Saturday, October 19, 2013

well, that happened

Next year at fall break I'll be thinking, What did we do last year?  

Then I'll remember that fall break was basically three days of doing nothing, coming to the realization on Tuesday morning that I had a ton of stuff to do, and then a blur of work.  

I had some vague idea of working ahead so that my future weekends wouldn't be so swamped, but that didn't happen.  I did get my lesson plan templates set up for the rest of the academic year, though, which was tedious but will make my life easier going forward.  And I also researched easier ways to do things I'm already doing, like making PowerPoint presentations from my Cornell notes (yes, PPT can import documents from Word, but only if they're in outline format - no problem!)

The offspring had very few desires: go to Zia, sleep as much as possible.  My own list was similarly short: go to the Desert Botanical Garden, sleep, and catch up on work.  Unfortunately achieving the last did, in the end, take a chunk out of the second, but we did make it to the garden.

It was already early afternoon when we arrived, and the boys were starving.  We had a spectacular lunch at Gertrude's, out on the patio.  I was completely charmed by the families of quail that wandered through periodically, and the one cottontail who snacked on a nearby aloe.   All of them were un-photographable because of the interplay of light and shadow -- no fill-in flash I possess would've been enough to catch them.  Never mind the fact that they never stood still.

So by the time we started walking the trails (my favorite trail was closed!), it was close to 3:30 and the afternoon sun was gorgeous.  The cacti were glowing, and neither my little point-and-shoot (whose battery died about 30 minutes in) nor my iPhone camera could do it justice.






That was a high point, but not the only one.  I made a number of nice dinners and we ate outside as often as we could, just enjoying the food, the wine, the weather, and the company, and it was lovely.

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

dark

 
I like these.  They work. 

I never realized until this week that having less than 20/20 vision means that the world looks darker than it is.

I used to have 20/10, eyes that were better than average, and maintained that for years.  A couple of years ago my eye doctor recommended "cheaters" for those times when focusing on small print was difficult.  For a long time, I rarely wore them at all, reserving them for low-light situations at the end of long days.  Tired eyes don't see as well.

One thing I can see is the day coming when I'll break down and get glasses to wear all the time.