Whoa Nellie!

Last week felt like a scene from a science fiction movie. A spaceship accelerates through space-time, the surroundings distort, and then as the ship approaches warp speed, there is a flash of light and the journey is over. The week began at a brisk pace, and I am pretty sure I hit warp speed last Thursday. It seems like the hours between Wednesday night and Saturday morning collapsed into a few seconds and were over before they even began. The historical record contradicts this; with my electronic calendar, I can actually see exactly what happened.

My brain on Friday.  Or maybe tangled fish line.

Busy does not begin to describe it. On Thursday and Friday, I ricocheted from one meeting to another, like a billiard ball banking on the cushions. I had eleven meetings one day, followed by a mere five on the next. How is that even possible? My other work got done in fits and starts and by Friday night, my brain felt absolutely frayed. Remember last summer when I wrote about 'our piece of the world' and the contrast between the serenity of my backyard in the summer and my 'sometimes overwhelming' professional life? This week exemplified the latter.

Still, all in all, it was a good week. In that time-warp period, I got some very important things accomplished at work. On the personal side, some very nice things happened. For instance, my nephew from California came to visit and we had a delightful time, including a fun cousin dinner in Ann Arbor. What a treat to discover that the kid I've always loved is now an adult that I would choose for a friend!

I was listening to the soundtrack to Rent this morning and heard the song, “La Vie Boheme” It opens with a comical operatic parody, but soon shifts to 'presto'- a very fast tempo, so fast that singing along is a challenge. The tempo effectively conveys excitement and agitation. Then, the two main characters, who have been engaged in a complicated relationship of attraction and avoidance, step outside. The music slows as they discover that they do indeed have a future together.  The song is now a ballad, slow and flowing, andante. Despite the frenzy of the presto, the real movement of the plot occurs in the lyrical, reflective section.

It seems that the helter skelter pace allows chaotic motion, but not concerted movement. If you happen to be a thermodynamicist, (I know you're out there!) you'll recognize this as the difference between heat and work.

Isn't it interesting that music and thermodynamics demonstrate the same reality? There is a lot of energy in chaotic motion but to get anywhere, you have to direct that energy into coherence. Presto must slow to andante, the musical term that means "a walking pace."  Walking seems to be just the right speed for thinking. Einstein did a lot of thinking while hiking in the Alps; Wordsworth did the same in the hills of Lake District in England.  Even I, a mere mortal, do my best thinking when I'm walking. 

Slowing down. Walking.

I am beginning to detect an emergent theme!

Last Sunday, Al and I spent the afternoon browsing our local Barnes and Noble. Strictly speaking, we really don't need any more books, but there we were. As is typical, Al found a very cool book for me called, “Reading like a Writer” by Francine Prose (seriously, that is her name). I don't know how Al finds these books. He seems to have a homing instinct that leads him directly to books that I either really like or will find very useful in some way. Usually, I have never heard of them and certainly had no idea that I wanted them. He is much better at picking out books for me than I am at picking out books for myself.

Anyway, Prose's book is intriguing. I am only a couple of chapters in, but she advocates careful reading-- the kind of reading where you actually pay attention to the words. I suspect that I am not alone when I say that most of the reading I do is not word oriented. Somehow I read in chunks- making (sometimes bad) judgements about what to skim, what to skip and what to read. If I am reading a novel, I am mining the text for plot; in the case of nonfiction, it is information I seek.

Writers strive to develop plots and characters or perhaps provide information, but that is not how they write. Think about it, writers have to choose exactly which words to use to construct their sentences and then how to combine those sentences in ways that captivate readers and convey clear meaning. Yet, more often than not, I am pretty much oblivious to that painstaking process and charge through the text like there is a race to be won. I look for the gist and secretly long for bullet points.

How sad for the writer.

Not surprsingly, Prose essentially says, "Whoa Nellie!" She is writing to an audience of people who want to improve their writing (like me) and suggests that if writers want to improve their writing, they could being by improving their reading. How? By slowing down and paying attention to the choices made by other writers. What a concept!

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I really like to cook. It seems to me that the same principle applies. Chefs pay attention to every ingredient and every phase of the cooking process, while eaters usaully just want something tasty to quell their tummy rumbles. But it seems to me that if cooks want to improve their cooking, they could begin by improving their eating by paying attention to flavors and textures, presentation and balance.

Oh my.

There we go again. I think I have rediscovered what seems to be a fundamental theme in my life. Slowing down and paying attention turn the ordinary into the extra-ordinary.

How many times do I have to rediscover this before I find a way to live such a deliberate life? How does one find the still center in the spinning wheel?  How does one find the time to live slowly and richly in the midst of sixteen meetings in two days?

This is the challenge of my life, and I suspect that I am not unique in this regard. I have occasionally said that my basic modus operandi is to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. That is how I managed the craziness of raising small children while working full time.  It is how I manage sixteen meetings in two days.

I think the trick is to realize that slowing down long enough to pay attention is one of those things that needs to be done and to recognize when it needs to be done.

I just wish I could remember that once in a while.

Today I am grateful to work at a University. I am so lucky to have the opportunity to learn from so many interesting, intelligent and generous colleagues.  

A mole of moles

Yesterday was Mole Day.  This is actually an official, well-known holiday.  It is celebrated across the country, mostly by young people between the ages of 14 and 24, but some adults observe this holiday too. 

You’ve never heard of it?

How odd.

You must not be a chemist, then.

Mole Plushie, $6.75 from the ACS!

National Mole Day occurs each year on October 23rd. The observance begins at 6:02 a.m. and ends at 6:02 p.m.    Most Mole Day parties occur in high school and college classrooms and while traditions vary, celebrations frequently involve lab coats, safety goggles and cute little stuffed animals. The celebration commemorates the basic unit of measurement for chemical compounds, the mole.  A mole is like a dozen only a lot bigger.  There are 12 eggs in a dozen eggs,  right?  Well, a mole is defined as the number of atoms in exactly twelve grams of carbon (To be very precise, it is the number of atoms in exactly twelve grams of the ¹²C isotope, but that is getting a little too technical, no?)  That, by the way, is a lot of atoms.  How many?  

602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Since we don’t like writing all those zeros, chemists use scientific notation and abbreviate it as 6.02 x 10²³.  Now do you get it?  At 6:02 on 10/23, we begin the Mole Day celebrations.

It was probably on Mole Day in 1973 that Mr. Perry, my high school chemistry teacher posed this question to my class:  “If a mole can dig a mole of holes, how many holes can a mole of moles dig?” 

And you thought IT guys were geeky!

Our orange cat, Buddy, has been celebrating Mole Day too.  He started a little early, delivering a plump little mole on Friday, October 22.  He never was very good with dates.  We didn’t get around to removing it from our back porch on Friday and on Saturday morning there were two more.   For a long time, we attributed the recent rodent murder rampages to 2-kee the Warrior Cat, but she has been sleeping inside with us lately, or more precisely, walking on our faces at all hours of the night, but that is another story.   It has been Buddy,  long associated with the qualities of sloth and gluttony, who has been bringing home the bacon, so to speak.

What is he thinking?  If cats think, which I seriously doubt, maybe it is something like this:

Oh boy!  A mole!

 I’m gonna catch it!

Concentrate...concentrate.   

 Sneak up behind.

Good. Close enough.  

 Crouch down.  Very still.

 Don’t move.

 Silent and still...

 Wait for it...

Wait for it...

POUNCE!

YES!  

Got it.   Who’s good?!  My people will be so proud.  I bet they’d like to eat this tasty morsel.   I’ll leave it by the back door and they’ll see it in the morning and they will love me best.

(next morning)

Hey!  What’s going on here!  They saw it but didn’t take it.  The female person seemed disgusted and the male person ignored it.  Must not have tasted good enough for them.  I’d better try again and see if I can find one that my people would like to eat.   Then they’ll love me best.

I’d like to tell Buddy that we are just not fans of mole meat.  Of course, we’ve never actually tried mole meat, but it seems that it would be sort of like eating Cornish game hens or quail- way too much work and not worth the effort.  Not to mention disgusting!

One morning last week there were eight mice on our porch!  Maybe Buddy enjoys rodent tasting the way people enjoy wine tasting.  I can  imagine him catching one and saying, “This mouse has a wonderful nose, light on the finish with a lingering acidity” or maybe, “This mouse has overtones of black cherry, chocolate and a pleasant oakiness. It must have aged in the woodpile.”    Just as a wine taster tastes but does not drink, he seems to taste but not eat.  He must be watching his weight.  Buddy does tend to get a little plump in the winter months.

I have lost track of the number of mice and moles that Buddy has given us in the last few months, but it must be 2-3 dozen by now.  I wonder how far he roams each night to find his quarry.  Maybe we should look in the woodpile and see if there is a mouse nest there.  We’ve tried to keep him in at night, but he meows and scratches at the back door until we give up and let him out.  For the good of the rodents,  I am eager for winter to come because he, a generally pampered and spoiled cat, hates being out in the cold. 

At least Buddy has not captured a mole of moles.  

And speaking of pampered and spoiled, today I am grateful for laptop computers.  As I write this, I am sitting in my favorite comfy chair next to a wonderful warm fire.  I can write the text, edit the text, add the images, and  post the entry while snuggling under my blanket, sipping tea, and warming my tootsies.  Now THAT is multitasking!

We are the masters... right?

As we move into late fall, I have to struggle to get out of bed on these chilly dark mornings.  In a couple of weeks  we’ll get a brief reprieve when we ‘fall back’ to eastern standard time and daylight greets us  at an earlier hour. But for now when my alarm rings, I shut it off and begin bargaining with myself, saying “One more minute.  Just one more minute.”  Ten minutes later, the second alarm rings, which usually gets Al up and into the shower.  My guilty secret is that I plan it that way, because once Al is in the shower, I get another 15 minutes of justifiable snoozing before I really have to get up.

One day last week, in the midst of that 15 minutes of contented dozing, I heard our coffee pot kick into gear.  We have one of those awesome “Grind and Brew” pots that grinds the beans and brews the coffee.  It sounds a little like a jet engine taking off, especially against the quiet of a sleeping household.  This fabulous device is programmable, so that when we finally stumble downstairs in the morning we have freshly ground, freshly brewed, piping hot coffee.  Spoiled, aren’t we?

Anyway, I was dozing happily when I heard the whir and grind of the coffee pot and my thoughts drifted to my breakfast-  oatmeal with cinnamon sugar and walnuts, orange juice and that freshly ground, freshly brewed, piping hot coffee.  I thought of the stories my mom used to tell about her childhood breakfasts- oatmeal, juice and, for the grown-ups at least, coffee.  Just like us.  Except, I am pretty sure that my grandmother did not doze contentedly while her programmable “Grind and Brew” coffee pot did the work of making the morning java.  In fact, I suspect that during my mother’s childhood on a depression era farm in upstate New York, my grandmother got up long before the family to build the fire in the wood stove, brew the coffee and slowly simmer those oats.  Dozing contentedly was probably a completely foreign concept, as incomprehensible to her as a wringer washer is to me.

Yes, times certainly have changed.  I enjoy the luxury of a technology-enabled healthful meal.  The coffee is wonderful- locally roasted, rich, robust- and automatically made for me.  I don’t have time, or rather, I don’t want to get up early enough to cook my oatmeal every morning, and I hate the instant kind, so I make a big batch of steel-cut oats on Sunday night and microwave servings each weekday.  (You can do this with no loss of quality if you use steel cut oats.  In my experience, at least, rolled oats tend to be less than appealing upon reheating.)  My breakfast takes no time at all in the morning-maybe 2 minutes from my arrival in the kitchen until it is piping hot and ready to eat, while I imagine my grandmother had an hour or more between her arrival in the kitchen and a hot meal for her family.

My mother used to talk about the farm style breakfasts of her childhood.  And not fondly. No misty eyed, rose-colored glass nostalgia there.  In fact my mom HATED oatmeal.  Aside from the texture, which my mother found pasty and gloppy, my grandmother made the ultimate culinary mistake (in my mother's opinion at least) of using NO salt.  My mother was adamant that a little salt is needed to enhance the flavor of pretty much anything and in fact she’s right about oatmeal.  No salt leads to a disagreeably bland cereal.  Clearly, you only need a little- you don’t want to taste it, you just need enough to bring out the nuttiness of the oats. 

My mother hated her mother’s oatmeal so much that she developed elaborate deceits to avoid  eating it.  Sometime in late elementary school, she hit upon a method that worked until she graduated from high school.  She appropriated a canning jar and hid it in the gathers or pleats of her full skirts.  Waiting until  the adults were not paying attention, she spooned that bland pasty oatmeal into the jar.  When she left the house to meet the school bus, she’d hide the jar under a bush near the front door. After school, she’d bury the offending cereal, wash the jar and be ready for the next morning.  This, by the way,  is the same woman who made me sit at the dinner table for hours until I cleaned my plate of the one vegetable that I truly detested as a kid- cooked carrots.  I tried a few deceptions of my own, like hiding them in a crumpled paper napkin, but since she had mastered the art of hiding hated foods it was pretty hard to fool her.   I  never really found a way around those reviled carrots, although sometimes, if they were served with a gravy bearing roast, I could sort of smush them into the leftover gravy on my plate and get away with choking down only a few. 

In homage to my mom's cream of wheat art!

Despite her insistence that I eat my carrots, she actually never forced oatmeal on us.  In fact, I always liked all hot cereals,  but she was much more likely to serve us Cream of Wheat than oatmeal.  I guess she was compensating for her mother’s oatmeal demands because she went out of her way to make that Cream of Wheat desirable and appetizing.    No raisins because I hated them when I was young, and she wouldn’t go so far as chocolate chips, but she did indulge me with colored sugar faces and designs.

So here we are seventy five years after my mother avoided her oatmeal with some crafty shenanigans, and I find myself eating that same meal most mornings.   I certainly have an easier job of it than my grandmother did, but despite our differing methodologies, we fulfill the same basic human dietary needs.

Technology has changed the way we cook, but has probably had an even more profound affect on the way we communicate.  Long handwritten letters and personal visits are now replaced by email, text messages,  facebook, blogs, twitter—things that would be completely alien to my grandmother -- but exist to fulfill the basic human need to be part of a social community.  Some people think that electronic communication has helped us develop even stronger communities and certainly it has made it easier to keep up with old friends, especially those who live at a distance.   But at the same time, there are limitations.  For local friends, I find it much more rewarding to sit across a table with a glass of wine or cup of tea.  At work, I prefer to talk to someone in person instead of calling or emailing.  The latter are perhaps more efficient, but lead to inevitable misunderstandings and eliminate the ability to read body language and other non-verbal cues.   Also, technology has lent validity and significance to some pretty insignificant things (like this blog???)  and in the worst case, has provided an arena for some outright hateful diatribes that would previously have gone unpublished.

I have no desire to go back to woodburning stoves and generally enjoy modern technologies.  I too use email, facebook, text messaging, blogs, etc. and value the immediacy of electronic communication.   I am not interested in moving backwards to a ‘simpler’ time , but I do think it is important to keep the goals in mind and use the technology to achieve the goals rather than defining  goals to just to use the technology.  The goal of technology in the kitchen is to make it easier to eat well, not just to eat faster.  The role of electronic communication is to facilitate social connection, not to soak up endless amounts of time and diminish personal relationships.   And certainly not to spread hatred.    Technology is the servant of humankind, not the master. 

I only met my mother's mother once, and then just briefly.  This story is one of the few connections I have to her, and it has significance partly because of the juxtaposition of old and new kitchen technologies.  The photograph was captured using a genuine technological miracle-- the digital camera.    I wrote this entry on a laptop computer in the car while returning home after visiting distant friends, with whom I usually communicate electronically.  And now I am posting it to some unknown server in some far corner of the cyber-universe, where it is available to you .... electronically.

so...

We are the MASTERS of technology, right?

Right?

Today I am grateful for good food to nourish and sustain us.  However it is cooked!

Skygate

Skygate by Roger Barr, San Francisco, CA

 I really like the sculpture in this photograph.  (If you click on the image, you can see a larger version). It was created by Roger Barr and dedicated on September 17, 1985, almost exactly 25 years before I took this photo.  I took a handful of photographs of it,  focusing on the numerous reflective surfaces, and forgetting entirely to take a ‘traditional view.’  If I had, you’d see that it is an arch situated in a grassy area along Embarcadero St. in San Francisco.  In a more traditional view it would look like a gateway, something reminiscent of the St. Louis Arch but with some twisted California quirkiness.  In fact, even its title, “Skygate,” is reminiscent of the  “Gateway Arch” in St. Louis, only instead of being a gateway to the West,  it is a gateway to the heavens.

But, what really attracts me to “Skygate” are all the reflective surfaces, twists, and turns.  The ‘outside’ of the left leg of the arch is the inside on the right leg, like an oddly-shaped Mobius strip.  I like the way the flat surfaces reflect both the heavens and the earth and reflect themselves reflecting the heavens and the earth. I like the playful way the surfaces capture the light and toss it back and forth, while the edges focus the light into a radiant glow.

I have been thinking a lot about making things and creating things.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I seem to be driven to make things--physical things like photographs, frames, bread and  all sorts of other food.   Lately I have yearned to knit, to make scarves, mittens, socks, lap blankets, etc. Like my Dad, I love to work with my hands and I have often thought that the drive to do so arises as a response to my professional life which has always been focused more on the life of the mind than the life of the hands. But, lately, I have felt a strong urge to write, not the sort of technical scientific or academic writing I do every day, but more something more creative, more reflective, more distinctly my own. 

Early one morning while we were in San Francisco, Al went for a run and I found a coffee shop and worked on a blog entry.  When he was done, we had breakfast and he asked me, “Why do you write that blog?”  I looked at him stupidly, because I have been asking myself the same question since August 1.  I still didn't have a very good answer.  He went on, “Is it to prove you exist?”  He reminded me of a book that we both read a while back called the “History of Love” by Nicole Krauss.  Leo, an old man, does some pretty crazy things.  For example, he goes into stores not to buy things, but just seeking attention.  He drops his change and makes a big production of picking it up.  He goes into shoe stores and asks to try on ridiculous shoes with no intention of buying.  He says, “I never actually buy.  All I want is not to die on a day that I am unseen.”

You know, I think Al and old Leo have something there. 

I think we all want to be seen and noticed.  Unlike Leo, I don’t think much about my own mortality, at least not consciously, although maybe that horrible accident last May has something to do with my recent push to write, play the piano, etc.  Certainly, I think that creativity is about making a person’s internal self evident to the external world.  It is about being seen and proving existence.  In a way, it is like “Skygate” – internal surfaces twist in the light of ideas to become externally visible.  The gritty earthy parts and the ethereal philosophical parts take turns  to combine into some particular thing that is hopefully intriguing-- something unique to the artist or author,  the one person, the only person, who could have created it.

Just like that crazy sculpture in San Francisco.

I don’t know what Roger Barr, the sculptor, had in mind when he created “Skygate” but I will venture a guess that I am not far off.  The inscription on the marker indicates that the sculpture is dedicated to Eric Hoffer,  longshoreman, poet and philosopher—the integration of the physical, the artistic and the abstract.

Today I am grateful for friends.  Of course I am always grateful for my friends, but specifically, today I am thinking about Betsy who, over many years,  has listened, laughed, challenged, and encouraged me in so many ways.

Some bookkeeping notes:

You may have noticed a mid-week post about my newest writing idea (A random neuron fired)  I have decided to start another site for posting things related to the piano project.   If you feel like checking out my progress with writing and piano playing, those entries will be at Etudes&Essays.   I thought it would be easier to keep them separate from my general purpose blog!

A random neuron fired

The neuron fired and an idea flashed into my head.  Is it a good idea?  Hard to say.  I’ll need to try it out for a while and see how it goes.

From September 26 blog: 

Life list:

• Write a book that can, at least in principle, be purchased at Barnes and Noble.
• Learn to play the piano well enough to do a credible job on the Chopin Nocturnes.

Problems:

• Time, of course.  Ho hum.
• I don't know what I want to write about.
• Well established internal demons:
• The demon of impatience, aptly named Impatience.
• The internal critics, named Agnes and Agatha because everything has to be an “A.” They always appear together so they can gang up on me.  If I could separate them, they’d be manageable, but they seem to be joined at the hip.
• The demon of procrastination named Penelope.  She hasn’t said much yet.
• The demon of indecision named Cami, short for Chameleon, because they can change color whenever they want.
• The demon of distraction named Yachi, a Japanese name that means eight thousand, which is how many things I want to do at once.

So, here is the idea:

What if I document my attempts to learn to play the piano in a way that also helps me learn to write in all sorts of styles?    I could employ various genres, styles, writing exercises, etc. to simultaneously explore the art of writing, hopefully improve my skills, and at the same time, provide structure for learning to play the piano.  Some likely formats include timed writings, dialogs, monologs, poems, news articles, short short stories, magazine sidebars, etc.

I think I'll try it.

Not much time before I need to get ready for work, so the first entry will be a timed 10 minute writing.  The rules—write for 10 minutes, with NO EDITS.  (sorry in advance )

Ready

Set   (7:17 am)

GO

Found the piano book last night. Bastien’s “Adult Beginner level two.”  I don’t think I have the level one book, and it is probably TOO basic anyway.  First song, “Down in the Valley”.  Key is C major. C major is good, no sharps, no flats.  Let’s see, block chords on page one, arrpegiated on page two. 

Looks ok.

I started by practicing the chords- I, IV and V7.  I remember this from the last time I tried to learn to play the piano.  That must have been about 10 years ago now, maybe longer.  Ok.  So far so good.  Let’s take a look at that melody line.  Not too bad, but I need to pay attention to fingerings.   Fingerings aren’t at all intuitive to me on piano.  I remember when the kids took lessons from Judy.   She used to correct messed up fingerings with the admonition:  “Let’s not play finger twister.”  Seems like finger twister is my favorite game on the piano.

Oh well.  Let’s try the hands together.

Slowly.  Very slowly.

“Down in the valley….”

Not too bad for a first try.  I am concentrating on the chords and they are very loud relative to the melody line.  Ok.  Try to play the bass line softer.

Hmm.   I managed to play the bass line softer, but the melody line got quieter too.  That is not what I wanted.

Let’s try playing hands separate.  Bass line first, softly.  Ok. Not bad.

Melody line, ridiculously loud.  Ok. 

Together… now:

Egads!  I am not sure if the balance is better, but now that I am concentrating on the dynamics,  I am playing lots and lots of wrong notes.

Sigh.

Ok. Agatha and Agnes, you can go back upstairs now.  I’ll call you later.

Let’s try again.  Slowly.  This is a very easy piece; I think I can do it.  Maybe if I stop thinking in terms of details and just try to think of making it sound good.

“Down in the valley….”

Ok. Better. 

7:27 and I am done for this entry. I really want to edit it, but the point is to let it go. So, I am letting it go.

Cold Blooded Lizard

For the last couple of weeks, I have been participating in the annual “Pedometer Challenge,” part of an overall wellness program offered by SVSU. There are probably prizes for the team that logs the most steps over the duration (about 8 weeks total, I think), but neither I nor any of my teammates care much about the prizes. Instead, the “Step Sisters” participate because it provides a little incentive to walk a little further and reminds us to pay attention to wellness in general. The goal is for each of us to log 10,000 steps (or about 5 miles per day). My progress to date is shown below:

Date         Steps        Miles
9/22         8109          4.1
9/23       20426         10.2
9/24       25030         12.5
9/25      13648           6.8
9/26      15657           7.8
9/27       7283            3.6
9/28     10356           5.2
9/29       8723           4.4
9/30       8723           4.4
10/1       8724           4.4
10/2       2509          1.25
10/3       8491          4.25



My average is about 11,500 steps per day, but as you can see, I only exceeded 10,000 steps on 5 of the 12 days so far. Hmmm…. How did I get to 25030 on 9/24, but only 2509 on 10/2. What was going on? Let’s take a look and see.

9/22: normal work day.  Didn't get to 10000 but that's ok.  I am just warming up.

Crazy Sculpture along Embarcadero

 9/23: Flew to San Francisco. Arrived at noon and spent the rest of the day walking along Embarcadero, Pier 39 and Chinatown. Weather was beautiful with temperatures in the upper 70’s. 20,000 steps--now we're talking.

9/24: Hiked all around San Francisco, including crossing the Golden Gate on foot, both directions. More lovely sunshine, with highs in the low 80’s.  Yes! Over 25,000.  Who's good?

The best wine was the Oberon Cab, bottled by Michael Mondavi

9/25: 8 hour wine tour in Sonoma. Today’s steps SHOULD have counted double after 24 different wines at four wineries, but I faithfully recorded the actual steps. Most of the walking occurred after a nice post-winery nap, when we walked around Golden Gate Park and along the beach. Evening was cool, but daytime temperatures were in the upper 80’s.  Nearly 14,000 steps, big drop from yesterday,but still good.





9/26: Another balmy day in San Francisco. Visited the Museum of Modern Art and Japantown. If you are ever there, go to Yoshi’s for dinner. It was great!  Over 15,000 steps-- pretty good.

9/27: Spent the day flying home, but still managed to log a reasonable number of steps.


9/28: Normal work day. After dinner, I noticed that I was coming up short for the day, so we took the doggie for a good long walk. She is nearly 14, so a ‘good long walk’ is only 1.5 miles, but it was enough to break 10,000 for the day

9/29-10/1: Normal work days. So normal that I completely forgot to reset the pedometer! OOPS! I guess I was a little stressed and a lot distracted. At least I remembered to put the pedometer on in the mornings! The three day total was 26,170, which is 8723.333 per day, so 8723, 8723, 8724 it is!  Slip sliding a bit, here...

10/2: This has got to be an all time low activity day. It was a rainy and cold day- temperatures never got out of the low 50’s. Spent a very lazy Saturday watching movies at the Hell’s Half Mile Film Festival, drinking hot coffee, reading and napping, reading some more, and napping some more by the fire. But my goodness—2500 steps!?!?? Tempting to fudge this day. What will the Step Sisters say? (Actually, what they will want to know is the title of the book , which was “Empire Falls” by Richard Russo.)

10/3: Sunnier, but still very cool. Finished the book, took another nap. It was looking like another very low activity day. I guess I needed the rest, but by late afternoon I was beginning to feel decidedly sluggish. As in slug-like.  As in slimy.  I decided that I really needed to get moving, so I ran an errand, filled the bird feeders, cleaned the cat boxes, (washed my hands), made dinner. After dinner, we took our poor beleaguered doggie for another long walk. Actually, despite her advanced age, Pip loves those evening walks. Maybe she should be the team mascot. Anyway, the late day ‘flurry’ of activity made today’s total at least sort of respectable.

Looking at this data, I draw the following conclusion. Apparently, I am a cold-blooded lizard, active on warm sunny days and pretty much dormant on cold ones. This does not bode well for winter.

In case anyone is curious how the grand plans to fulfill  Numbers 2-4  are going, I am sorry to report that I have made no real progress. Maybe the one exception is that the writing group met for the first time which was great. We each wrote about an early childhood memory; in my case, I fictionalized it somewhat since I couldn't remember the details.  It was fun to meet and now I am eager for our next meeting. As far as the piano playing goes, I  thought about finding those adult beginner piano books that I know are hiding somewhere in the house, but did not start my search yet. And, you can see how the triathlon training is going. Harumph.  I don't know how it will fit in, but one of the Step Sisters has convinced me to take a Yoga class beginning in a couple of weeks. I don't know what to expect, but at the very least, it will be interesting.

Today I am grateful for good health. My family has been blessed with strong bodies, good immune systems and generally healthy days.