After a thoroughly trying afternoon of meetings, I came home to check the mail … but there was no mailbox.
There was a mailbox, but it wasn’t on the post. It was on the ground. That is most decidedly not where I left it earlier today.
Great, I thought, that’s something I get to figure out how to fix tomorrow.
Soon after that I got a text from my lovely bride asking about the mailbox. She was asking because someone called her, leaving a message saying he hit the thing, and he’d be by later this evening to explain what happened. That’s a decent thing to do. And, sure enough, a man showed up in the early evening, chagrin and regret on his face.
He said his son lives in our neighborhood and he’s through here all the time. Today he was dropping something off and, as he left, he said a hornet or a wasp got in his car. He looked down to try to swat it away, or some such, and his car drifted to the right, hitting the box, tearing it from the post, cracking his windshield and ripped out the wood work.
He said he was going to come by tomorrow to replace the box, which was a wonderful gesture.
And, most importantly, I don’t have to figure out how to install a mailbox tomorrow.
Guy felt so bad about it he wouldn’t even let us pay for the box or the lumber. And, presumably tomorrow, the bills can be dropped off once more.
I did get in a nice 21-mile ride today. It was good to be outside. There were no new roads, but I put a few of the familiars together in a new combination. It was warm and sunny, and my shadow enjoyed it.
And now it’s dinner time. We’re getting Indian food tonight; that’s something to celebrate.
And how was your weekend? Mine was lovely. (I hope yours was even better!) Let me show you.
On Friday, I swam a mile, a nice cool 1,650 yards.
Somewhere around 500 yards or so my arms finally decide they want to make the many revolutions required to complete the swim. I say arms because there’s precious little for my feet to do. Oh, I try to kick, but it doesn’t come automatically. I have to tell my feet to do the fluttering, splashing thing. And then, soon after, they stop. I’m probably a few thousand miles away from them doing their one job in the pool without conscious thought. Maybe I should do kick drills.
I think about that, but somewhere around that 500 yard mark my mind goes away and it’s just breathing and counting and turning, and 500 yards turns into 1,300 or so.
It’s satisfying, to count up those lap numbers — if I can keep count while I try, in vain, to remind myself to kick.
I had a nice ride Friday afternoon, too. I turned right out of the neighborhood, rode on down to the stop sign and, instead of going straight or turning left, as I normally do, I turned right. Because, somewhere down that road about five miles, there is a four-exit roundabout and I suddenly wondered, Where does the other exit go?
So I went down there to see where that road went. Part of the way down I thought I knew where it would take me, but I was wrong. Also, I wasn’t too wild about the road. I probably won’t use it too often. Five miles later it dropped me off in town, and I spent the next 10 or so miles just noodling around through the countryside. I took this one near the end of my bike ride.
I got back in just before it got dark, making my lovely bride happy, because that meant we could eat dinner at a reasonable hour, and not dictated by pedaling away in the quiet of a late summer evening.
On Saturday, we were enjoying a nice early evening outside, and when we looked to the east, we saw …
I don’t think phone cameras do a good job of capturing rainbows, but this was a spectacular rainbow. And then it became a double rainbow.
It hung there for more than 20 minutes, long enough for two planes to fly toward it, or through it. I wondered if they could see it up there. Rainbows are a question of timing and positioning, perspective, then.
We know they saw it in the city. On what was, I suppose, a slow news weekend, this was a big doing in the paper and noted on local TV.
Also, we got a double rainbow out of the deal. This is a panorama.
(Click to embiggen.)
This was, I am sure, one of the best, if not the best, rainbow experiences I can recall. It looked like it touched down just on the other side of the neighborhood. I haven’t heard about anyone finding the gold, though maybe they’re wisely keeping that quiet.
The Yankee and I enjoyed a nice ride yesterday. We did a variant of one of her favorite local routes, and then tired from some big workouts, I dropped her off at home and pedaled on.
Around 30 miles into the ride, I saw this masterpiece of modern art.
For the next 10 miles, so all the way home, I wondered how you fix that. Surely, there must be enough slack in the lines to allow them to move the busted pole out of the way while they installed another one right next to the old stump. You can think of a lot of ways that the linemen might address that problem in that half hour or so. I bet they do it with good cheer. After all, you finally must assume they’ve handled something like this before, probably many times. There is surely a procedure. No doubt they have a contingency. And I’m sure it will be repaired this week, if it isn’t already back up to spec today.
And while I was thinking of all of that, my shadow had a pretty good ride.
Sure, he looks like he has good form, my shadow, but he never has to pull any actual weight on these rides.
It was a normal Thursday. I went to work, as one normally does. We stopped by a grocery store for fruit and water. I’d also carried a large bin of cut cantaloupe for the ride over.
Campus is just 15 miles, 25 or so minutes, away. We weren’t stocking up for a journey. So the fruit I cut last night was our in-car breakfast. The fruit tray and water was for our beginning-of-the-year department meeting. It was scheduled to run for five hours, including lunch. The meeting ran five hours, and then just a few extra minutes for the traditional grousing and venting that can occur in any meeting, anywhere in America. It was well plotted and well conducted, then.
The meeting began with a few ice breaker. We were asked to list our favorite movie from when we were younger — which was left deliberately vague in an ad hoc way — and how that impacted us. There were 15 people in the room, but it went pretty smoothly. Here are people who have given this thought, live the sort of examined lives that included this precise question or are pretty good at the ol’ razzle dazzle. Since they stand in front of college students and talk for a living, any of these things, all of these things, are possible.
I said The Princess Bride and Spaceballs, which have each, I suppose, informed an irreverent sense of humor. But, I said, lately I’ve been working on another project, which is to each day incorporate a line from Road House into conversation in a contextually appropriate way. The guy sitting nearest to me, an earnest, high energy, fast talking fellow who gives you the impression that he’s seen it all and came back again, said, “Be nice.”
Later I asked him about the message of his t-shirt. It was a direct reference to a British comedy and, he explained, a direct commentary on …
I’d only just met him, but told him we were going to get along just fine.
Much talking was done. Some writing was done. Advice was shared. People had questions. Sometimes there were answers. Other times, the answers would be forthcoming from other series of meetings. Academia in a nutshell.
And while this was happening all afternoon I received an email from the technology people that my new computer setup was in. I’d previously been told it would take a few weeks to arrive. Now, I’m under a barrage of emails, but it hasn’t been a couple of weeks. So a pleasant surprise. I made an appointment to stop by after the faculty meeting to get the new hardware.
There’s a place setup on campus designed to be evocative of Apple’s Genius Bar and that’s where the hardware distribution is taking place. The people there were perfectly lovely, pre-fall-term enthusiasm is a great vibe. I had a nice conversation with a young man where he came to realize that he could talk to me almost like a person who actually knew what was going on. I am not that person, but I know those people, and I have learned, over the years, the deft art of faking it. I walked out a short time later with two armfuls of things.
I did not sign the first document. I assume that they assume I am me because I knew my password.
And tomorrow I’ll start setting up some of that equipment. It was then, a productive day.
Just one song today, so I can cover the whole week. This is the first track from their 13th studio album which is turning 13 this fall. I mishear the chorus. It might be a deliberate choice because, sometimes I’ve finally learned, those are just better versions for you.
(Remember, I was shooting that from a ZIP code away, but the audio is pretty good.)
I take it as share the mood, rather than the moon. You can see why the latter works, but the thing that binds us to other people is the shared moment, of course, and that could be something with or without a celestial satellite. We just need a personal satellite, or to be the one orbiting others, maybe. Probably I’m overthinking this. Probably it’s just always been clunky hearing.
I mean it’s right there in the title of the song. I have the album, of course. I’ve seen Amy and Emily play this song live at least three or four times. Doesn’t matter. What is important is the mixture of what it all brings forward. There’s a certain tiredness, a resignation, in the lyrics, but in that third verse, above, there’s something more fundamentally aspirational at play. And it’s all underpinned by the E, by the mandolin and wrapped up in Lyris Hung’s beautiful violin. Who has not been on that road, going somewhere? Hoping to head to someone?
See? It’s a mood.
But I overthink, which is the prelude to overwriting.
And sometimes the prelude to underwriting, too, if you think about it.
We went for a poke bowl. This was when I learned something about poke bowls. The fish is raw — which is not my thing. Eat it fast and in big chunks, then.
And, next time, order the ramen bowl, like you initially planned to do.
Anyway, it was a lovely night for dining outside. We were the only people at the place, so we timed it right. And the food was good, except for, you know.
The purpose of that trip was to go see a rock ‘n’ roll show. I am, of course, going to get two posts out of this.
Opening the show was Melissa Etheridge. I bought her first albums as cassette tapes. They were loud and a little rowdy and a lot intense. Or, as she said last night … (Excuse the video quality, we were roughly a quarter of a mile away.)
That’s a good summation, the raw lyrics, the talented guitar work, it all worked very well.
For me, it was all about those first three albums — even though I was playing catch up. Someone played me a song as a teen and that 12-string guitar got my attention and her sound kept it. Superstardom was obviously on the way, the drama was there, and she was belting things out as fast as she could churn them out, and she’s been prolific for decades. Sixteen studio albums, five of them platinum, two golds. She’s supported them with 43 singles, including 11 that charted and six landing in the Top 40. She’s moved more than 25 million units, not counting whatever her digital sales are. But, again, for me, it was the first three records. Time and place. Lightning in a bottle. An earnestness that matched a feeling, whatever it was. If I had to narrow it down further, it just might be about this song. And, man, I still can’t believe this happened. It’ll take days to get over this. (Update — Still not over it.)
Amy and Emily doing melody on the song about two people running away together, or just running away? I do not know the extent to which a pop ballad can move a person, but there I was, thinking, No way 16 year-old me could have pictured any of this.
I suppose we could have left then and I would have felt as though I’d had my fill. How often can you say that just a handful of songs into a show? But you don’t do that, because there’s always the potential for magic in the air. They rolled out a piano and Etheridge put down her guitar and played a Joan Armatrading classic.
One day, someone is going to figure out that Melissa Etheridge has just been riffing on Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Joan Armatrading her whole career. And why not? It works.
She’s 63 and still brings it. I’d never really had a desire to see her in concert, and I see now that was my loss. She put on a terrific show, and that was only the first half. We’ll get to the rest of the show next week.
Back at home, we have a new friend in the backyard. I just happened to catch this in the light as I went about the evening chores. Much better to see it than feel it.
It’ll be interesting to watch that web work evolve, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, over in the giant leaf district, we will find giant leaves.
That plant sits next to the water spigot, so it gets a bit of extra water whenever that’s on. I assume that’s why it’s taller than me now. Thankfully the brown-eyed susans that are growing next to it have no similar ambitions. But who knows what they’ll get up to this weekend.
And you? What are you up to this weekend? Make sure it is a good one!
Some many years ago I had a brief passing thought about a photograph project. What would it be like to shoot all of the rust? It has a certain beauty. It says, well, a few different things, if you contemplate it long enough. It’s also everywhere.
And sometimes, I find myself staring at a bit of rust.
When I do, I think of that passing thought. How long would that take? And who are you kidding? How many things would rust away by the time you got back to the starting point? Saturday, when I was looking at that bridge, I wondered, wWhat does all of the rust in the world weigh?
I was staring at that bridge while my lovely bride was checking in for her triathlon. She did a half iron this weekend.
The half iron includes a 1.2 mile swim, in a river, this time. Here, she is exiting the water right on schedule.
Immediately after that, there’s a 56 mile bike ride.
She dropped her chain, and said someone swung out in front of her and ran her off the road. She was OK. At least two different people were less fortunate, and had accidents involving cars. Excellent job securing those semi-controlled roads by the race organizers and local authorities.
And after that 1.2 mile run, and well-paced 56 mile ride, she had a half marathon to wrap up the event. Here she is setting out for the run.
She had a great swim, and she was pleased with her bike ride. But she did not care for her run. Aches and pain and no shade and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, when she made it to the line, she finished with a smile.
And that’s her fifth 70.3, to go alongside her three Ironmen triathlons. And wraps up the best part of the season. I think she has one or two more runs scheduled, just for fun, but everything is for fun from here. (It should all be fun, I say. Finish with a smile, that’s what I say.)
On the way back home today, we stopped at this place. ‘
Because, look, when you tell a trusted friend you are driving through her native neck of the woods and she simply replies that you have to go eat at this place, you take the advice.
Our trusted friend was spot on with that recommendation.
Today was a long day in the car; there was a lot of reading Wikipedia to pass the time. Tomorrow, it’ll be back to work.
