Noticing lxxi - days off

Although usually when I have work in I work every day, even if for only a couple of hours, simply to make strides—the curse of the freelancer—today and yesterday I did not. I could credit Christmas and Boxing Day—the holidays—with my unusual indolence. In truth, though, I took both these days off simply because the current book I'm working on is
. . . wretched is not too strong a word. It's all I can do to keep going with it. (It's 82 chapters. Each chapter very short, no more than five pages so far, usually only two—so there's that blessing.) It's about wine—sort of. Or about this particular wine writer's opinions about wine, about the industry, about the culture, about the consumers, about how idiotic the world is and how smart he is. (I am writing this, I fully trust, under the cloak of anonymity.)

In any case, it was so pleasant to take a couple of days off from it, but tomorrow I must crack down again. Only through work will I get those 82 chapters out of my life. (I'm in the 40s now).

So, yesterday and today were delightful as I played hooky! Yesterday morning we opened and then set about playing a new board game that I got us for Christmas, Wingspan. I heard about it on NPR's Science Friday, on a show all about smart board games. And yeah, this one is smart: so much so that we found ourselves scratching our heads over the complicated instructions. (No Chutes and Ladders or Candyland this!) But then it occurred to me: I bet there's a video on YouTube! And there is! By Rodney Smith—who made everything super clear. And off we trotted into a very fun (and somewhat informative) few rounds of this game centered on bird ecology. (I also got us a game called Periodic: A Game of the Elements, about the periodic table. We'll try that one tomorrow—when I take a break from the wretched book. Because I surely will need to.)

In the evening our friend Nina came for dinner: she brought a lovely salad, I made a hefty lasagne, and David made French-style bread and a cranberry-apply crumble. It was yummy! Before dinner we lit the menorah, with Nina reading a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver, "Morning Poem." After dinner we watched a couple of (weird) episodes of season three of Goliath.

Today, I fully intended to do some work, but instead I allowed myself to get sucked into a Michael Connelly Harry Bosch novel (which I will report on very soon). And in the afternoon we took a walk at one of our old stomping grounds, when we were hard at work finding all of the geocaches at a local regional park, Toro. Someone placed a new cache out there in June, which has been ruining my sea of yellow smileys ever since—so today we rectified that. The cache aside, it was a gorgeous day for a walk in a beautiful place: the perfect thing for Boxing Day. We saw some mushrooms, which through association lodged the idea in my head of chicken marsala, so that's what was for dinner: first time I've ever made it. Might not be the last.

And just now, the menorah, with a poem by Wysława Szymborska, "On Death, without Exaggeration." Next up: more Goliath. A great couple of goof-off days before I head back to the salt mines . . .

Here are some photos.

Wingspan in action. If you stop to read the tiny print at
the bottom of each card, you do learn a little something
about individual species of birds. But otherwise, it
probably can't exactly be considered an "educational" game.

Fourth day of Hanukkah

So exhausted was Milo from having company (in the form
of Nina—so exciting!) that he forgot for a moment
that he loathes the little white kitty . . .

Toro Park with a view north to Moss Landing and Santa Cruz

I like lichen! And moss too!

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), growing on an oak

Witch's butter (Tremella mesenterica)

Milo came along, of course! And thoroughly enjoyed himself,
also of course!