jumpingfish › version 3.0

From 30,000 Feet to Sea Level

Mon, 15 May 2017, 06:01 PM (-06:00)

1. Flying Over

We left Austin on a Thursday afternoon. And as we flew over fly-over country, we saw the red monuments of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

source: maplogs

And we saw the winding water of Lake Powell up to where in the distance the water abruptly stopped at Glen Canyon Dam.

source: Lake Powell Tours

We saw these things looking straight down from 30,000 feet.

2. Chowing Down

We arrived in Berkeley around dinner time. And seeing how Trudy and I are all about dinner at dinner time, we texted my brother and told him we were headed to Razan’s Organic Kitchen.

source: The Fair and Industrious Trudy

We met at sea level, and we all chowed down.

I sat on the floor in the kitchen this evening next to Charlie as he ate his dinner, reluctantly at first as he always does, and then only begrudgingly, as if the kibble had no taste and offered nothing of interest.

I kind of understand where he’s coming from. My tastebuds are still recovering from last year’s treatment, and I find that I approach my meals reluctantly at first and then eat only begrudgingly, because the food often has no taste and offers nothing of interest.

We seem to see things from the same point of view, Charlie and I.

Sitting Outside Being Not

Sun, 30 Apr 2017, 06:46 PM (-06:00)

It was chilly this morning — by Central Texas standards. At lunchtime in the park, we sat in the sun to warm our bones. It will be blisteringly hot soon enough. So the cool air blowing against our faces as we walked thru the woods was medicine for the soul and inoculation for the coming summer.

As the sun went down in the evening, as the shadows of the trees across the street stretched over to where the dogs and I were sitting, as the cool air got cooler, as the yellow Texas Star began to glow in the late afternoon light, I sat down and leaned against the stump of the old Ash tree and crossed my legs and let the last rays of sun hit my face as the breeze blew thru my hair.

Don’t tell Trudy. She was inside being industrious. I was sitting outside being not.

I Thought It Was Going To Be Easier

Sat, 29 Apr 2017, 03:56 PM (-06:00)

Old People

Sun, 23 Apr 2017, 08:02 PM (-06:00)

It was lunch time. We were eating barbecue. We do that a lot, he and I.

He was telling me something about a friend he has back home. She’s a woman roughly his mother’s age, if I got the gist. He stopped for a moment and looked at me. (It was just the two of us at the table.)

“I have this habit of making friends with old people.”

Yep. That’s me — I don’t deny it: I am an old people.

Getting Caught in a Blood Trap

Sun, 23 Apr 2017, 07:53 PM (-06:00)

Julia texted me from Kentucky with what I thought was a question.

She asked if I knew what color blood is when it’s in our arteries and veins. There’s the easy answer, and then there’s the question of blue-blooded veins. And seeing as how I didn’t really know the answer, I made our back-and-forth texting into a conversation about how one might go about designing an experiment to determine the answer.

But evidently she wasn’t asking a question. It seems she was testing me. And she was tickled that she had proven that I didn’t know.

Here’s the thing of it: why ask me? Why test me? I’m not a doctor. My brother is, and for all of this asking/testing, she might have texted him, instead. I’m not a nurse. Her aunt is, she might have texted her. Asking me a medical question is analogous to — what? — asking either of them about the Lagrange Planetary Equations or micro-service architectures. I suspect they’d field a question about them similarly to how I fielded and failed Julia’s blood trap.

I wonder why she texted this Cuzuncle. And I wonder how long until she comes around to Celestial Mechanics or Software Design. Might not be long.