Impulse Purchases and Tracking Wildlife in the City

Sometimes we go to the grocery store together and end up making impulse purchases that look like this:

One part of that impulse purchase stems from the fact that my office did a Yankee swap for the holidays and the requirements were: purchase a calendar under 15 buckaroos (what a funny word that is) that is humorous, interesting, awkward but still office appropriate, wrap it, and add it to the pile of funny/interesting/awkward wrapped calendars. Proceed with traditional Yankee swap.

I ended up with this beauty, because nothing says professional like a homage to processed meat from the 1950s.

One unexpected bonus is that the calendar provides 12 (!) spam recipes including Spam 'n Lima Bean Platter, Spam Salad, and Double Baked Spam. Now, truth be told, I had never eaten spam prior to this gift which Will thought was a bit of a travesty. So--bada-bing bada-boom--suddenly we were purchasing a can of spam! And chocolate pretzels because we all know they at least were going to be delicious.

In other news, sometimes when I walk home from work I end up looking like a snowy bear (who likes to wear fun red down coats).

And then I when I get home and I see tracks in the snow and I wonder if they are rat tracks. We have rats around our house (much to the horror of our landlady who unfortunately is terrified of rodents especially, apparently, rats). A few nights before the following photo was taken by a world renowned wildlife photographer, Will came home a and mentioned there were rat tracks outside so when I saw these I was pretty excited to see what he was talking about. And, frankly, excited that I even noticed them at all because they were pretty small and I was in a rush to get into the warmth. Will can't confirm these are indeed rat tracks since I didn't put a penny down or something to provide a scale for the photo but I'm pretty confident they are. We're gonna say they are, anyway.

Finally, I close with this little photo that was taken a week or so before Christmas. It's the Boston skyline, which is beautiful in and of itself especially when you're crossing the bridge on a clear cool night. What made this view especially lovely though is the cute little sailboat in the bottom left, all lit up to celebrate the season of light. It made me feel all happy inside when I saw it the first time and then again when I found it in my phone. Belated Merry Christmas to all.