Are you in a swivet over the impeachment trial yet?
I thought so.
Well, relax, you can take your mind off the orange circus by entering my no-drama world. No charge!
Let’s try a little mind experiment.
Picture yourself in a large, semi-upscale gated community, with lots of lakes, preserved Old Florida undergrowth, and plenty of tropical birds and other wild critters like gators and bobcats.
Now breathe in the clean air, and listen to the quiet.
Feeling better?
Here’s how my day is going IRL in just such an environment.
A 19 mph wind picked up today, which made my morning 30-min bike ride tougher. I cycled back to the spot where I fell yesterday.
This happened when I clumsily dismounted — to lift my bike over an unusually high curb — and inadvertently stepped into the street’s drainage gutter.
Lost my balance doing so, but somehow I managed to turn and land on my back on a patch of St. Augustine grass. A disembodied voice floated out from the bush — this part of the street is next to a golf fairway partially hidden by dense stands of live oak and dwarf palmetto .
–Are you okay?
— I’m fine, I said and promptly jumped back on the bike and cycled away without looking back.
I was lucky this time round, unlike last summer.
Back home, I readjusted the height of my bike seat with a spanner (ie, wrench), and put some antibiotic cream on the scrape on my right elbow.
It’s annoying, but the extra weight I’m lugging around makes getting on and off a bicycle harder than it was when I rode one as a kid from Zamalek in the center of Cairo all the way to the Giza pyramids.
I’m hoping that having a German sheppie around is going to help me lose tons of weight.
Okay… what next?
Given the wind and impending rain, no scaffold-supported cleaning today of the back porch lanai.
Yeah!
My wife and I are continuing to prep the main living room in anticipation of Geneva’s arrival, our little German shep pupy who will be here a week from tomorrow. I musn’t forget to order her dog food this weekend. The breeder made this recommendation, which I will buy through Amazon.
I also have to get marrow bones from the butcher at Publix. Sheppies love to chew, and this will strengthen her jaw muscles and help make her ears go up.
And this.
I have no idea what why salmon oild is good for puppies, but the breeder insists that it’s crucial.
Given that today has turned into a “day off” (of coure in retirement every day is Sunday, which is often a bad thing, especially early on, as you realize how increasingly isolated you’re quickly becoming), I am going to watch Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad on YouTube give a talk on the origins of the Arabic language (see vid above).
I’m also going to have to decide if I’m going to get serious about SVG programming, or just continue being a dilettante.
Then I’ll take a nap. I’ve always loved afternoon naps; part of my Mediterranean heritage I suppose.
Now this sort of thing — naps, bicycle riding, arcane linguistics research — might not be your particular cup of tea.
If so, may I recommended some other diversions — other than sitting glued to the TV — that is both therapeutically relaxing and a brain challenge to boot?
I’ve discovered that mawkish nostalgia and obsessive regret is often the curse of idleness in retirement. It can also lead to anger and bitterness.
Things change.
That is the way of the world.
We may not look the way we did in our 20s and 30s, but there is no reason to allow our brains to turn to mush as we wallow in pointless regret over what might have been.
Over how things are not the way they used to be.
Unless you’ve contracted, say, some horrible terminal disease and have only days left, why not read a book, or take a long walk, and make a point of actually noticing what’s going on around you, or meet a friend for coffee or group pool exercises to 60s pop music, or volunteer to march against global warming, or go well outside your comfort zone and call that once-close brother you haven’t spoken to in years?
Whatever you do, stay away from FOX and social media — especially FB.
It’s far too easy to fall into a rabbit hole built by and for those who refuse to see or speak the truth, who think it’s clever or funny to make you unsure what or whom to believe, and who are dead sure convinced that they have all the right answers.
Do me a favor.
If you hear the Messiah is coming for some rally this weekend, leave town now.
Your puppy will thank you.
Leaving Amerika 