Do you stop and consider yours when you’re hanging them on the tree?
Do you ever tell your friends and family the significance of the ornaments on your tree?
Do you ever ask others about that special ornament?
Friday
16
Dec 11
Sick, making this a photo day 5
I do not know if it is possible to detach one’s own lung. I’m going with, You can. Also, I’m following that up with, Almost did.
At about five this morning I coughed so hard I woke up The Yankee, two neighbors, a seismologist on campus and received a wellness call from the local authorities. I made it to the restroom where I thought I’d try another dose of cough medicine and enjoy a little water. This was a good place to be because all of barking and hacking had not yet reached its pinnacle.
Have you ever coughed so hard that you thought you were about to lose your lunch? That was the moment, some two days after having already coughed hard enough to strain my abdominal muscles in the solar plexus region, wondered if I could detach bone from muscle, and organ from human.
Remember: I’m feeling better. I thought, by the time I went to bed last night, that I was mostly cured. And then this spell that alerted the dog next door and warned off ships at sea.
But I am better today. My throat is fine. My sinuses are normal. The congestion is gone. I’m still coughing, but even that seems to have returned to a normal cough rather than the sort of thing that scrambles fighters. I just have no energy. Stand up, walk into another room and do one thing and I am wiped out.
Did visit a Christmas party tonight, just to get out of the house for a few minutes, have one glass of punch, say hello to the lovely hosts and see a few people. Also, to take this picture:
There are captains of industry, church leaders, leading academics and dozens of interesting and attractive people I have not had the chance to meet. There was a slideshow rolling past on one television screen, featuring photographs from last year’s party. We were in three pictures.
There were food spreads in at least three rooms, the giant Christmas tree was perfectly blown with fresh fake snow. It hung in the tree in a way it would not in your home or mine. There was a hand-carved ice bowl holding the shrimp cocktail. The ice bowl was decorated with autumnal leaves. We threatened to take hostage a key decoration if they did not hand over the bean dip recipe. Everything in their perfect house was perfectly decorated.
It was nice to be off the couch, even for a few minutes, which is all the endurance I have in me today.
Tomorrow I expect I’ll be standing on my head, feeling fine. And still coughing.
9
Dec 11
Baltimore
We are in Baltimore. Or one of the suburbs. It is hard to keep all of this straight.
We visited the National Aquarium in the inner harbor this evening. Here’s some video I shot of some of their big attractions:
And a few pictures. Fair warning: there is a photo of a snake a little further down the page.
I sat next to the gentleman on the right on the plane ride up. He’s a graduate of the naval academy. We’ve read the same books. He told me of a time when he was stationed in Panama and reading the top secret dossiers on Manuel Noriega and Fidel Castro. It was amazing, he said, how much information that had been collected over the years.
The guy he’s talking to here, on the airport shuttle, is a graduate of West Point. He ran track at the military academy. They compared class rings and duty stations.
Frog! (Remember, there’s a snake coming up, right after this.)
This is a tree boa. They are non-venomous and can grow up to six feet in length.
Megalodon!
2
Dec 11
Do not walk under this
This is a part of that roof project I wrote about earlier this week.
They’ve roped off two-thirds of the front of the University Center, to the left, for safety purposes. To the right of that is this crane. Behind the crane, and obstructed from view here, is a sidewalk that leads to a small dining courtyard and to the University Center Annex.
So that area to the left of this picture has security tape. They let me walk right through those arches in the background, right under that load of — I don’t know what they are lifting, but let’s call it steaming hot tar — as they were moving into onto that section of the roof.
I half-jogged, for safety, always with an eye on that big sled of steaming hot tar. Or cotton balls, or whatever it was.
Pedaled 15 miles today. I’m so far behind I’m backtracking on the bike. The next few weeks should be a lot of fun on my legs as I try to catch back up. The good news is that one of the hills in town that vexes me is starting to crack. Oh it still killed me today, but I am developing a strategy on it. I’m going to conquer it. Soon.
I say that in the hopes that you will think of it as some ominous peak that is forever covered in low clouds. It feels like it when I try to ride over it. One day I measured it on the map. That was disappointing. And by disappointing I mean I am not a very good rider.
That’s OK, though. It is Friday. I grilled us steaks. We had a delicious dinner and a nice evening and both pretended to not be sore from our respective rides. All is right in the world.
Yes, I realize all of the weekly features did not return after the holiday. I only noticed yesterday. Next week they’ll be back, I promise.
25
Nov 11
The Iron Bowl, from a different POV
I break this video out about once a year just because it offers a different perspective.
We’re in this video. Dressed in blue. We are tiny blue dots in one wide shot. Not for that, but for what you get out of the whole video, this is worth watching through to the end.
War Eagle.
