Day 6.361: Waterworld

It was a very wet day today. With a couple of feet of snow around the place, the temperature rose to nearly 50°F with steady rain this morning. Yikes.

Tonight, the temperature will get back into the teens so I suspect it will be Iceworld tomorrow.

Here's a picture from yesterday.

Because I'm contractually obligated to do this once in a while.

Day 6.330: A run in the woods

I was more excited than usual about setting my alarm for 4:30 am to run before work this morning because I planned to branch out. Instead of my now-usual coastal routes, I'd spotted a natural area with trails inland within reach of my normal 7-8 mile morning run.

The first half of the run was fairly uneventful - running through the quiet early-morning city streets with a short section of dark trail where I was pleased to have my headlight (a fairly powerful one, worn around my waist) to see where I was stepping and my route programmed into my Garmin for confirmation I was on the right track. 40 minutes in I'd gone 4.6 miles - pretty much the pace I'd expected to go.

Then I made the turn into the far end of the natural area. My route took me along about half the total length of trails and out the other side - about a third of the way home as the crow flies.

The first thing I noticed was that it was muddy underfoot, then that I was running into the woods, then that it was very dark and a bit foggy. Nothing really to worry about. Then the going started to get difficult.

I found myself having to slow down a lot to pick my footfalls in some places due to the mud, puddles and fallen trees etc. Then it got to be hard going.

At one point a crested a small rise, saw a dark area ahead, slowed thinking it was water and realised it was a dip in the path. As I, in a state of relief, started to run again only to realise it was a much deeper and wider 'dip' than I'd thought and nearly tumbled down the slope.

At this point I realised I was deep into an area of trails in winter with no phone. It looked like this*:

I pictured myself falling and having to limp or drag myself out.  I decided to slow down even more.  I considered going back - but it was a long slow route back and then I would be well over 4 miles from home when I made it out.

Later I had to cross a railroad track.  This offends my British sensibilities (trains are fast and deadly in the UK rather than often slow and sometimes deadly, sometimes useful for hitching a ride) but I was pleased that I took it in my stride (!) only to discover the other side of the tracks was another steep muddy bank to descend.

I also lost the trail once.  I would definitely have got lost if I hadn't had my Garmin telling me I was right even when it looked wrong.

I will confess to being rather relieved when I made it back to a road - and didn't mind when it started to rain as I ran back home.

Here were my mile splits (in minutes and seconds):
1 - 8:47
2 - 8:26
3 - 8:24
4 - 8:29
5 - 11:16 (entering the trails)
6 - 16:01 (yeah)
7 - 9:58  (mostly back on the roads)
8 - 9:07

Not my finest hour (or so), but it was worth it for the views.  Or not.





*This is an actual picture from my phone. I didn't take it today - as I mentioned - I didn't have my phone (or a camera) with me.  I don't know why I took it at all to be honest!

Day 6.293: Did we over-order?

When I left work (for the third-from-last time), I picked up Exile #4 from her karate class and took her out for Indian food.

After we'd eaten, this was the scene:

After which I paid and the two of us left with a few leftovers from the four dishes, three rice, two naans that we'd ordered to drive home.

It's possible that three other family members arrived and left separately and in between helped us to eat all the food - but that's just a detail.

Day 6.272: E5N1 and the magic corn dog

Here are some beautiful water-drop covered things from our trip to Five Rivers:

And now, on to the poor discarded corn dog:

Of course it wasn't really a corn dog.  As Betsy correctly identified, it was a cattail (bulrush).  This is the moment when E5N1 first spotted it:

amongst other things, he decided it granted him the power of flight:

and as a result I referred to it as "the magic corn dog" - to which he always replied, "No! It's a cattail!"

This also happened:

Which obviously brought this to mind:

Every day is an adventure!

Day 6.131: Apparently eligible

I received a letter from AARP (isn't that an old-people thing?)...

"Our records show...you are fully eligible."

Click...American Association of Retired Persons...click...click..."anyone aged 50 or older can join"...

Not quite there yet AARP, but thanks!

Day 6.086: Butter flies like a banana

We're home. We had an uneventful drive back from Montreal through the late afternoon and evening. But first, we had some more visiting to do.

Today's destination was the Botanical Gardens. They are hardly at their best right now, but the highlight is a series of greenhouses that were in excellent condition including one which currently houses a huge collection of live and uncaged butterflies. We were lucky to coincide with this - and it was definitely worth the wait to get in.

Here are some pictures - some butterflies, but also E5N1 experiencing the life cycle of a monarch butterfly - egg, caterpillar and chrysalis - and my hand alongside a moth, perhaps it's just as well that these giants were not flying around, but quietly sleeping!

Talking of monarchs, yesterday, at the Science Center we watched an IMAX movie - they have a real giant-screen IMAX setup like the ones that I first encountered in the 80's, not the pale imitation that movie theaters use.  The 3D film is called L'Incroyable voyage des papillons or in the English-language version we saw (the only English-language showing of any film during the middle of the day) rather more prosaically: Flight of the Butterflies.  Of course, living here, we knew all about the monarchs and their long migration flights - or so we thought.

It turns out there was masses we did not know.  The film tells the parallel stories of a butterfly, her daughter and her granddaughter in the three-generation, year-long migration and of the man who made his life-work to  understand the migration, discovering - in the early 1970's that they congregate in the winter in huge colonies - huddling together on wooded mountain tops in Mexico where they look like this (an exhibit from the Insectarium at the Botanical Gardens today):

Amazing stuff!

Oh, yes and apologies for the kerning error above, here's the evidence:

Day 6.084: Except, perhaps, this one

We're getting away for a little vacation at the end of the kids' Spring Break.

Today, after half a day of travelling, we visited what is, effectively, a small, indoor zoo (although it goes by another name). In the interests of mystery, I won't be too specific.

Here is some of what we got up to:

I enjoyed this display in the Discovery (i.e. kids hands-on) Room of things that fly that are not birds (a flying fish, a bat, a flying squirrel and a flying lizard) right next to a bird that doesn't fly.

Of course, the real attraction was the live animals - we saw a lot of them - but I'll save those photos for another post, except, perhaps, this one:

Anyone like to guess where in the world we are?

Day 6.064: The view from my Stairmaster

I tried a different route for my morning run. It took me along some "interesting" trails, past some possibly-seasonal outdoor restaurants and up (and later down) a lot of stairs. On the plus side it was a beautiful morning and I got to enjoy this view.

Day 6.042: A Force Of Will

I received this book in the mail yesterday. I haven't read it yet so this is not a review, but I wanted to mention that it's out and I have reason to believe that it is wonderful.

I first came across Mike Stavlund having met a friend of his and made contact with her on facebook.  She alerted me to his poetry and I think poets are awesome so I was fascinated to see that he was giving a talk at the Wild Goose festival last summer and made sure I caught it. It was unexpected and wonderful. This is what I wrote here just afterwards in my daily recap:

My main session for the afternoon was Mike Stavlund talking about Integrating Our Losses. He is about to publish a book which he basically wrote five years ago - one chapter a week following the death of his baby son. Echoing words from one of my friends recently, he said that we have to stop trying to assign a hierarchy of loss - "Our heart doesn't know the difference it just experiences loss." He read sections of his book which were very moving, chaired the discussion of grief and loss in a really lovely way and made me cry reading the lyrics of a song by The Cobalt Season which was based on one of his blog posts during that time (lyrics, audio). It was a beautiful and profound time.

So the long-awaited book is here. I'll read it as soon as I can and maybe write about it again, but it's on my mind now, and so I get to write about it now if I want to!

Day 5.213: Seeing the Olympics

I had lunch at a sports bar with my colleagues today. When we arrived we noticed that of the forty or so TV screens exactly zero were showing Olympics coverage. We sat in disbelief for several minutes looking at the 'sports' that were showing which included little-league baseball and the local weather forecast. I had time to take this picture.

Then a commercial-break finished and one channel did turn out to be showing an Olympic event - the hand-ball - of course the more popular events will be saved for later so that they can be shown 'live' on the prime-time show!

We did have another Olympic-watching moment today though. When Exile #2 collected the kids from camp at lunchtime, E5N1 (who was wearing his London 2012 t-shirt) came to meet her followed by his camp-counselor.

"Did you really go to see the Olympics?" the counselor asked.

"No...what did he tell you?"

"That he'd been to the Olympics - to see the Women's Beach Volleyball."

That's my boy!

Day 5.150: The secret life of this blog

I hope you know how much I appreciate the readers who visit from time to time (or even daily) to read my strange ramblings, perhaps laugh or smile at a photograph or occasionally leave a comment.

However, there is a special class of blog readers for whom my love knows no bounds - these are the real writers who sometimes grace me with their presence and, more importantly bless me with their wonderful words.  These are blog writers whose ability to put a sentence together leaves me in the shade.  I don't think I could ever aspire to write the way they do.

Unfortunately for you, the comments these heavyweights leave are automatically filed into a folder: Special Prose Avoid Making-public (I think that's what it stands for) where I leave them so that you will not desert these digital shores for other blogs with writing in a different class altogether.

Thanks to Flickr user AJC1

However, I have realised the error of my ways and will now share two recent examples of thes gems with you.

Post writing is also a excitement, if you be familiar with after that you can write otherwise it is complex to write. My site > [removed]

I think the admin of this site is genuinely working hard for his web page, for the reason that here every stuff is quality based data. My web page: [removed]

Sorry for keeping them from you for so long. It was wrong of me.

Day 5.098: Driving cross-country

I am home.

The journey back from the Washington D.C. area can hardly be referred to as cross-country, but our drive to the airport seemed to be according to the rental car GPS unit, which, along with a fair proportion of drivers - judging by the emptiness, was unaware of the existence of the road we were on.

Day 5.097: Swans and dragons

I'm away on business - watching the local wildlife from my hotel window.

Day 5.080: Well, "all" might be a stretch

After a busy day of work (me), organising of contractors etc (Exile #2) and school etc. We had a very nice evening - having been invited by some friends a few days ago to escape our kitchen devastation in favour of their delicious cooking in their fully-functioning one.

A few days ago, we (apart from Exile #2) were about to eat this rather less wholesome product when the girls asked if E5N1 (who is, like me, on a broadly dairy-free diet) should be allowed any.

"It says it's ALL butter."
"It doesn't mean that!"
"Why does it say it then?"
"It means that all the fat in it is butter."

But as I said it I glanced down the ingredients and began to lose confidence as I scanned down the list past soybean and cottonseed oils long before I saw the word "butter" after "contains 2% or less of each of the following".

The ingredients list is disturbingly long and it's a bit hard to read, so I'll reformat it for you but keeping the largest constituent first order.  Things are not as bad as they first appear.

Pound cake mix*, water, butter*****

So, as long as you ignore all the footnotes (and don't ask why the footnotes appear to be numbered 1 and 5), you could believe that butter is a major constituent - despite being last on the list.

But I could paraphrase further:

• Ingredients (largest first): A mix of the ingredients in the cheapest possible cake, butter

There you go - apart from that first thing it's all butter!

It was actually OK - but definitely not terribly buttery.

Here are those footnotes in full.

* Enriched bleached flour**, sugar, vegetable shortening***, eggs, nonfat milk solids,
contains 2% or less of each of the following: dextrose, salt, natural and artificial flavor (contains milk), sodium bicarbonate, acidic sodium aluminum phosphate, xanthan gum, yellow color blend****, sodium diacetate.

** Wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid.

*** Partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, mono- and diglycerides, propylene glycol mono- and diesters of fats, polysorbate 60.

**** Wheat starch, soybean oil, annatto and turmeric extract.

***** Cream (milk), salt.

Yum.

Day 5.061: Naming convention

With all the talk of "The new iPad" and whether it should have been called iPad HD or iPad 3 or whatever, you may have missed the way McDonald's have been quietly turning naming on its head.

First the was the "McNaming Convention" - which died when a focus group tried the Big Mac-styled McSnackWrap but found it too much to order a "Mac McSnackWrap"*. Then came the quiet removal of the "Quarter Pounder" from the menu - replaced by the "Quarter Pounder with cheese". No problem - if you are on the Mass Pike coming home from a TMBG gig and need a late night dinner because you didn't have time to eat before hand and you don't want cheese - you can just do what I did and order one of these:

What could be simpler?




* Obviously, this is not true - unless I just made up a totally true story by accident.

Day 5.052: Cowgirl guitar bandit

I arrived home to be greeted by E5N1. Exile #2 was finishing off dinner in the kitchen. Exile #3 has a sleep-over tonight...

E5N1: [Exile #4]'s not here!
me: Oh?
E5N1: No - she's at a play-date.
me: Oh. Where?
E5N1: She's at M--'s house.
me: OK.
I'd seen an email about trying to arrange such a play-date, so it seemed reasonable.  I wandered into the kitchen.

me: Is she staying out for dinner?
Exile #2 is silent and has a curious look on her face.
me: What?

Suddenly a cackle and Exile #4 burst in.

She didn't look like this (although it would have been appropriate I suppose - this is from a couple of days ago).

It turned out that she had been hiding.  However, the whole play-date story was entirely of E5N1's creation.  Oh boy - are we in trouble?!

Day 5.034: Aaargh! Who's that?

Kaya, Exile #3's American Girl doll spent the evening hanging around the house in her contemporary clothes.  Several times I walked into a room to find her sitting in some natural position looking at me.

Later, she did some art work as you can see.  She even did a rather convincing portrait of E5N1's Argyle sock monkey.  She's a talented girl!

Day 4.348: 'twas the night before Christmas...

A very happy Christmas from us to you!

Day 4.323: Counting down**

I'm not very tall.

Actually that's something of an understatement. I am 5'6" or perhaps 5'5" - it seems to vary from day to day - or possibly according to who is doing the rounding.

I was also short (similarly so) when I was in my early twenties. At that time, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson (who now sports the rather wonderful title Baron von-Lawson of Blaby*), had lost a lot of weight in his early 60's and looked rather saggy as a result.  In conversation with a friend we concluded that if you're going to lose weight you really need to do it before you're 40 (that probably seemed quite old to us then).

That conversation has popped into my mind a few times over the last few years.  At least partly because I turned 40 and was trying to lose a little weight.  Originally I was aiming for 155 lbs - that is the top of the 'normal' range for BMI for a 5'6" tall adult - later I decided that 150 lbs was a more honest target - the same position for me if I am admitting to being only 5'5" tall.  Which I'm not. Obviously.

I recently dipped below that line - which is good.  The first half of the weight loss was all diet, the last part, has been my exercise regime (mostly running in the end).  I didn't lose it before I turned 40, but I didn't miss by much.

I can also report that the exercise is also having a beneficial impact on my LDL/HDL ratio, so my doctor is reasonably happy - as long as I keep going!






* I made up the 'von-' but the rest of it is true. Having lived nearby in my youth I can also reveal that Blaby is pronounced like baby with an added 'l'.

** This post was originally numbered 4.321 due to a clerical error - maybe that influenced the post title - and maybe the content!

Day 4.279: Georgina Washington

The other day Exile #3 struck this pose and declared herself to be "Georgina Washington". I suspect she was (rather wonderfully) alluding to this.

Any suggestions that we have been here too long, forgotten our roots, gone native or anything similar will be ignored as being something occuring "in the rest of the world" and therefore having little or no significance for us.