Off the back deck …
Enjoy it while you can, I said to myself, and then I did, and then I went back inside. It was dinnertime, after all.
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22
May 19
On water on the ground and in the river
Mid-late May is far, faaaaar too early for the first fallen Maple leaf of the year. It hasn’t even been warm yet!
It’s been damp a lot, though. You can tell because the creek is threatening the banks. Of course it could do that if there’s an abundance of humidity.
The maple leaf was in our driveway this morning. The little stream is on campus, winding through the beech and maple. They call it the River Jordan, named after a 19th century university president. He said, when he left IU for Stanford, that he didn’t want a building named after him, but he liked that waterway. It was a hugely prominent geographical feature, especially before the continued campus development. And so it was, but the River Jordan returned to the old name, Spanker’s Branch, when it left campus. (No, really, Spanker’s Branch. There’s a plaque and everything.)
Jordan got a building named after him later, anyway, and the whole waterway now bears his name, as well. That’s our loss. Spanker’s Branch is a great name, but I haven’t yet found the historical origins of the ancient name. My best guess, though, is that it was a name, rather than a verb. But! I have found a 1922 book of local stories that includes an anecdote by an octogenarian about her father playing at Spanker’s Branch as a child. If she was 80, that name would have good way back.
So the search will continue.
21
May 19
The modes of locomotion
This month’s fill-up:
That’s a pretty decent price, after the grocery store points discount. And filling up every month or so is a lot better than doing it every Monday, or even more frequently, like the bad old days.
Naturally, after buying a tank full of gas, you go out for a short, 20-mile bike ride. It was 10 miles out and come back. I jumped out for a small lead at a stop sign and worked as hard as I could on the generally uphill progression. I was all proud, until I got to the appointed turnaround and The Yankee was just 20 yards behind me.
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“How’s your ride?” I asked.
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“Good, slow, but fine,” she said.
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I’d been working so hard. This was my first ride of the year which felt good — I’ve been nursing some aches and pains. The weather was delightfully mild and it was the best stretch of riding so far of the year. Slow, she says, because she’s so ridiculously strong.
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So we head back. I take the lead. There’s a train track running parallel to this country road we’re on. I can hear a train blasting its horn announcing itself at intersections to my right. Briefly, just in front of us and then behind us. If I hurry, I figured, I can safely beat it. I knew the intersection with the tracks, of course. It’s at a good clearing and it has great lights. No gates, but you can see off to the side enough to know whether you should jump the tracks or stop. I had an ear and eye off to the right and my legs and lungs were doing everything else. I beat the train. After the tracks, there’s a demanding little hill. One of those that you think shouldn’t hurt, but it can really do some damage. It can be an emotional ascent. I’ve seen it happen. Anyway, I topped that climb and The Yankee dropped me, hard and convincingly.
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So that explains my view the rest of the way back:
After, she said she was just read to be home. So clearly I have to ride better.
20
May 19
Spend a day on the bottom of a pool, get philosophical
I began SCUBA diving as a teen. It was *goes into my wallet to dig out my C-card … * a lot of years ago. Since then, I’ve explored ship wrecks. I’ve swam with turtles and manatees and barracuda. I’ve swam with dolphins in the wild. I’ve caught reef sharks with my bare hands. I’ve been all over the Gulf and the Caribbean and in parts of the Atlantic. I’ve dived ponds and rock quarries.
Saturday the guy that runs the local dive shop let The Yankee and I jump into a high school pool with some of his tanks after his morning class wrapped up. I’ve never dived nothing, though I’ve always wanted to. Just me and a tank and sit on the bottom. There was nothing to see, no place to go. It was great, peaceful, fun. Of course I’d do it again.
Speaking of wildlife, this morning I discovered we’ve got a new colleague at the office:
If you work in a big building, as I do, make sure you rotate through the many doors for entrances and exits. That’s both metaphor and practical advice. Sure, perspectives and all that. If you do, though, you’ll see new things, like that guy, all the time.
13
May 19
A bike ride, a few words on mom and a rare and confusing sighting
It was cold on Saturday. It was cold on Friday. It’s still May, right?
It was Mother’s Day on Sunday, of course. And it was a little warmer because of it. (The odds meant it had to happen, besides.)
My mom is pretty great. She’s a do it all type. A “do it with a smile because she wants to help” type. A “teach you something simultaneously” type.
I enjoyed reading all of your Mother’s Day posts on social media. I’m glad you have such good mothers — and congratulations to them for all of their parental success. Mine’s still better, though.
She wanted another picture, though:
And the sun! I saw the sun!
It was the first time since last Thursday.
