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25
Jan 21

The photos improve as you scroll

It was this kind of weekend. Cold and damp and it could work almost to the bone. It was 32 at best, and that didn’t last long, either day. It left us with lovely views, like this:

Timing is everything in meteorological events. All that fog would be a great mood-setter around Halloween. But here, near the end of January, I’m close to over it. The good news is have 10 more weeks to get good and bored with views like this:

“But we’ll have sunny skies on Friday!” he said, exasperated.

We punctuated the evening with ribs, of the fall-off-the-bone variety. They were quite tasty. We should have had more. We should have them more.

A friend said on Instagram that he wants to have abs, but he likes ribs too much. I don’t see what the problem is. Abdominal musculature and ribs are located closely to one another. Why not have both?

I didn’t mention he’s getting to that age where that idea is a vanishing proposition. Let him figure that out on his own. And then he can enjoy his ribs in peace. If he’s lucky, they’ll be in pieces, not unlike the ones we had last night.

It’s Monday, so, to the cats! The cats are grand. Just had a nice little play session with one of them, in fact.

Poseidon, as ever, likes being under the cover. It’s a morning and nighttime ritual at this point. It might be too cold for him here:

Phoebe also likes cover, but she takes her cozy naps in the evening.

Poseidon got himself stuck in a box.

He was nosing around it, the top and the bottom had been opened up, so the cardboard wanted to fall over on itself. But if you stood on either side it would stack up nicely and he shimmied in, grateful for the help, until he realized his predicament.

As ever, he is an embarrassment to his sister.

food / Friday / photo — Comments Off
1
Jan 21

Happy New Year

This is already off to a great start, don’t you think? It just feels brighter. Happier. New. It did after midnight, anyway. How long does that last, in reality? Sure, the get outta here 2020 thing is a good joke and a fervent plea, but no one is operating with the false ideal that things will be different when they get back to work next week. (Sigh.) But perception is reality and, for at least a few real minutes, the calendar is the perception. Maybe it sticks. Maybe it sticks for you.

(Those are Fourth of July fireworks from two years ago, because it fit the theme, right? But we’re done with that now. And we’re going to do things for real and right, right? Right.)

Slept in, because, you know, had to see the world’s most awkward made-for-television television event. Cat woke me up. He did not have “being considerate” as a new year’s resolution because, of course our cats understand calendars and the concepts of fresh starts and the turning over of a new leaf. They understand these things, but it got ignored this morning, and so I’m resolved to do something about that cat.

And then I fell back asleep. These things together just through the whole day out of whack. No matter. It’s an easy and light day. Went for a nice walk. Watched some football. Got ready for this:

Oh, dinner was so good. We frozen the extra ribs from Christmas and had them tonight as a candlelight dinner.

A candlelight dinner for New Year’s. We sat, and talked, and it was delightful. We resolved to have more candlelight dinners. They can’t all be like this though.

And later, the compression boots. Feet, calves, knees and quads. It’s a four-point system of delightful and intense pain.

So, yeah, already off to a great start.

Happy New Year, to you and yours. Be smart, be safe.

More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account.

adventures / cycling / food / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
31
Dec 20

Wrapping it up on time and in style

We ventured out today to Menard’s to pick up a few things. Not needs, but some small household helpful wants, if you will. But Menard’s has been great from the beginning of all of this, and we were ready to leave if it was busy, but we timed our trip to go at a hopefully light time. It was not crowded. The few people in the store all kept to themselves and practiced some conscientious responsibility.

Not counting a few quick grocery store trips, this is the third time I’ve been out since November 23rd, according to my notes. (You’re not keeping your own contact tracing list?) One of those times was to work, and the other two times, as it happens, to Menard’s. So I’m not sure if everyone everywhere around here is behaving this cordially and respectfully, but here’s to hoping.

Oh, we also got gas today. First time I’ve had to fill up since the end of October — because I’ve been practically nowhere, see.

So, a large store, staying well away from the few people also inside, and the humans at other gas pumps, the most people I’ve seen in quite some time.

In the afternoon I got this done.

It’s a 10-mile loop in Richmond which is apparently the 2015 world championship course. I had scheduled 24 miles today to wrap up the year and achieve all of my goals, meaning I had to of course do two-plus loops. This was my sixth day of riding in a row and the eighth ride in the last nine days to meet those goals and my legs were tired.

Tired.

There are two significant climbs on the route, so I had to go over them twice. On my last time through I took 20 percent off my best time on each climb. On my second trip around the course I took two percent off my PR for the route. I sat up at the end of the ride sweaty and pleased with myself. Tired, but feeling strong. Goals achieved, simply because I wrote them down and somehow that committed me to tracking them down. (Two years in a row this has happened with year-end things. Maybe there’s something to it. My 2021 resolution is to write more goals and will them into reality. Then we’ll know.) I’ve earned a rest day or two, and some time in the compression boots.

Also, I’ve convinced myself I deserve this, too:

It was so tasty and, like that ride, a great way to end this year. If we ~~could travel~~ were accepting visitors, I would have invited you over to not have some — because we ate it all.

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21
Feb 20

We are leaving the week behind

Quite a few years ago we impulsively pulled into a Sonic. I feel silly saying that because, really, how often does one pull into Sonic as part of a plan? We’re coming back from the beach and decided we wanted blizzards. We parked, the guy’s voice came over the little speaker and we placed our order, feeling a little like we were in a different era. Maybe they’d skate our snacks out to the car. Maybe it would be just like you imagine.

We aren’t Boomers and the guy wasn’t a carhop. He shuffled slowly, painfully, aimlessly, like there was nowhere to go. Like he didn’t know which of the other empty spaces this order was supposed to go. Like he didn’t know what to say.

“We’re out of spoons. Can I interest you in a fork?”

The blizzard is an ice cream with a thick viscosity, but, no, you can’t interest me in a fork. (We went to the drive-thru at the McDonald’s next door and said they’d forgotten our spoons and they, of course, gave us two.)

That was the precise wording, though. “Can I interest you in a fork?” So polite and, yet, absurd, that we committed to memory, added it to the lexicon and turned it into a perma-punchline.

The Sonic orbited a grocery store. I just measured the distance on Google Maps. It is 618 feet away. So my near-incredulous “Walk across the parking lot, walk into that Publix and buy a box of plastic spoons,” remains on point.

Today I got to make the joke again. Because we went to Chipotle (again) and they were out of forks.

Chipotle on Kirkwood, I observed, should join forces with the Sonic on Whitemarsh Island. Between them, they could maybe they could put together a full set of plasticware.

Have you ever tried to eat rice with a plastic spoon? It can be done, but you shouldn’t try to do it if you can help it.

Also, that same out of order note has moved down the line.

Gerald, the fictional third shift leader in charge of liquid refreshments, really is the worst.

Here’s the classic Friday evening photo. See ya, work week:

There’s not much better than putting it all in the mirror, is there? And sometimes if the car is pointed in the right direction you get lucky with the sideview.

One of the few things better? Terrific pizza:

We went to Indianapolis for the night, which meant we went to nearby Carmel for a decent pie. Because, again, in a college town with 46,000 students, you can’t get a superlative slice. Mellow Mushroom should always be closer. We’d be there every week.

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14
Feb 20

Happy Valentine’s Day

And a cold one it is. But the sunny is out, and it became one of those days when the sun made all the difference. If you were dressed in the appropriate amount of layers.

This was the view this morning. Just look at that fog rolling of the creek.

Here is my official work Valentine:

That’s a giant sloth skeleton. Well, it is a 3D-printed recreation of a giant sloth. Story goes that he was discovered on the banks of the Ohio River in the 19th century. Sometime later he was donated to the university and the fossilized remains were on display in a science building. Then, in the 1940s, the bones “got thrown out.”

There’s a bigger story there. That story may be lost to history, but anything told, misremembered, perhaps obfuscated and then glossed over 80 years later becomes an easy recitation of “facts.”

Eventually, it was decided by the Office of They that the sloth should be put back on display as a part of the university’s ongoing bicentennial celebration. Only, no one has the bones. But better than fossils, we can reprint them. Technology is grand! Some of the bones were apparently not lost to history, carelessness, conspiracy or whatever it was. And they were used as a model, along with careful consultation of other ancient sloth specimens. Ultimately, it became a collaborative effort among several aspects of the university, which was probably the most important thing. Our part is … hosting the sloth. The original didn’t sit in this building, but this one is, for a time. The orientation is unfortunate. It is pointing at the newspaper’s offices and it really shouldn’t. Apparently he’s going on tour after Spring Break. A very slow tour, I’m sure.

Had a cookie:

I walked down to the local little cookie bakery where they make custom-ordered treats. Made a video of it for a friend, shared the cookies with some people in her honor. I made sure to enjoy one for myself.

And I saw this on the way to the car after the day’s work was done. Tulips! Sun!

I want to be heartened by this, but I won’t be tricked. Not this year. I remember the video from this morning, after all. And I’ve come to realize: after you see the first tulips here, you still spend two months in sweaters and coats. Three winters, lesson learned.

OK, here’s an important part of the cookie video:

Happy weekend! Find yourself a cookie. Probably you deserve it.