A Weekend of Napping

It has been a weekend of the napping. I napped for four hours on Friday and I followed it up with a two hour nap on Saturday. It remains to see what sort of napping I’m going to get out of Sunday. I think that a lack of solid sleep and intermittent work stress kept me from getting solid sleep through the week. Fortunately it was a quiet weekend, with nothing planned, and I was able to take advantage of that overwhelming desire to nap.

I slept well both nights, Friday and Saturday, deeply and peacefully. So I think I should be going into the new week well rested. This morning, Sunday morning, has been productive. I woke up early, with a desire to attend the first mass, so I did. After that it was breakfast with Tyrone at the Hickory pit, then a trip to the Laundromat in Campbell. Not a lot of laundry, three light loads, enough to make the trip worthwhile.

While I was watching the machines spin around I called my stepdad Bill and wished him a happy Father’s Day. From there I need to stop at big lots to look at patio furniture. So far, they are the ones who are the closest to having what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a couch at least 6 feet long the patio. I want something that I can comfortably lay down on. They have a nice one for about $400. It looks to me like the price on most of them, on most of the ones I’m looking for, is pretty consistent across the board. It just dawns on me, sitting here, that there may be something at one of the secondhand stores that meets my need. I may have to take a run to their.

After that I stopped at target to pick up some incidental things including a small birdbath for the patio. Nothing fancy, a ceramic vessel that looks like an oversized juice squeezer. It should work well. Right now there is a small coterie of birds on the patio chirping merrily away as they munch on the black oil sunflower. These birds are the larger brown sparrows and they are quite a talkative lot. There are a couple in the birdfeeder and a couple more on the patio floor. One of the interesting things about the brown sparrows is they definitely have their own internal pecking order. I think one of the fascinating things about watching the birds at the feeder is to watch their social order, is to watch how they are organized, how to go about the process of eating and socializing. With the brown sparrows there is always a bit of jostling as if no one is quite satisfied with the social order. The Red Capped Sparrows on the other hand seem content with their social order. The doves are the most fearless of the birds. If I come home and open the patio they will, at most, move from the feeder to the rail. Then they will sit there on the rail and look at me as if they are waiting for me to make the next move. If they ultimately decide to take flight it is grudgingly. The sparrows, in general, will eat and take off. The doves will eat, then find a comfortable perch, and linger for a while. Sometimes even go to sleep, which is very cool.

My plan for the immediate future is that I’m going to meet Rick and Tony for lunch over at the Sonoma chicken coop in Campbell California. I may change my mind upon arrival but right now I’m looking forward to their chicken Cobb salad. It is very good. After that I want to go out and catch a movie. I am in the mood for light fare so I want to see either 22 Jump Street or Angelina Jolie in Maleficent. Either of them looks like they would be very entertaining. After that, maybe a light dinner, then home for the evening. I have a spot of work that I may do this evening. A couple of email I want to get out. So I’m going to wrap this up and publish it online. I’ve been very negligent in my writing over the last couple of months it feels. No real reason, just the way it has failed to flow. It’s not that I’m not writing it’s just that I have been not inclined to share it.

A Quick Day, A Quick Note

Paused during the day, waiting for a phone call for my brother, and I thought I would make a quick entry.  Today was:

-Two hours of online work
-Breakfast with Tony at the Hickory Pit
-Five loads of laundry at the laundromat
-A stop at the grocery store getting ready for the week ahead
-A stop at the drug store to pick up some essentials
-A stop at the hardware store to pick up some window cleaner
-A stop at the donut shop because it's right next to the hardware store
-Home, unloading the assorted stuff
-An hour more of online work
-This pause
-The call from my brother (any time now)
-Then off to see Stand Up Guys (Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, Al Pacino)
-Then, probably a stop for a late lunch/early dinner
-Then home and fold and hang laundry

I sure am cramming a lot of stuff into a single day, but with all the hours working, I don't really see a lot of other options.  I was overdue with laundry and I was into the section of the closet where the clothes we don't wear by don't throw away just in case were hanging for the last couple of days.  I should have done laundry last week, but I was just way too busy.

One of the things I would still like to fold in and may do this evening is spend an hour or so cleaning the living room and kitchen - they're not particularly messy, but it does need to be done sooner rather than later.  I also find the whole act of "zen cleaning" to be particularly restful and soothing. I think I could use some restful and soothing today.

It has been a fairly good Saturday, everything considered.  I'd normally run through the list of what I did today, but, just imagine me easy going and relaxed and you'll have a very good picture. 

I am winding into the evening now and I'm shortly going to be wrapping up the last load of laundry.  I usually don't do my laundry here at the complex, since there are limited machines and more than a load or two can be very time consuming, but I wasn't doing anything else of any significance tonight, so I am running three loads through one after another. 

The last load is blue jeans and they are washing right now and in about seven minutes I am going to walk down and move them over to the dryer.  It's one less errand that I'll have to do tomorrow. I would like to go out and see a movie tomorrow but there really isn't anything that is crying out for me to see it, which is odd for this time of year.

I haven't decided if I am going to watch a movie or read into the evening yet. Right now I am mostly inclined toward reading, but that could all change in a couple of minutes. I have "The Golden Compass" sitting near the Blu-Ray player, so I may slip it in and enjoy the movie. I liked the original and I was certainly hoping they would do some of the sequels, but at this point it doesn't seem like they are going to.  Considering one of the major characters was Daniel Craig, he might be a bit hard to get now days, seeing as he is James Bond and all.

One of the reasons the movie was on my mind was last night I saw part of "The Kingdom of Heaven" with Orlando Bloom and Eva Green, and Eve Green is the Witch in "The Golden Compass". Which lead me to think "gee, I haven't watched that movie in a while" and decide to set it out for when I was in the right mood.  And now that I have been writing about it for a while, I am suddenly much more in the right mood for it.  So, after I move the jeans over into the dryer, I think "The Golden Compass" is coming on to watch.

An Industrious Day Dancing With Dragons

I was industrious today. It was mostly just the mood I was in. I slept in an hour or two, then showered and started the day. I ironed and folded laundry. I cleaned the bathroom. I cleaned the kitchen. I had breakfast with friends. I strung Christmas lights. I wandered Fry's. I stopped at the market for groceries. I watched two episodes of "Once Upon A Time", I shot two hours worth of pool. I had dinner at an Italian place (Mama Mia's on Hamilton). I visited with TR. Now, as the day winds down, I am going to continue finishing up George R.R. Martin's "A Dance with Dragons", A good day and an industrious day under the belt.

The Brilliance of An Ordinary Evening

After I left work today I ran a few errands (bank, post office, tax preparer) and then swung home and went back to work virtually for another pair of hours, working on some data research for a customer. I was planning on doing laundry at the apartment, but other people apparently had the same plan.

We have four washers and four dryers in our complex (in two small laundry rooms, one on each end of the complex). Every once in a great while you find two open together, but usually, like tonight, the opportunity arises for one machine at a time. For light loads and incidental laundry, that if fine - but I had four loads I wanted to do tonight. So, I had the choice - I could do them here, in succession, taking all evening, or I could head out to the laundromat.

Now, I happen to like laundromats - so it was an easy decision for me. I packed up the baskets and headed out. I go to the laundromat in Westgate West, across for Bikram Yoga and the California Fencing Academy and just around the corner from Orchard Supply Hardware. With the exception of a woman who left as I was arising, I had the place to myself.

Four loads of laundry in at the same time (dress shirts, dress pants, sweaters, and blue jeans) - then 24 minutes to kill. I walked around the corner to OSH and picked up some more detergent (Tide Free) and some Bounce sheets. I got a bottle of Hi C Orange Soda and sat on a bench outside of the laundromat until the timer in my iPhone went off, then I went back inside and moved everything over to the driers.

36 minutes. I walked over to Boston Market and had the meatloaf dinner, with mashed potatoes and the squash stuffing, with a small spice cupcake and a glass of ice tea. The meal came with "southern style cornbread". I wasn't sure what made it southern style, because it was basically just cornbread. After dinner, I had eight minutes to kill, so I walked the long way back to the laundromat.

It was (and still is) a beautiful California evening. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue and crystal clear. The sun was a rich warm gold. There was a slight breeze, cool to the skin, that cleared all of the particulates of urban smog from the air. Each breath of air was refreshing. I walked past the California Fencing Academy (no class, just a bunch of kids running around inside and parents sitting on benchs, probably waiting for class to start) and Bikram Yoga (which did have a class going on, but they appeared to be in the resting part of yoga - they were all just lying there staring up at the ceiling).

I timed it perfectly - walking into the laundromat just as the timer went off. I spent the next thirty minutes carefully hanging shirts (ten), pants (six), blue jeans (3) and sweaters (3). The sweaters were not quite dry, so they are not here in the house, sitting on the back of the couch, finishing the drying process.

As was was walking through Westgate West I happened to glance up at the green expanse of the Santa Cruz Mountains. They looked lush and beautiful, flush and green for the preceding weeks rain. There is a trail that runs from the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains, near Castle Rock Park, all the way down the southern slope to the ocean. It is a full days hike - I thought about that trail. I think I will hike it here in the spring, once we get more consistent good weather. Right now, I am sure, from the rain parts of the trail are soft and mushy and treacherous.

I was loading my car when a car pulled up, drove past me, and then backed up. There were two young women in the car. The driver rolled down the window and asked where Bikram Yoga was. (If they had looked out the other window they would have seen the big white sign and all the people inside, now doing yoga positions.) In a playful mood, I really had to resist the temptation to give them very involved directions that would have sent them all the way through the Westgate West complex in a giant circle and brought them back to right where they were.

Instead, I just smiled and told them to look to their right. Sometimes I am...benevolent. I am feeling benevolent tonight. I am in a good mood. It is a gracious, lush, beautiful California night. I have a closet full of fresh clothes. I have a fresh sweater for tomorrow. I seem to have successfully shaken the sluggishness of the morning in favor of the brilliance of the evening.