It's dark, rainy, and cold outside and I am at work listening to Built to Spill and suffering from writers block.  This may or may not be a good combination.  

Working hard? Yes and no.  I have less than a month of school and about five million things to turn at school and a list of events to look after for work.  My eyes will fall out any day now, promise. 

Went home for Easter.  Drove around a lot and my head wanted to explode from all the pollen stuff in the air.  Spring really hasn't hit Chicago yet so my head didn't know what to do with all those flowers blooming.  After eating too much food I hit the airport only to forget my phone.  No phone means being glued to my computer so that I can communicate with the outside world.  This also means looking at a screen for longer that I'd wish.  

On the bright side, I will finally get all my work done for school and graduate.  I will most likely get my phone back tonight.  The Crossfader King events will be fun and worth all the worrying/planning.  And spring will finally reach Chicago soon, to be immediately followed the next day by summer.  

In other news Melanie is doing fine and riding high on oxycontin.  She has gotten a lot of funny get well cards and lots of yummy food.  Feel free to send any desserts to me because she has too many.  Also, if you're trying to sell her anything, right now would be the time to do it.  She can be talked into mostly anything considering she thinks our dog Murphy is talking to her.  Just kidding...kind of.  

Seriously though, thanks to everyone who's been thinking of my mom.  She really is doing great and it's good that they caught that junk before it got more serious.  Go by and see her if you're in KC.  She has lots of good treats.  

      Last weekend was Easter. Just a recommendation to anyone wanting to travel to Ireland, or really anywhere in Europe connected to the Roman Catholic Church, don't come Easter weekend. Everything closes, including the grocery stores, and a bustling city like Dublin becomes a ghost town. So while my parents called me telling me about the feast they were going to have, I sat on the other line eating toast because that's all I had in my cupboard...it was either that or brown sugar. But, things are back to normal now and food beyond bread is available.     

     Today I went to the Botanic Gardens. It was sunny and 51 today so it was perfect. The grounds are huge with five or more green houses and an endless park. I'll have to go back in late May when more of the flowers outside have bloomed. But even so, the place was beautiful, not just the plants either, the greenhouses were works of art themselves.      

     I was only there for an hour and a half but managed to take a million pictures. My favorite green house was the South American one, of course, and it was filled with gigantic trees and plantain plants plus there was a cat that lived inside too.  It was incredibly humid in there so I had to keep wiping off my camera lens. But I will say that I welcomed the humidity and the warmth of the green house. I've spent a lot of my time here being fairly chilled, so it was nice to feel like it was summer for a minute. 

and then magically i went from dublin to the amazon.

green house cat.