Winter 2015 February 9 Monday

41 degrees this morning. 46:49 minutes walking

I read recently that growing old is like boiling a frog in water, except instead of the water getting  hotter, time just keeps going faster.  

Of course, I don’t really feel like I’m “old” yet, so I guess I don’t feel the boiling water yet!

Wonderful weekend overall, weather yesterday (Sunday) was especially nice.  I thought I heard geese (or some kind of birds) flying north this morning, which may mean it will be an early Spring.  I believe the birds before I believe a rodent!

We actually sat outside and read yesterday, it was that nice here.  If the wind had been up, like Saturday, it would have been too cold, but it was very still.

I have been working on my “books read” list, trying to transfer it to the computer.  I forgot how time consuming it was and I am going to follow the same procedure I do on a lot of projects, “if you’re going to eat an elephant, do it one bite at a time”.  

All I have to do is remember to eat a bite each day.  (I remember seeing a quote once that said “start each day by eating a frog, everything else will seem easy” or something like that.)

Nothing in this saying (or the one about frogs) means I endorse eating elephants or boiling frogs.  

That kind of is like eating “duck”, there is nothing more unappetizing than eating duck.  I ordered it once years ago, and I couldn’t eat any more than a bite and I think I spit that out.

That was one Chinese food I didn’t like.  I liked almost everything in China except for anything related to duck or their coffee.  A few hotels had “regular” coffee, but most of them had a machine that split out some wretched combination of coffee, milk, sugar and than frothed it up, it was unbelievably bad.  

On the other hand I developed a real appreciation for Chinese tea, which in most cases came free with the meal.  (Water cost you)  In many cases you could get tea, Coke (or similar carbonated beverage) or beer free with the meal but water cost extra and coffee was unavailable.  

I’m not complaining, I didn’t go to China to have everything the same as in the United States, I”m sure they have the same comments except vice versa when they visit here.   

Speaking of food, we were discussing food allergies with someone the other day and I recently really I am very allergic to “figs”.  Several years ago, someone gave me a fresh, off the tree (bush?) “fig’” and I got really sick.  I just thought it was a chance bad fig, until I had a salad with figs in it a month or so ago, I got really sick.

Maybe too may “fig newton” cookies when I was a kid!.

I plan on fixing my bicycle and start riding on a regular basis again.  I have really missed it.  When I started working, my schedule just didn’t allow my early morning ride, but with my home office now, I can ride in the morning on weekdays.  

When I ride in the morning, I carefully equip the bike with a high intensity helmet light, a head light and high intensity rear light etc.  When we moved, somehow I misplaced the light (I think I accidentally donated it).  Until I started working, it didn’t matter because I rode during the day.

Probably have to have an “office day” today, although it is supposed to be a wonderful day  today.

That’s it for now, Monday, February 9, 2015.