Monday

Monday / photo — Comments Off on I found some extra photos from last month
13
Apr 20

I found some extra photos from last month

Spring has sprung! Again! Until it’s next inevitable retreat! Which should be in about 45 minutes!

Hey, April is shot anyway, right? May as well let this be the mercurial month of meteorology. Keep those weather folks on their toes or some such. And the flowers, and the leaves, and all of the blooming trees, like this one in the yard:

The cats are doing just grand. As we get set to begin our fifth week at home. Time flies! These guys will be monsters at some TBD return to the office.

Phoebe was sitting with me last night and couldn’t bear to watch the dramatic scene at the end of this week’s episode of Homeland.

Hard to blame her. This one was tough. Also, let the record show that I am wearing a fleece indoors because it is April, which is this month’s cruelest month, for different reasons than T.S. Eliot intended, I’m sure.

The cats have various trees and perches and bookshelves in many of our windows, because you bend your lives to the pets around you in an effort to keep them off your video calls — like we hadn’t done that before the age of Zoom. But here, Poseidon is on top of the mantle looking out at a bird or a chipmunk or something or other.

I like to think that, because he is not in his usual spot in that window he thinks he’s sneaking up on the critter outside, catching it unawares in the catching it in cat stares.

He’s a cat, but he may have high level cat intelligence. But, even as I resist the urge to mis-anthropomorphize him, I don’t want to give him too much credit.

It might go to his head.

I forgot about some pictures. See, it goes like this. The best camera is the one you have. And one always has their phone of course.

But the best camera I actually have is a DSLR. Only the mirrors need cleaning. And every so often I forget that it is the best camera I have because the best display I have is, of course, on my phone. Don’t get fooled by that, carry your camera. It is larger, of course. It slows the picture-taking down, of course. I don’t mind that part. It isn’t as easy as thumbing your way into the ones you like and then running through your minimalist resizing process. You have to get the reader, take the card out of the camera, plug the latter into the former and the combined apparatus into the computer, and the machine has to read the card and then you have to select the good ones so that you may go through your minimalist resizing process.

And then I take the pictures and I am pleased. And then I put it aside because of the extra steps. They’re just. So. Extra.

After you put it aside you forget. You get distracted. You get behind. And if you ever catch up again, you tell yourself, you’ll pull your camera out and take pictures.

And I do all of that. Then, sometimes, I forget to actually do the uploading. So now I am catching up. I have a fair stack of recent photographs to get through and we’re going to see three of them here. And that, friends, is how website padding is done.

To the Canon photographs!

Ahh, those heady days of late March, when we were already home, and we were suckered into an “early” spring, even when you know you are being suckered, the suckering sucks you in. To be twice duped is only the beginning, my friend.

Anyway, neighborhood tree blooms on a neighborhood walk. I believe it was a jeans and t-shirt kind of day.

The walk that lead me to this photo called for shorts, and it was a rare glorious day.

Perhaps this was the same day. The end of March, when you can’t get enough of all of the blooming things.

But before I could put away sweaters and jackets and things.

cycling / Instagram / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on Look at my pretty pictures
6
Apr 20

Look at my pretty pictures

How was your weekend? You just had one. Did you notice that? I notice my weekend by three things. Friday as afternoon turns into the evening I have a little ceremony and close my email. Then, that same night, I have an even better ceremony which culminates me in turning off the alarm so it doesn’t go off on Saturday morning. That’s how I know the weekend is here. For lunch on Saturday we go get Chic-fil-A. These days it is strictly a drive thru affair. Three weekends ago we sat in the restaurant, and it was almost empty and odd. The change was coming, and we all knew we were in the midst of it, even if we weren’t quite yet sure what that might be.

Now the young people are standing in the drive thru wearing gloves and hanging out near hand sanitizer and it is certainly different. But at least they are still able to work, and at least we are able to get a sandwich, and at least it is one indicator of the weekend.

So how was yours?

Let’s check in on the cats. Phoebe found herself a new spot on which to sit:

And since we’ve had a bit of sun lately we’re opening more curtains and she’s finding more spots.

Poseidon … I must give him this. When he knocks things over, he owns it.

I wasn’t even in the room when he decided the cup that was on the kitchen island should be on the kitchen floor. I thought The Yankee had come downstairs and had dropped something, so I wasn’t in a big hurry to go check out the sound. When I got into the kitchen a few moments later, he was patiently waiting to be found out.

More flowering trees I saw on my Saturday run:

It was five miles, but the run itself was nothing special. I slowed down, I told myself, to enjoy the sunshine and the warm day. And the budding trees:

And there was a fast ride this evening, which was of the Monday variety, I think.

I even threw in a nice long sprint just at the end, to finally pass her. (She didn’t know we were racing, which has a lot to do with why I won the spring.

More on Twitter and check me out on Instagram as well.

adventures / Monday / photo — Comments Off on No really, it is spring now, apparently
30
Mar 20

No really, it is spring now, apparently

First things first, this is a panorama, or almost a panorama, I took on a weekend walk. Click to embiggen.

Let us do our regular Monday with the cats. We have a strict Not On The Counter rule that the cats ignore. Lately, they’ve found a loophole. The Yankee received this package in the mail some time back and it’s just been sitting on this out-of-the-way corner. And so the cats jump up on the counter and sit on the box where, as Phoebe demonstrates here, she is not on the corner:

They are also chewing on the box, both of them. They don’t eat it, they’re just destroying it bite by bite. I pick up the bits on the floor every day, and I am pretty sure they haven’t really thought this through. When they eat the box, they’ll be back on the counter, and we will set them in on the floor again.

I’ve been asked why we always see pretty pictures of Phoebe, and pictures of Poseidon in his hijinks. Mostly it is because Phoebe is a good girl. And Poseidon does things like this:

Note the feet. Note the balance.

Now, note the cuteness:

Now, note this wackadoo:

Computer? Enhance:

Found on a run this weekend, art which transports you from where you are, to, well, wherever this is going:

It isn’t awkward at all when the homeowners notice you taking a picture of this. Or when you realize the artist was an adult.

Just down from where I took that panorama picture at the top of the post, after you’ve walked down the hill and over the footbridge, there are two tennis courts and a small playground and a nice long walking path. It’s just down a second hill from an elementary school, and, as you might expect, there are a lot of kids in a nice spot like that. The teachers know that, too. And so up and down the path, they’d come out and left notes for their kids:

It’s the cutest, saddest thing. Imagine the progress a teacher has made with those kids all year long, and it’s over in March. They haven’t canceled school for the year yet, but it’s coming. And from the point-of-view of the teachers, the big and little worries they must have. For that teacher it came down to the one message. Keep reading.

I think I got in trouble for reading too much. If class bored me, and many classes did, there was a book in my lap. How do you scold a kid like that? Meanwhile, you’re worried about that child on the other side of the room that is in a real struggle? And now you, a compassionate teacher type, know they won’t be there in your class, to benefit from your training and experience in a formalized setting for a good long while.

Spring is showing up. In the backyard:

These are all from one tree. And the blooms won’t stick around long enough, but what they portend is welcome:

I think of that Moritsugu Katsumoto line a lot: “The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your entire life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.”

Who knows if they’re all perfect, or if the poetry there is really about the aspiration, or even the pursuit. It’s a nice thing to think about while you’re staring at the edges of fragile, fleeting things.

Here we are down by the creek:

It was a nice weekend to see the beginning of things to come.

Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on A weekend in 243 words and seven photos
23
Mar 20

A weekend in 243 words and seven photos

Saturday, we hit the drive-thru, where things are still so fast they can’t be troubled to add the extra letters to the sign. It was our trip out for the week. Three young people who we usually see working inside were bundled up and pretending to be the menu signs. And then another person midway through the line was taking your money. At the window they were just giving you your food. And a message:

And I thought: Little things like that are going to mean a lot for people.

This means a lot to me, signs of spring!

I wouldn’t have seen that if we haven’t gone for a run, in the cold.

Do you see that little bit of blue? That’s all of the sky we saw through the clouds during our quick four-miler today.

When we got home, and I mean almost immediately — I was still walking up the stairs to the shower — the sun came out:

Phoebe and I might be having a breakthrough this weekend. I got four cuddles yesterday, which is a new record:

This guy, meanwhile:

On Saturday night, I heard a distinctive crashing sound. Someone, I have my suspicions, knocked this bag of their treats off the windowsill, from the counter and onto the floor:

By the time I got there they’d somehow defeated the Not-A-Ziploc seal. So now we have to had the treats.

We’re running out of room to hide things in, honestly.

Covid-19 / memories / Monday / photo / Pie Day — Comments Off on Happy Monday
16
Mar 20

Happy Monday

And how was your weekend? Ours was fine. We’re doing just fine. We hope you are, too.

We’ve gotten settled in to the new routine, hoping it is temporary, trying to think and plan as though it may not be. We went out for a brief time on Saturday, probably the last time in a while.

Loved the sign:

There just aren’t enough marquees with attitude anymore, and we should remedy that problem. I’m sure that’s a corporate concern for corporate types, but a good local sign adds a great deal to a place, if you ask me. And in a social media world, you’d think there’s an unending vein of material from which to draw.

Things are changing at restaurants. This is just the beginning:

People suddenly have a lot of toilet needs:

I hope you have your groceries in order. We did pretty well this weekend. The Yankee made us pie for Pi Day Saturday night. It was as tasty as it looks:

Our relationship really started with pie. OK, it actually started with a bad professor, but the second step was pie and that’s a much better story. I invited her to a barbecue place while we’d been carpooling an errand or two and said we should go try the pie. She said nah. I said, “Come on, it’s Friday. Friday’s Pie Day.” That worked. We shared a slice of lemon ice box.

A server at another barbecue joint had said the same thing to me the week before, trying to upsell the dessert. She did. I got the pie that day and a week later I used her line.

To great success, I must say. That was 15-plus years ago. For the next 11 years, until we moved where there is no pie, apparently, every Friday was pie day.

We had a beautiful day for our run on Sunday afternoon:

Happily everyone was off doing something else:

The regular Monday checkin with cats? They’re doing great, too. Poseidon is eager to see all the new things that the coming spring has to offer him:

And I caught Phoebe as she was getting ready for an office nap:

And that was the weekend. Hope yours was equally fine, and brought you some peace and cheer and rest and lovely memories. Take it slow. Be safe and well. Have a little grace and patience.

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