Monday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Monday

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2
May 22

Happy May

We went for a bike ride on Saturday. Lovely day for it, but a bit of a breeze, by which I mean a headwind in every direction. Also, she’s well on her way back to being fast again, just five weeks removed from leg surgery.

Which means it’ll be difficult to keep up with her in a week or two. Which means I’ll be in trouble in a month or so.

I must go faster. Somehow.

If it isn’t a fast ride, though, I just linger off the back and turn it into a scenic spin. There’s always some way to win.

We went to the softball game on Sunday afternoon. (At least it was breezy!) It was a good one to see.

Scoreless after seven, Indiana and Illinois went to extra innings in an excellent pitchers’ duel. IU had a chance to win in the 10th, but couldn’t score on a squeeze after finally advancing their first baserunner to third.

In the top of the 11th the Illini scored on two RBI singles to right, but IU was ready for their moment. Suddenly the bases were loaded and senior Brittany Ford drove one to the warning track in center.

Indiana won 3-2 in 11, avoiding the sweep at home and improving to 26-19. IU will wrap up the regular season at Nebraska next weekend.

Let’s check on the kitties, which remains our most popular weekly feature. They’re doing great, enjoying the actual sunshine we’re experiencing now, and yet still cuddling for warmth like we’re in the depths of winter. (I was even able to wear shorts this weekend, at the beginning of May.)

Phoebe likes walls … for some reason right now.

And if a wall isn’t available, there’s always a bit of furniture she can swim up to.

Isn’t she cute?

Poseidon likes the weekends because The Yankee makes a late breakfast and that gets the oven warm and he can take naps on this stovetop cover and enjoy the radiating heat.

That’s the routine.

“WE WANT SOME MEATLOAF!”

“THE MEATLOAF! WE WANT IT NOW!”

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25
Apr 22

If you’re keeping count, this is week 17 of the year

Let’s get this week started off the best way possible, by recounting our weekends! It’s as good a way as any to work through the reality of a Monday, I suppose. So, most importantly, how was your weekend? Great and warm and as precisely relaxing or fruitful as you planned, I hoped.

Mine started at the track. I left the office to catch the end of the Women’s Little 500. I briefly talked with the race director on Wednesday and it didn’t occur to me until later that I should have asked him why they start the thing at 4 p.m., when most of us are working. We ran into a guy we know who is a professor at a nearby school. We’ve had dinner with him before, worked on a paper together, used to hang out a bit socially, when that was a thing. This was the first time I’ve seen him since before Covid. Since then he’s bought a house, gotten married and had a child. The kid is already solving mid-level mathematical equations apparently. Time flies.

On Saturday was the men’s race. They take 200 laps around the track that surrounds the soccer field. Here’s the start and finish.

There were just three crashes. One was small and early in the race and the three or four guys that got tangled up in it popped right back on their bikes. One other I missed, and the guy seemed to be OK-ish when they hustled him off the track. And the last was in turn four of the white flag lap. They never threw up the caution flag — perhaps they have rules about that, or they just messed up — but this one was in the lead group. One of the guys was still crawling off the track when the remains of those hard-charging riders came back around 30-some seconds later. Most importantly, the group of eight contenders was whittled down to three or four guys, and that was the race.

Also, if you are wearing your best overalls, but somehow forget a shirt, a copy of the newspaper is highly adaptable.

Let’s check in on the cats. Here’s Phoebe at play in the cat tree.

And here’s Phoebe catching up on her time in the sun.

You can’t see it from the angle here, but Poseidon is sitting with his back legs on the sofa, and his front legs on me and his torso is hammocked in mid-air.

He seems to think that’s comfortable.

He also seems to think he’s a model.

I saw this car on Friday. I’m still surprised this was the first time I’ve seen this car around here. You think you’d notice that. It does stand out.

And, finally, a bloomington tree in blooming bloom.

Spring is upon us, thankfully.

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18
Apr 22

So close to spring you can hallucinate it on the shrubs and trees

Green things! I saw this on our Saturday walk. All of this started budding three weeks ago, but it’s been gray and damp and chilly for most of that time, and so the growth, and the various blooming of the trees, has gone largely unnoticed. Which is a shame, because the springtime explosion here is usually worth seeing. But so is this, up to and beyond the point where it feels rote. And, after this year, that seems a long way off, meaning we can marvel for some time. Green things!

It got cold again on Sunday. Who knows when spring will finally show up for good. Probably by next fall, at this rate.

Of course, my hypothesis is that spring always shows up here just in time for the Little 500 bike races, which are next weekend. So there’s hope, I guess.

Because it was cold on Sunday I spent most of the afternoon being sat upon by one cat or the other. And they are over the chilly temperatures, too.

And so let’s check on the kitties, who are the most popular feature on this site. Also, we haven’t shared them here in about three weeks. So we’re overdue.

Here’s Phoebe, cuddling for warmth.

And, a few days ago, she was trying to soak up some sunshine.

Poseidon, god of water, sub-deity of fuzzy blankets.

He’s angling for a promotion.

Oh, one more thing I did this weekend. I started building a photo gallery of photos from our most recent dive trip. I’m hoping to tweak the style a bit, going forward, but in case you somehow missed a few, you can see all 130 photos I’ve published, right here.

Click on any of the thumbnails there to see the larger photo. Click it again to see all the thumbnails.

And, for no greater reason than that I like it, here’s the bottom of the dive boat.

Gotta get back to that view soon.

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11
Apr 22

Hours of video, 10 more photos from the bottom of the ocean

And how was your weekend? Cold and gray Saturday here, sat on the porch and enjoyed the warm of a brilliant Sunday. Took a nice walk. A low-key stretch by all accounts.

More improv comedy from a live production on Saturday night. This should go right to where it starts, but if it doesn’t, scrub your way over to 12:48 to see all the funny stuff begin.

And if you’re not in the mood for young comedy — and how could that even be a possibility? — let’s have some sports talk with another fun episode of the B-Town Breakdown.

And here’s a package on a historic moment in this year’s Little 500.

I hope they did a version in Thai, too.

Let’s look at some more stuff under the sea! This is some sort of pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), I think.

Here’s another juvenile stoplight parrotfish (Sparisoma viride) hanging out with some beautiful branch coral.

This is a good place to mention that I updated the front page of the site this weekend. There are now a lot more cool images rotating through. Some of them you might find familiar from recent days here. I have a lot of really nice ones there, so we’ll be able to keep that fresh for some time. Check back often, as they say. (But keep scrolling for now.)

There’s a barracuda just hanging out under this rock. I got to within probably three or four feet of him. He was unfazed by the attention.

I’m not sure what’s prettier here, the color of the ocean, the coral or the the queen angelfish (Holacanthus ciliaris). This species, it is believed, communicates through temporary changes in color. Also, the juvenile fish are a different color. You thought you had difficulty reaching teenagers!

Always look in the vase coral. You never know what you’ll find inside. Like this lobster!

This is a moody picture, isn’t it? There must have been some passing clouds in front of the sun as I passed by this setting.

The light changes everything. You might think this is a lonely or spooky feeling, but you’d be mistaken.

There’s all sorts of interesting things to see and critters to meet, after all.

And if the fish and all of their natural wonders aren’t enough, you also have your dive buddy.

Best fish in the sea!

That is, by the by, the 100th photo I’ve published from the Cozumel dive series. And, if you’re wondering, I can probably get two more days out of this. So stick around!

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4
Apr 22

Fish aren’t sneakers, but shoes could look like fish

Spring arrives here just in time for the big bike races. Every year we’ve attended those races — Covid notwithstanding — you could either note the difference from the day before or, literally and seriously, during one of the two races themselves. This year’s iterations of the Little 500 take place on April 22nd and 23rd. And the spring series is underway, a whole bunch of smaller bike contests meant to determine qualifications and starting positions, and I guess spring is getting antsy, because we hit … 61 degrees today.

People were saying “You have to get outside! It’s beautiful!” And I said, we’re in an anomalous moment of a place with poor weather patterns and you’re missing the real takeaway.

That being it took until April 4th to get into the 60s.

There’s a lot of Stockholm Syndrome that goes into something like that. Warm winter, cold spring, and finally, finally respectable weather. What a weird phenomenon.

Also, I have not seen any robins yet. You usually see one or two here. Maybe it’s a migratory pattern issue. The bullfrogs have made their triumphant return, and the bike races, which really mean spring, are still two weeks away. Anything could happen.

There is presently snow in the forecast for Friday. Back home, they’re looking at 70s for the weekend.

The weather was lovely in Cozumel two weeks ago! Let’s see a few more of the neat views from under the sea.

The queen angelfish (Holacanthus ciliaris) is really one of those specimens that comes to mind when I think “Shoe designers should all get their inspiration from reef diving.” You know this would be popular at the gym.

Be careful you do not get pinched by the Carribean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus).

More cool reef shots.

This would be a good time to say that one of the productive things I did this weekend was update the front of the website. Go check out the new art!

Isn’t that beautiful? And there will be more to add there as we work through the rest of these photos.

Meanwhile, enjoy this blue tang (Acanthurus coeruleus). You know that’s a running shoe or a basketball shoe color scheme waiting to happen. These guys live up to 20 years, which is better than any sneaker you’ve ever bought.

Hard to mistake the stoplight parrotfish (Sparisoma viride) for anything else. They can get up to two feet long.

If you turned to look away, this rock and coral formation would move closer to you. It always looked that menacing.

How many living things are in this photo, do you think? (There are three tiny patches of sand, but everything else in this photo is alive.)

These delicate little blue coral vases became one of my favorite sights this trip. So delicate, so intricate, so beautiful.

And we floated above it all.

Drift-diving Cozumel is a great experience. Please pay no attention as I am pricing out airline tickets for my next dive trip.