Friday Photo Shoot Out: Park Landscape

Friday already? How can it be?? It was just Friday, like, a couple days ago.

I meant to go to a small local park for pictures, and I did that on Sunday for a different purpose, completely forgetting I was supposed to do my Shootout prep at the same time because now whenever I leave for the evening it's already Dark out. So the Park Landscape post for my current town - Aubière, France, is here - just click
Don't forget to feed the hamster while you're there.

I couldn't see posting the same batch twice, particularly since they're all contaminated with a certain plush toy. So I'm taking you to a different park, in a different country: The Anza Borrego State Park. California, 'natch!

Of course, three of these pictures contain that same object. I dare you to spot it.

I do promise to get on the ball for next week's Skylines!
Ciao!
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Move that butt

I am officially insane.

There was an inkling when on Saturday I bought sweatpants. I have never had such a thing in my wardrobe before. Now I do. I have changed clans, from the No Sweatpants People to the People with baggy, tasteless, styleless, boring, but comfy Sweat Clothes. The fleece jacket thing I bought in Denver last spring because it was way colder in Denver than where I had come from does not count, regardless of the similarity of the fabric and the bulkiness of the cut, because it's in this neat dark red color and it has a nifty Denver logo thing on it.

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Last night, I put them on. Yes. with a thick t-shirt, and my Denver jacket over that.

Not only did I put them on, and change into my beat-up sneakers, but then I went outside and jogged up my street.

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Can you believe it!

Me. Jogging. Getting home, and instead of flopping down in front of the news with a plate of nachos and whatever I haven't read yet of The Economist, I went out for some exercise.

I usually get my exercise by walking, fast and far. But that isn't doing enough for me any more; it just takes so much time. So I figure jogging compresses an hour's workout into a reasonable package that I can squeeze in between getting home and flopping down for whatever's on.

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So I jogged for the first time in my life. Good thing it was dark and nobody was watching, because I only made it about 2/3's of the way up my street. Which is what, a quarter mile long? So I walked the rest of the way because it was just too, too lame to give up without even getting to the end of the street. And then I jogged back. The whole way, which is downhill, slightly, but does that ever make a difference!

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It's funny about this jogging thing. I can go all day at a fast walk. 20 miles no problem. I can work out on my step machine for an entire rugby game, stopping only to shout 'throw him down!', or 'get him!', and to gesticulate wildly (which I have discovered is not the best thing to do while trying to continue stepping on the flimsy thing). But that's energy dispensed slowly; energy my body restocks as I spend it, so there's never any acute must-stop tiredness. Spending energy quickly by going running is a different thing.

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Tonight the plan is to jog all the way to the end of the street and back, without taking a rest. By the end of the week I should be turning at the end and making a loop of it.

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Addendum to the Poetry Bus post

geeze.
can you tell what sort of person I am?
1. non-acceptance of a proposed fact
2. review of the evidence
3. acceptance. conversion to belief in the fact.
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so predictable.
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Bus Trip to Monday

Is it Albert who's driving today? Okay. I feel nice and secure then. I had a fab ham & cheese sandwich for lunch on Saturday, per instructions. Then hustled down to the only place in town that sells Drambuie, to discover that even they almost don't now, in spite of being an Irish Shop. None of the staff had any idea what I was talking about, until I spied a dusty gift set on the lowest shelf. For shame! But now I have a bottle of the good stuff and a couple of nice enough glasses and Wow do I appreciate rediscovering what Drambuie is all about. Next I'll try it with ginger ale, if I can find some of the latter. France is so Porto and Martini and Muscadet, there are so darn many things to drink of an evening that they don't even miss Drambuie. The fools!

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And then I spent my time in front of the mirror as ordered. Here you are:

How did this happen?

Who is that?

What's with all those grey hairs? I can't possibly be more than 25 yet, and those lines?

Oh?

Are you sure?

/

That's what the passport says?

and the driver's licence?

and the birth certificate says the same,

with its tiny footprint and the Seal of the State of North Carolina?

That's what they all say, all at once?
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Well.

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They're lying.

And yet maybe there's something to it.

Grad school was a while ago. A different century.

Students, some of my staff, passersby, they call me Madame, politely.

There has been an awful lot of coming and going to different countries, and that can't have happened all in a year.

Somehow my photo albums have all got stuffed full,

and blogposts up to the hundreds,

and my bookshelves are sagging and overflowing with works I've read and loved.

I've even outlived several cats.
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So maybe it's true.

Maybe that is me there.

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Friday Photo Shoot Out: Childhood Classics

For me, the big childhood classic was Going to the Beach.

Playing in the park was special too.

It's always fun to go to work with Mom or Dad, to find out what they do all day. (Click on the photo, and if you like it, it's actually a series of nine posts.)

It's always fun to get in the kitchen on Sunday morning and make waffles for breakfast (click!)

... and to play at being Superheros (click!).

That's all the time this big kid has for blogging at the moment - ciao!