Monday

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on The week in between
28
Dec 20

The week in between

And how was your Christmas? And your weekend? And what does this null week look like for you?

We didn’t travel for the holidays, being safety conscious and risk adverse and all of that. The first Christmas I’ve spent in my own house, I was a newborn. The second, we were stuck in an ice storm. This, the third, I’m frozen in place by a pandemic.

So it was weird, and sad in some respects and empty and quiet in those same respects. But it was simple, and quiet, and lovely. The Yankee made cookies for Santa.

I picked us up some stocking stuffers — I think this was the first time I’d ever done that — and my mother-in-law mailed stockings, as well. So the two of us had four stockings, plus lovely presents.

The only downside being what could be shared in person. Had a nice long conversation with my mom. We had an amazing prime rib dinner, in keeping with tradition.

Here’s the before:

Here’s the during:

For the after, imagine two empty plates. Also, there were green beans and sweet potato casserole and a shrimp cocktail.

After all of that we had a video chat with The Yankee’s parents. Just add hugs. And we’ve all decided to keep track of how we’re going to make up for it when we can visit in person again. The best part is that everyone is healthy and safe, even if we can’t all be together. One of my relatives got out of the hospital yesterday after spending several days of Covid treatments. Hopefully they’ll continue to follow medical advice and stay away from others. More of the family should be following the now repetitive and obvious advice, but not everyone gets it, even if some of them get it.

But I sigh and digress.

I sighress.

The cats also had a fine Christmas. Their presents, which were wrapped, were kept in a closed closet to help them avoid temptation. One present’s wrapping paper did get chewed on a bit overnight. Added to the character of the day.

Poseidon is enjoying his toys immensely:

That little thing was covered in cat spit. Covered. I couldn’t put it in the creek out back and get it any wetter. Hours later it was still damp.

Phoebe is a much more thoughtful player:

On Saturday we rode through a bit of London.

Yesterday afternoon we toured the French countryside in Normandy.

And those were just the highlights. The normal stuff, the regular things, those are what really makes a great weekend.

adventures / books / cycling / history / Instagram / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Look! Up in the air!
21
Dec 20

Look! Up in the air!

I got setup on Zwift and a new indoor trainer this weekend, a gift from my lovely bride. Let’s see how bad this can hurt me.

Quite a bit, it turns out. That was a Saturday afternoon introduction ride, and for the next several rides, I’m sure, I’ll try to formulate the way that this style of riding is similar, and completely different, to being on the road. And I can’t wait to try to get better next week!

We had a nice walk on Sunday. The park nearest us was closed for surfacing repairs, said the sign. But the swings were open. And she is excellent at flying through the air.

She got that high because I helped push a little. We agreed that the days of high-altitude ejections was behind us. Knees and age and all that. But you’re always a kid again on a proper swing set.

Speaking of flying through the air, I finished up the David McCullough book, The Wright Brothers, last night. This was certainly one way to end a chapter on a down note.

I enjoy McCullough’s work, and have read about half of his immensely well-regarded catalog. This book seemed a bit rushed in the back-half, however. Having worked through the significant achievement of flight, the book glosses over training of Walter Brookins in Montgomery, Alabama and others elsewhere, the barnstorming and so on. It’s not the authoritative text, and is hardly extant, but it’s a good opening read on the Wright family.

Speaking of up in the sky, saw this cloud on this evening’s walk. I guess I was thinking about antique flight because, in the few moments before I could to a clear view of it, the shape reminded me of a dirigible.

Clouds being some of the most ephemeral and over-observed items available to us, it probably looked like a dozen things to a dozen different sets of eyes while it was lazing about today’s calm sky. What was your bunny was someone else’s turtle and my steampunk airship.

Planetary movement being predictable in ways that clouds are not, we all knew to go outside and look this evening. And, here, we had a good glimpse of the mislabeled Christmas Star.

I was sure, when I first read of the Great Conjuction a month or so ago, that we wouldn’t be able to see it because of the season’s regular dose of cloud cover — almost as predictable as the planets! — but we had a brilliantly clear and cool night.

And if you, like me, wondered if this or a similar planetary conjunction might have been central to the Christmas story, some astronomers who know how to calculate those things did the math and said, maybe, possibly, but also perhaps not.

adventures / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off on They were hungry, I’m sure
14
Dec 20

They were hungry, I’m sure

Another week has begun, and so we are here, to charm you with your regular update about the cats. Over the weekend I had to open their most recent food delivery. Being cats, they were very interested.

Poseidon saw the box coming out of the storage closet and was intent right away.

I thought if I put it up on the counter I could do the things I needed to do — open the box, pull out the bag, and transfer the important information, like the proportions and the calendar progress, the date I opened it and all the nerdy things you would write on a bag of cat food. I don’t know why I thought I could do it on the counter unimpeded, since the cats spent most of their time on it despite by wishes.

I put the box, including the food and Poseidon, on the floor and pulled the bag out from under him. He was fine with it. Back on the counter went the bag. And up to the counter came Phoebe.

Who could write on a bag in permanent marker around a face like that?

Chewy, which has been dependable throughout, has text printed on the box encouraging you to keep the cardboard, because cats like boxes. We’ve got plenty of boxes around the house, thank you very much, Chewy. We will recycle it, though.

Today is the anniversary of the beginning of our engagement. It was twelve years ago today that we were under Our Tree in Savannah, the same place we spent a day on our first trip and the place we return on every visit. (We were supposed to visit again this spring, alas.) The next year we got married just across the street. I asked her if she would like to have more adventures with me.

And we’ve had great adventures, every day! And still plenty more to come. There’s tomorrow, and Wednesday and Thursday and that’s just the normal, daily stuff. Most times, those are the best adventures of all.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on If you could be here you could have some
7
Dec 20

If you could be here you could have some

This is not a food blog. This is not a food blog because I am not a good food photographer. I am not a good food photographer because, sometimes, the things you see aren’t even food, but other times food photography requires extra lights and settings that I don’t want to employ and, ultimately, food photographers are some of your more talented photographers. I suppose I could improve my rather poor food photography abilities, but, ultimately, I’d rather eat the food.

Nevertheless, occasionally we try something new and tasty, and I want to brag on the delicious meal my lovely bride made. Recently I happened on a new recipe for red beans and rice and she decided to make it and we enjoyed that this weekend and it was quite tasty.

And I’m going to get a couple of lunches out of the leftovers, too!

The other thing about food photography is that sometimes what looks great on a plate might not always look great in a picture. But sometimes the shapes and textures work out. Because, also, she made sizzling cornbread and it’s pretty great.

If you get a Pac-Man shape in your day, you should document it.

If you’d been here for it we would have shared, but these are the times we live in, where we enjoyed that delicious meal just off camera of a video chat. But we could at least tell people about how good it tasted, and how she did a great job with the preparation and I did a pretty decent job clicking that link and exploring the recipe anyway.

All of it was delicious.

We also had a nice chilly bike ride this weekend.

That’s toward the end, where I notice from some great distance behind that she’s reaching for her phone and I have to try really hard to catch up. It’s a big ask, most rides. She’s very fast, even when’s soft-pedaling for a photo, as she was there.

hobby / Monday / photo — Comments Off on The week with bad titles
30
Nov 20

The week with bad titles

I’m sure this is some sort of king of the kitchen thing. Some sort of dominant cat of the kitchen island thing. Something I shouldn’t indulge — especially since he likes to jump to attack, who knows if he’s developing a penchant for leaping down to attack.

But he looks handsome doing it, so I guess that makes it OK.

Anyway, it’s Monday, so we check in on the cats and, as you can see, Poseidon is doing just fine. That’s a new posture for him. I hope it doesn’t take. That’s my breakfast and lunch seat, not his.

I will let him take naps in it at other times, however.

Phoebe is great, too. As you might know — or, if you have pussycats in your pad, you might have instituted something like — our failed rule about cats on the counter. Poseidon we’ll just shoe-shoe him off a counter. Or we’ll spray him with a nice little water bottle — which he actually loves, so you see, failed rule. Phoebe, however, we just pick her and hold her, which is a fate worse than nail clipping. But! We have the world’s greatest jailhouse jaguars and legal lions. They quickly found the loophole.

And we let this stuff slide. Any animal that can do the leg work on something like that deserves your approval.

Anyway, another Monday, another week. This is usually where I put something about the weekend’s bike ride(s) and so on. We did ride, a simple, basic, usually kind of ride, and it was cold. So I took no photos because retrieving my camera from within several layers of kit and two pairs of gloves seemed too risk at the time. But it was a nice ride.

And then I also worked on one of my little wood projects:

I’m toying with the idea of making a bowl. Everything, but the bottom, is coming along nicely. I’l; figure it out. In the meantime, it gives me a reason to stand in the garage next to a familiar bit of pareidolia.

It’s a perfectly natural phenomenon, seeing faces in things. It’s only weird if they answer you back.

Not to worry. Mr. Garagey is more the silent type.

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