds with us, but a nice lady shared a few seeds with my boys, and soon they felt the little birdfeet trying to hold on to their hands while picking the seeds. I thought it was very nice of the lady to give my boys the seeds, and I also thought, this is a typical American behavior. In my home country Austria, most people wouldn't have shared, probably wouldn't even have noticed.

More pictures on my German blogs: http://maxi-cat.blog.de