How Bored Were We Today?

Bored enough to skin and roast five pounds of peanuts.

Which, by the way, is a little weird. We don't eat many peanuts - and I'm not planning for that to change, even though we now have five pounds of freshly roasted peanuts at home.

Another You-Know-What

Today, instead of simply going on an everyday, ordinary walk, Sam and I decided to shake up our usual mundane, so-called "existence" by instead driving for close to an hour - then going on an hour-long walk at the Quabbin Reservoir- and then driving close to an hour to get back home.

I'm not sure what gave us more exercise- the three and a half to four miles we walked through the woods, over hilly terrain - or the seventy-five percent of the walk we spent swatting away at the black flies.

After today, I'm thinking that "Quabbin" must be the native American word for: These god damn black flies are eating me alive - especially my eyes! ESPECIALLY MY EYES!!!.  That's just a guess.

Anyway, it beat sitting at home.

As usual, here are a few photos...

   

Here's a photo taken just before we crossed the Winsor Dam. I like to look at this picture and pretend I'm on a deserted island, staring off into the distance. And when I finally see a ship on the horizon that looks as if it might be coming to rescue me, I run and hide before they can find me.

 

Proof that we were here. 

  

It was right about HERE that the black flies decided to attack.

 

  

A view of the Swift River. Nothing to say about this one.

Using the angle of the sun, along with the wind conditions, to calculate the estimated time it will take us to get back to the car - or playing Pokemon Go! You decide.

I debated about including this one. Then I debated about straightening and cropping it. Finally, I decided to leave it as it is. It's a photo of Sam swatting at the black files as we're walking back to the car.

Today's Dilemma

Today I was looking for an old video clip that I posted quite some time ago. I don't even remember the name of the clip, never mind when I posted it. It could have been a couple of years ago, but it was likely more than five or six years ago.

I never found the clip but what I did find was a shocking amount of old video clips that no longer exist. There have to be at least a couple of dozen or more that have been vaporized. All that's left is the internet equivalent of a test pattern. Here's just one example...

This is very disappointing. Now my barely intelligible posts are even more nonsensical. Is it possible that I've wasted untold minutes of my life for no good reason (just speaking strictly in terms of this blog)?

What do I do about this? Do I ignore them and hope the problem resolves itself (my usual tactic)? Do I go through all these old posts and try to find new videos (no way)? Do I go back and delete all of these old posts (even this option seems like a lot of effort)?

I guess I'll stick with my usual tactic and ignore them. It seems to have worked pretty well for me so far. But man, I wish I could find that old clip.

Today's Work of Non-Reposted Art

It has been pointed out to me (ahem) that the artwork in the previous post was a repeat.

Since I don't want anyone to feel cheated out of their god-given right to enjoy fresh, non-reposted artwork, I now offer the below piece of art in a feeble attempt to make amends.

And because I'm the kind of person that goes the extra mile, you will note that the below piece of art also contains some poetry - which, I am told, some people also consider to be art. Therefore, today and today only, you are getting TWO pieces of art, all in one daily post.

Well worth the money you spent to get here, I would say.

You're welcome.

Today's Work of Art

Keeping with the theme of going for a lot of walks, here's another piece of artwork from my under-the-bed stockpile. This one is by Jake (obviously)...

circa 1995

The Fix

I have no idea what happened to most of my photos in the post before last.

For some bizarre reason, I happened to look back - and apparently most of the photos never "stuck" (an internet term). In place of where the photos were supposed to be, there was instead a weird circle-type symbol thing with a line through it.

I'm not talking about the internationally recognized diagonal-line-through-a-circle symbol that tells you that whatever it is you wanted to do or wherever it is you wanted to go, you can't. I'm talking about an aesthetically less pleasing and rather more bewildering horizontal line - which is telling me nothing.

Anyway, the photos are fixed - for now. No promises about tomorrow though - so look quick. I'm not doing it again.

Carry on.

This Morning's Cooking Project

This morning, Sam and I made pancakes. Specifically, a half batch of plain pancakes and a half batch of chocolate chip and banana pancakes.

We start, as usual, with taking my super not-so-secret pancake recipe and multiplying it by six. "Six?" you say. "That seems like an awful lot of pancakes!" Good point (and thanks for reading this far.).

I do it for a couple of reasons.

First of all, my philosophy is that if I'm going to bother to cook or bake anything, I'm going to make it worth my while. Same amount stuff I have to haul out. Same amount of stuff I have to clean up and put away afterwards. If I'm going to go to all this trouble, I may as well have plenty to eat.

Also, we like pancakes.

Today, there's an additional excuse. Today, I'm taking most of the "left-overs" (meaning, those pancakes I can put away before they get eaten) and I'm freezing them, in groups of three four (late update). I'm doing this since we're not going on our usual grocery runs on the weekends. These pancakes, along with the French toast I froze a week or so ago, will give Sam different breakfast options on weekends - at least for a little while.

Anyway, we start with the recipe, read through the ingredients, read through the instructions, then get out all our tools - bowls, measuring cups, mixer, etc.. Next step - we go back and read through the ingredients and read through the instructions one more time - just to be sure we understand them.

Then we start with the ingredients we're supposed to start with. Sam helps me do the math, in this case multiplying each ingredient by six - and, if necessary, helps me convert. Then, off we go.

One of Sam's job, as always, is to crack the eggs. I have him crack them one-at-a-time into small glass measuring cup, then add them one-at-a-time into the bowl. This is what's known as "our system". We do this because if we see the inevitable eggshell spec floating around in one of our eggs, it's a lot easier to fish it out of one egg than it is to fish it out of a bowl of six eggs.

I won't bore you with the rest of our process (assuming you somehow managed to make it this far) but I will say that, this morning, we concentrated on teaching Sam how to: a) pour the batter onto the griddle in pancake-like quantities, b) how and when to flip the pancakes, and finally, c) how to stack the pancakes on the griddle, then get them over to the plate. (There is no step "d". He already knows how to eat them.)

I have to say, Sam did amazingly well - especially on the flipping. A couple of them landed in unplanned areas, but as I reminded him, no big deal, we can fix it. And besides, they're only pancakes. (This is pretty much our motto for most things in life - pancakes or not).

The other steps will take a little more practice and a little more repetition, but really, that's a good thing because, like I said, we like pancakes.

Another Day, Another Walk

As I've mentioned, probably repeatedly, Sam and my schedules of late consist primarily of four different things: cooking or baking, playing board games, going for walks or going for rides. That's pretty much all - except for our down time when we do things like stare out the window and think about going for either a walk or a ride.

The other day, Sam and I went on our longest walk so far this still-early spring. Our walk was down at the town's swimming area.

Sam and I crossed the footbridge and walked across the spongy grass to some of the hidden and not-so-hidden paths along the river.

It's been eleven months, almost to the day, since Sam and I last walked this area. The differences in being there this one month earlier was surprising. There were more barren trees and brush than before. There was more lingering winter deadwood and, for now at least, less greenery than eleven months earlier.

But that's not to say there weren't patches of green, even beyond the grass. And the trees and much of the surrounding brush were beginning to bud. All promising. All hopeful.

We walked along, past fallen trees, until we reached a point where we could go no further. Up ahead, the path was submerged. We walked as far as we could go before turning around.

On the way back, we came across another path, this one leading through more barren brush, past more fallen trees, and we followed this path back to where we started.

After returning back over the footbridge, Sam and I walked along the opposite edge of the park, where we crossed the road and headed over to a bike path.

This particular bike path starts with a wider foot and bike bridge, heads under a highway and follows the same river. We walked the path, mostly in our usual silence, until we eventually reached the end.  We turned around once again, this time heading back to the car - and then we headed for home.

Here are a few not-so-exciting photos from this most recent walk, and if you're interested, you can compare some of these photos to the also not-so-exciting photos I took last year.

 

 

 

   

Sunday Stroll

Our little dead end road dumps out onto one of the semi-major thoroughfares running through our town. This normally busy road is what prevents Sam from walking to and from work. (This, of course, is back in the pre-semi-self-quarantined days of long ago, when there was still work for him to deal with.)

Sam's once upon-a-time job is/was a little more than a stone's throw from where we live but unfortunately, this major road separates home from work.

Navigating this busy street is difficult under the best of conditions. You can insanely choose any spot along the road you want and attempt to dart across the street when you foolishly think it might be safe, running the risk of playing a (near) fatal game of Frogger.

Or you can more wisely hoof it down to the far corner where there's a set of traffic lights, press the button, wait for the Walk light to come on, and then, when it eventually does come on, run across the street, hoping that people won't run the Walk light in what I am sure is a patriotic effort to conserve gas by turning right-on-red, thus running through the Walk light - and you -on their way to the adjacent liquor store.  

Because of this dynamic, Sam takes, or rather, took the ADA bus to and from work everyday (which we all hope will happen again someday).

But on Sunday, which happened to be Easter, Sam and I went on a couple of walks. Crossing this normally busy road was almost eerily easy.

Obviously, this is due to the aforementioned semi-self-quarantine. What was particularly shocking to me was that, while it took a while, people were actually taking it to heart and more-or-less staying home (other than visiting the aforementioned liqueur store - which is forgivable since it was, after all, Easter.).

As much as I don't like people, even for me it was a little disconcerting. Weird.

Happy Easter

Tonight's Music Video

I know I've posted this before but since there's not much going on - at least, not much I feel like writing about - I'm  going to go ahead and post it again. So there.

Plus, it's a nice mellow one for a quiet Friday evening...

Another From the Beach

  

Here’s another beach photo. This one was taken ten years ago this coming August. That would put it about sixteen years after the photo in the previous post.

I started to write the previous post with the above photo in mind - but the thing is, like so much of my (so-called) writing, I started off in one direction and I ended up somewhere entirely different. By the time I got part way through the post, the only relevance to the photo above was that it involved my kids, and they were on a beach. Other than that, not much.

In the end, it’s all fine. I had (and have) nothing in particular to say about the photo. I just like it and was looking for an excuse to post it. I’m not sure if this qualifies, but if not, then close enough.

Sea Escape

Rather than write, yet again, about Sam and I going for yet another walk (we've been doing a lot of that these days) I'll instead post a photo. This photo was taken on one of our many, many family vacations to Cape Cod. I think this must have been about twenty-five years ago - which would put it in the pre-Sam era.

Way back then, the typical vacation day routine was, after having spent the day at the beach, we would head back to the cottage. The kids would shower and I would then get them a bite to eat. After eating, Helaina, Rachael, Jacob and I would go for a "scenic" drive around the back roads of the Cape.

While driving, I would play a mix of quiet music - a mix I had brought along for just this occasion. And as I drove and as the music played, little by little, the conversations would get quieter and quieter as each of them would drift off* into the kind of deep sleep that kids fall into after a day of playing long and hard in the waves and digging long and hard in the sand. (*Side note: generally speaking, Jake would last until about the time I pulled out of the driveway. The girls, a bit longer).

Anyway, every time I hear one of those quiet songs from way back then, it reminds me of those vacations and the days at the cottage and the beach and those lovely afternoon drives. Maybe I should listen to them more often. Here's one of those songs...

Words of Encouragement

In an effort to beat any crowds, and also, the inevitable ever-present boredom, Sam and I headed out for a walk a little earlier than usual this morning.

Not only were the crowds not there (which meant that one of us had a great idea) but, as it turns out, some kind soul(s) had left messages all over a portion of the bike path.

I don't have any comment about any of this. Just felt it was worth passing along...

 

 

Bored Games

In my continuing effort to keep Sam (and myself) entertained, I took it upon myself to brave the wilds of the back porch where I eventually managed to pull out some long-buried board games. Even more astounding, I managed to find my way back off the porch and into the kitchen, games intact.

Sam and I ended up playing “Sorry.” I’m not sure I've ever played this before. Fortunately, Sam had - he was therefore able to walk me through the finer subtleties of the game.

Unlike when we played a board game the other night, tonight we both decided to play to win - sort of. Or at the very least, we both apparently decided to be slightly less blatant in our mutual attempts to throw the game to the other person.

In other words, Sam let me win.

After the game, I shared this video below with Sam. (If nothing else, it killed another fifteen minutes...)



There are a few minor differences between their game play versus ours. For one thing, as Sam pointed out, they're using dice where we were drawing cards. For another thing, as Sam also pointed out, they have a little bell to ring and we don't.

Fortunately, as I pointed out, our game play was a little more civil.

Quiet Stories

Thankfully, Sam likes to read. Sometimes it’s a Hardy Boys book or a Nancy Drew book. Sometimes it’s a comic book. Most often, he likes to read from the local newspaper. In fact, he likes reading the news so much that a couple of months ago, I finally signed up for an online subscription. I did this for Sam's benefit, not mine. At least, not directly.

When he's reading, Sam will frequently share a news story with me. When he comes across something interesting, he'll come over to me - or have me come over to him - and he'll read the story to me, reading it in a style that a former job coach once accurately called, “un-rushed.”

And when, for whatever reason, a story isn’t interesting enough to share, he’ll sit on the couch and read it out loud to himself, quietly, in that same un-rushed way. When he does this, I often can't make out more than the occasional word - which is fine. He's doing it for himself, not me. I only hear his slow rhythms and soft tones as he's reading along.

This has always been special to me, but with working out of home for these last couple of weeks, I find I treasure it even more.

I hope this never gets stifled. I hope, no matter who he’s with down the road, I hope no one ever tells him to quiet down or to read to himself. Instead, I hope they find the same quiet joy and comfort in these soft rhythms, whether Sam shares his stories or not.