Friday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Friday

Four more dives under our belt

At dinner this evening a delightful little clown stopped by and introduced me to a new friend.

The ladies at the table got balloon bracelets. It was all rather charming in an unexpected way. But, then, no one ever expects the balloon guy. Not really. He’s a marvel unto himself.

We knew a balloon guy. Said it took years to get the art down. Not just tying the balloons, but doing it with patter. You have to be able to make the jokes without looking at your hands. It seems a silly thing, but these are people devoted to their craft. I could barely blow up one of the balloons.

So when you get a new parrot friend, appreciate him. It’s an art that is an investment, even if the finished product only lasts a while. The gesture can stick around for much longer.

Five days a day is just about all you would want to do, and that fifth dive would be a night dive. There’s an issue of timing and chemistry, surface intervals and endurance. We don’t have any night dives scheduled on this trip. We were supposed to get 20, all told, but lost some dives on Tuesday and Wednesday. Counting our last dives, tomorrow, we’ll finish with 14 for the trip, I think. We’re coming in with a bottom-time of juuuust under an hour on each dive, so far. I think we’re doing OK.

I promised you an eagle ray. Here’s an eagle ray. And some beautiful mackerel, and sponges.

We’ll get an even better look at an eagle ray before we’re done diving.

Here’s The Yankee in a swim-through. She used to not do these, afraid she’ll get tangled up in something, but this trip she’s gone through every one we’ve seen so far.

I always go in behind her, just to make sure her rig doesn’t get caught up on something. Most of them are quite wide, accustomed to a bunch of divers and are harmless.

Here’s our other dive partner, my mother, floating along in the currents of Cozumel.

And here are a few of the amazing views we took in. From the very big …

To the medium-sized …

To the small …

There’s easily more than a dozen species represented in that photo, which I took because I liked the two different sets of purple sponges right next to one another.

Below the surface there are mysteries and discoveries and wonders beyond your imagination. I suppose that’s why we keep going down there. To see. To wonder.

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5
Jan 24

More presents!

This evening we wrapped up our last Christmas holiday of the season. The god in-laws (just go with it) host us every year. Two empty-nesters are at the center of a house of 15. There are presents. There is lasagna. There are many photographs. It’s a nice time.

Before that, though, it was errands! An oil change! Clothes shopping! Grocery shopping! Lunch! And so on!

I visited Target for the first time in … I don’t recall the last time I was at a Target, to be honest. More than six months. Close to a year? Maybe a year? Anyway, not much has changed at Target. Middle of the day on a Friday after the holidays is a good time to be there, even in one of those stores that feels a little old and tired.

One of the self checkout stations had just … had enough.

There’s a lot to consider here. Is it the neatly creased paper? The crumpled part of the paper? The frowny faces? The target in “broken”? That it says broken?

I think it is the crying frowny face. One is sad, but the other is in tears. There are two levels to the upset nature of things at Target, and that hits home while you’re buying socks at the next self checkout.

Near the house, the line crews are doing line work. It’s a cold day to be in a cherry picker.

At the last Christmas of the year all of the kids presents were a hit. My lovely bride nailed it again. One of the little boys bought me a present. He’s five, and thinking of others. It’s a toy dinosaur excavation kit. When he comes over next time, maybe he’ll help me uncover the bones inside the “fossil.”

Another one of the kids wrapped a present for me — a really awesome mug. You’re just touched when the young’uns think of you.

And the lasagna. First generation recipe. I just sit in the corner and discretely eat as much as I can. That brings this year’s three Christmases to a close with seconds.

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15
Dec 23

Hey, that’s a Friday

I took the garbage to the convenience center Tuesday because, of course, there is no waste removal service in our neighborhood despite the two companies that send trucks up and down the road to visit their customers, our neighbors, every week. And so I do it the old fashioned way, by carrying things seven miles across town in my leather-interior car.

This is at least only a once-a-week exercise. It could go longer, but I’m not trying to ruin my chariot, or funkify its old car smell. Only this week I neglected to clean out the refrigerator on Tuesday. It would have been the sensible time to do so, just before loading up the car. But I did not. Which means it still needed to be done. And since we’re talking about it today, that means I did it this morning.

Removing some old things was fast. Looking for expiration dates might have been the biggest part of it. But by then I was invested, and so I might as well clean the refrigerator. Also it needed it.

There are many sections to our fridge. The freezer is on the bottom, and that has taken some getting used to after most of a lifetime with the freezer on top. Though we recently had a seven-year experience with a side by side, and that seemed to work out OK, even as it did feel a bit small. The point, I suppose, is that I am mentally agile enough to accept a radical change in my frozen foodstuff paradigm.

Inside the refrigerator section, there are three drawers. One for fruit and one for vegetables. Each is about half the width of the fridge. Beneath them both is a third drawer. We keep all of our cold hard cash in there. Previously it was just hard cash, but now it is cold. And also the bacon. The bacon is in that drawer, almost as valuable as the currency and one is definitely hiding the other.

Above the three drawers is the main section. Big items, your milk carton sized stuff, fit there nicely. Above that, there are two more shelves. One is rather small, but seems a custom fit to hold all of the last in crypto technology. And another is a medium size. It is full of my lovely bride’s breakfast and snacks and also some various cheese varieties. These cheeses are outcast from the door cheeses, which will hobnob with condiments, but not all of their dairy brethren. And, of course, the butter has sequestered itself. Snobby, churned product that it is.

And so I cleaned some shelves. And then I took the one bag from the refrigerator chore to the inconvenience center.

Somehow all of this took two hours.

And I just wanted to ride my bike. Last nice day for a while, and all. Probably the last nice opportunity for the year. Because soon there are the many holiday events and here comes the wind and rain and precipitous dip in temperatures and already I’m riding in two or three layers and full fingered gloves. All of which makes it a little more difficult to reach my phone and get the camera app open when I see random images I’d like to capture for no reason whatsoever, which is definitely one of the points of my bike rides.

Not too much longer after that I had a flat. I was only seven miles in, but that meant the end of the ride. It meant the end of the ride because, for some reason, the universe will not allow me to fix a flat and keep on going. There is always, always, always some reason that it’s over. I’ve learned to not fight it.

So I sent a message to my lovely bride that I had a flat and I would be replacing that tube and then limping back home. This, of course, leads to the hilarious four-message sequence where I get to assure her that I’m fine and I can change a tire and it does not require two of us, or her coming to get me, but definitely we should book an Uber Ultra, just in case.

Removed the rear wheel from the bike frame. I pulled the leaky tube from the tire and wheel. I inspected the tire. A little sliver of metal had worked its way through my Gatorskin tire, a heavy duty tire designed to prevent flats. And probably they do! How can I prove a false positive?

So I pulled that little bit of metal out of the radial and reached into my pocket for a spare tube and mounted it on the tire. It only take a few moments to do all of this. Before you know it, you’re getting an extra arm workout from trying to inflate the tire with the portable hand pump. That takes just about the same amount of time. But, soon, I’m back on the road. I thought: I could just keep going. But, no, the universe. And, also, I am now only down to one spare. So I turned around to head for home.

Not two miles away there’s a four-way stop. And a guy there decided he would like to almost hit me as I took my turn through the intersection. A woman was walking by and saw it and she was aghast.

“That idiot almost hit you!”

Somehow, the only thing that came to mind was, It happens every day.

In the seven miles between replacing the tire and the house, I had to stop and reinflate that tube five times. It seems the Presta valve was failing. And so going back home was the right move.

And I only got two more ridiculous close passes along the way.

Happens every day.

Safely back home, I started some laundry. And then, I started a fire.

The only problem being that now all of my clothes are clean or are being cleaned, except for what I am wearing, which smells like smoke.

The fire pit was worth it, though. We had a nice time. And then we had an even better time with s’mores. Haven’t made those in years. Which is probably how long we’ve had those marshmallows. They were sticking together in the bag, and to the bag. But put them over an open flame and they behaved just as they should.

And, now. I am grading things. This will be the beginning of the last big push of the semester. A little more grading this weekend. The final grades to be delivered early next week and then final scores tabulated for the semester. This is momentum.

But, first, the Barbie movie.

Later: That was fun.

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8
Dec 23

A bike ride and live music all in one day!

Last night was my last regular class of the semester. Tomorrow that’ll start sinking in. Or, perhaps, next Wednesday or so. And that feeling will be moved right out by the impending need to fixate on the spring term. Continual relaxation will be allowed for approximately 48 seconds on Wednesday morning, sometime between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m.

Monday I will be in a classroom, but only to help. No lecture offered. And finals begin on Wednesday. Grading will be done, roughly, between now and the next notable shift in continental drift.

But, hey, no lecture notes to write. No slides to change or create. Few things to monitor online. Eventually.

Today’s part in the celebration of all of this was to do chores around the house this morning, wade through some grading around midday, and go on a bike ride this afternoon.

It seemed a pleasant enough afternoon to hit the road, and so I did. Long tights over bib shorts, wind vest over long sleeve shirt. Real gloves, ear muffs. You can almost dress warmly if you put enough on.

I went about 12 miles to the county seat and got, I think, all of the markers along that road. This is the intersection of the historic district and the modern downtown. In fact, they are the same thing. In that two-block area I got, I think, 14 markers today. (So I have, now, enough on hand to get through the real cold when I’ll be riding indoors, but need material for the Wednesday feature.) There are about 19 more in that town. The rest I’ll probably find in the spring or next summer. And, somehow along the way, I hope the math of it all makes sense. Supposedly there are 115 markers in the county. I have shared 37 of them with you, I just mentioned another 23. I don’t see how there are 75 still out there. Some have been removed, so it’s really not 115, but the rest … well, I’ve surely miscounted. Badly. And more than once.

But you don’t think about that while you’re out there. The being there is what takes time. It’s all about trying to get across the road safely, being efficient, getting a good shot of the location, maybe notice something that isn’t always seen. Sometimes people want to talk. Today a woman asked me if I was sightseeing. Then she asked me for five dollars. Inflation has hit panhandlers, too, I suppose.

Getting to a location is easy. Getting back is fast — if you don’t take a wrong turn, which I often do. This impacts getting back home before the darkness falls.

I failed at that today, even though I only missed one road today. I was sprinting for the last stop sign on the way back in, about two miles or so to go, when I gave in and turned on my headlight. I was sure it would be dark. It was. I was sure it would be cold. Almost. I was sure I would be late. I was not.

Got cleaned up. We had dinner, and then we headed out for a show.

When bands you love come within 30 miles of you, you’re duty-bound to go to the show. And so we got out the map and headed to a place called the Scottish Rite Auditorium, which was having a wedding downstairs, and a folk rock ‘n’ roll show upstairs, simultaneously.

Be Steadwell opened for Emily and Amy. Creative, nice voice, quite funny. Steadwell said, a few times, how thrilling it was to open for the Indigo Girls. And then they brought her back on stage later. Amy complimented her for the audience participation part of this song, and for the song itself. It was a simple and sincere and sweet comment about that funny little love song. It was a “I know exactly what you meant. I’ve been there, too,” comment. You could hear the admiration and the understanding that came with it.

Something going on at the wedding was giving some feedback in their ear monitors, and the suggestion was made that all 1,000 of us or so go downstairs and wish the happy copy well, with two singers from Georgia. This would have been a good time, but the concert was better.

And then the tour dog stole the show.

All of that is in here, but mostly this is a quick Lyris Hung video, because I never show off her violin enough, and one of the things this particular audience was caught up in was her string work. So there’s a real fine solo in here. And then the dog part takes place at 5:45, if you’re interested.

It started because of a conversation about the band’s road crew digressed into a discussion about the dog’s genetic makeup. They had a friendly wager, tested the DNA and everyone was wrong. But, Amy said, the money they put in the pot all went to an animal clinic. And so, later, someone brought out the dog, because stage shows, it turns out, need pets.

Look at this dog.

They’re missing an opportunity here. They should do this for every show. At the merch tables, they should be selling whatever sweater the dog was wearing. It’d be a popular product.

It was a mild audience. The Friday-night-just-out-of-work crowd, maybe. But the performances were good, we had a great time, and we left singing about picking the best greens in the garden.

Oh, and The Yankee realized she’d been singing the lyrics to an Indigo Girls song incorrectly. It only took her the better part of 30 years and a dozen or so shows to notice. But that’s a different story.

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1
Dec 23

Happy December, somehow?

I’m not sure where today went. Or where November went. Or where the rest of the year went. But December is starting to seep into consciousness. If it wasn’t for the monthly computer cleaning I would be in total denial.

But I slept in. And then I did some work. That took a while. Details matter and sometimes it takes time to assemble the necessary and correct details. Much focus is required, and yet a cat can be distracting.

After lunch, I did a little work in the yard. One thing led to another and that turned into an hour. It started to rain. I came back inside. And then the afternoon just … glided into the evening somehow.

At the beginning of the new month I (try to remember to) make a chart of miles on the bike. Here is that chart.

The blue line represents an arbitrary goal I set at the beginning of the year, one that would see seven miles a day. The red and green lines are slightly more ambitious, and yet still very humble, projections of nine and ten miles a day, respectively. The purple line is reality. And, look, I’m ahead of the first two lines.

Mathematically, I’ve achieved the seven miles a day goal for the year. I’m in good shape on the nine mile a day goal. It seems incredibly unlikely that the 10 mile a day goal is going to be within reach. But that’s OK! I’m satisfied with everything else on the bike this year — except my speeds. I’m going longer, in the aggregate, and getting slower.

Maybe my wheels are tired.

Hopefully these last two days of rest will make them feel better, my wheels.

And by wheels, I mean my legs. We’re talking about my legs.

Anyway, happy December. And happy weekend. Have a great one!