My last blog post went into raptures over downtown, but we know it isn’t perfect. There are holes – though most of them get filled before long.

I am excited about David Zecchini’s latest innovation, a tapas restaurant on Broadway expected to open in May. And though I shoe’d myself almost exclusively through the Shoe Depot for years, I’m glad that space is due to be filled, too.

But what’s happening with the Border’s bookstore space? It’s been empty almost a year now.

I miss Border’s.

I miss the atmosphere, the books and the music in its heyday, and the public restrooms.

In Hamilton, N.Y., the Colgate University bookstore is actually in the heart of downtown, making it easy for the locals to at least buy the best sellers.

Granted, Hamilton is a much smaller community, and the Border’s spot ought to generate property taxes, and the Skidmore students shouldn’t have to travel a mile from campus to get to their books and T-shirts.

But still. I can dream, can’t I?

I am halfway through my first-ever Cadbury cream-filled egg. Make that three-quarters. Hold on a sec.

Gone.

Several weeks ago, more than a month before Easter, I bought one Cadbury cream-filled egg at the Stewart’s on North Broadway, where I filled up the tank using my Price Chopper Advantage points to save maybe 50 cents a gallon off of what I thought then was a ridiculous amount for gas but what seems today like a bargain.

Anyway, I snagged the egg at the checkout, remembering that once upon a time my husband casually mentioned that he liked them and remembering that when I wait for the day before Easter to buy Easter candy, the shop cupboards are bare. I didn’t want to take that chance.

Then, during the week before Easter, I heard the new WGY morning gang drooling in Cadbury anticipation and coincidentally needed once again to deposit my paycheck into my gas tank. So at the checkout I bought a second egg and stashed it away, to find out for myself what all the cream-filled fuss is about.

I had to eat the egg tonight, which is the end of Easter Day -- not for religious reasons, since I am Jewish and Cadbury eggs have, I am confident, nothing to do with the real Easter story, but because Skidmore College’s Dr. Paul Arciero, who is conducting an exercise and nutrition study in which I am a participant, gave the group his blessing to stray – but only on Easter.

Actually, I started Easter morning with a cup of cottage cheese and a fabulous cannoli from the wonderful new Rainy Days Cafe and Bakery in my husband's hometown of Mt. Morris, N.Y., so the diet was pretty well shot by 10 a.m. I’ve been meaning to write all about Dr. Arciero's 16-week study since it started 12 weeks ago, and I will write about it (as I vow to redouble the nutrition efforts, effective immediatey), but not today. Today is about Cadbury cream-filled eggs.

Now that I’ve indulged, I can say with assurance that the best thing about a Cadbury cream-filled egg is that the ingredients and information about nutrition, if there is any, are printed in type too small for the naked eye, or even the eye adorned with lineless trifocals, like mine. Plus, the printed information is folded and crinkled around the egg-shaped egg, ensuring its illegibility. And it is impossible to gently peel the world’s thinnest foil that is the egg’s wrapper without it shredding in your fingers, eliminating whatever miniscule chance you had of reading it.

It’s probably all for the best. Next time, I’ll stick with the cannoli. Um, I mean the cottage cheese.

Last year, The Saratogian checked out what was happening at Skidmore College on "4-20," a national event "celebrated" primarily on college campuses by smoking pot out in the open with impunity. The doings at Skidmore were mild, especially compared to some other big schools elsewhere. But it was still a story -- and the giant octopus bong made for memorable pictures. How much of a story was open for debate, and there was plenty of that. Some readers were appalled that such a thing occurred, while others found it laughable that college kids smoking pot was considered news. Still others condemned The Saratogian for being party-poopers and for letting a minority of students cast Skidmore in a negative light.
The same divergence of opinions exists a year later, though in recent months people across the country are increasingly willing to accept the concept of legalizing marijuana for medical uses.
Anyway, we revisited the Saratoga Springs college's campus at 4:20 on 4-20 and found, well, just a bunch of kids sitting around. It's the kind of followup you really have to do after having played it on the front page the year before.
This year, students were on notice from the college that an outdoor pot party would not be well-received. No tents or other enclosures were allowed on the lawn. So whatever pot smoking was going on that day wasn't happening then and there.
Who knows, some day it may become a legal recreational drug. Maybe.
Some comments on the saratogian.com story likened "protesting" the illegality of pot by smoking it out in the open to the civil disobedience of Rosa Parks. No matter what you think of the legalization of marijuana, the civil rights movements and Roas Parks should not be trivialized by such a silly comparison.