Not a Fan

From left: Captain Hook, Tinkerbelle, Peter Pan,
The Crocodile, and Wendy

I am not a fan of Halloween. I'm not opposed to it, of course. I liked seeing my kids and their friends dressed up when they were little. I've been known to hold a plastic hook and brandish a cutlass when pirates are needed. Pumpkin decorating can be fun. I'm glad the current state of pandemic caution says trick-or-treating is likely safe and so the kids who have missed so much can enjoy it. 

But I'm not a fan of horror books or movies or zombies or what looks like dead people all over people's lawns. Pumpkins left outside get smashed or eaten by deer or squirrels. Most of the candy is poor quality, but I've been known to eat it anyway. Bah humbug!

Now, I'm holed up in my basement bunker with all of the outside and upstairs lights turned off. It's very quiet; I'm just reading. I have a dog that goes berserk - like Rumpelstiltskin about to explode with fury - when someone comes to the door. I figured it was better to hide both of us than to leave him furious and scared all night. I did leave a bowl of M&M packets on the front porch, if anyone ventures up in the dark. It'll be interesting to see if any of it is there in the morning.

EEEK! Imagine how I jumped (and the dog too) when the door to the next room here in the basement started moving with something knocking against it just now! Turns out the robot vacuum cleaner is on its appointed rounds. Hopefully we can settle back in to the book for a while.

Dead Man's Run

The 5K race scheduled for last night switched to an all virtual race because of the storm. But they opened the course for folks to do it on their own, so my girl and I headed down past Capitol Hill to Historic Congressional Cemetary, and ran it on our own. The day was absolutely gorgeous, a perfect 60 degrees for running.

This was my first 5K since the Before Times, and my girl's first ever! Her time was equal to my personal best time, but she is 22 and I was 60 when I made that time, so ok. We both are doing run/walk intervals timed by a watch. My run intervals are slower than some people's walks, but the mechanics of running are different than walking. It's always clear to me when I'm doing which. The advantage of doing these short running intervals is you can go further from the very first time out. Today, at two miles, my thought was that because my intervals are so short and I was going so slow, I'd be able to keep up the run intervals to the end. But by 2.75 miles, the rest of the course was all uphill, there was no cheering crowd, and I was done. I walked the rest of the way.

We had fun, and are signed up for an in-person Turkey Trot next month. 

I hope to train more before then. My knees are part of the limiting factor, but also my lack of cardio fitness. I'm doing physical therapy for the knees, but I've got to get out there for the cardio. Better fitness should spill over to everything else in my life, so the theory (and some of my previous experience) suggests.

In prep for this, I dug down in my drawers and closets and found some running clothes I hadn't been wearing. Some I gave to my girl and some I kept. Yay for shopping my closet!

The Worst Flooding Since Isabel

About 5-6” covering the pier

We’re having a fairly normal fall storm, but the angle of the winds have combined with the tides to create the worst flooding in the Chesapeake area we’ve seen since hurricane Isabel, in 2003. Earlier this week there was a nor’easter north of us, and the drainage from up north down into the Chesapeake is aggravating the situation.

There was a general email sent out by a substitute caretaker at the marina (the owner is on a foreign vacation) suggesting everyone needed to look to their boats. I was scheduled to run a 5K with my girl this evening, but it was cancelled as the Anacostia River trail is under water. As a result, I had the time and decided to go up - more to look at it than because I was worried.

The drive up was miserable. Normally under an hour, we poked along on the interstate at about 40 mph. In unlikely timing, I got to the marina during a relatively dry interval between two rain bands. It was an hour or two after high tide, but it was pretty high! It was over the dock, by several inches. I had brought my boots, and was able to get down to the end of the pier where my boat is.

The floating dock is higher than the fixed pier.
The metal ramp connects the two.
Mutima is on the right.

This spring, the marina installed new floating docks at end of the fixed pier, and I was lucky enough to get one of the few slots. As a result, I tie my floating boat to something that also floats, and so my boat and the dock move together. This is why I wasn’t too worried about how Mutima would come through. But, I wanted to see it.

For previous storms, I’ve had to tie my floating boat to fixed pilings, and so it’s hard to get a line that has enough slack to hold the boat as it floats up, but not too much slack to make it too loose in lower water, and thus likely to bang into the sides of the slip. 

The winds kicked up while I was there, and they made me stagger a couple of times and make sure I had very firm footing. After about 20 minutes, the skies opened back up and I headed home. Waze took me on a tour of alternative roads, apparently any road being better than I95 tonight. I was through the worst of it before dark.

The highest water is likely to be around 2 am, high tide and the tail end of the storm. I may make another trip back up in the next couple of days to make sure all is still well.

Homemade Dog Toy

 I heard about this from someone in our (zoom) dog training class. I dropped treats down through the tubes (with Bixby watching) and set it down. It took seconds for him to get the idea. We did it repeatedly. 

Watch Bixby:

Link if can’t see:

https://youtu.be/giLDWYbsclw

Imagine Rocky with this! He had the drive, but no finesse. He would have just eaten the whole thing, box and tubes and all! Only one go-round before having to replace it all!

Glenstone

Nature and architecture housing art

Back in August, I visited the Glenstone Museum with my friend K. The Glenstone Museum is a private entity, funded almost exclusively through a single family's fortune. This place is a result of a single compelling vision, clearly not the result of a committee. They have space-limited tickets (even before Covid); tickets are free but are hard to get, going fast like Hamilton tickets when a new bunch are released. I had set an alarm for the first of August at 10 am, and actually went on-line within minutes of the reminder. I was expecting the newest batch of October spaces, but to my surprise they had some near-term August tickets also available. I snagged two for later that same week, because why not?

Glenstone is clear on having a three-point vision: Art, Architecture, and Nature. Their art is post-WW2, their architecture is modern and green, and their nature is meant to enhance the previous two and reflect the land's regional ecosystems. It's on former farmland west of DC (all land near DC is former farmland, unless it's current farmland). Every aspect of the site is tightly controlled, down to the uniforms the on-site workers wear. They are grey, meant to be distinctive but blend with the modern architecture and not detract from the art. (The grey uniforms frankly looked like socialist worker costumes to me.) I understand most of the folks working there are hired for their interest in, and further trained in, the art.

Engaging directly with outdoor art

The art includes a permanent collection and visiting exhibitions. There are two indoor spaces, a conventional gallery and an amazing mostly underground space with surface pavilions and light wells for natural light. There are also giant outdoor pieces, which is part of the compelling vision. There is a new building under construction, to display a single piece of art. Imagine that, what it takes to do that! Money and ego, in huge amounts, I would think. There are trails, winding along meadows and down to a stream with wooded edges. There is a sound-art installation, which we heard from a distance but missed the full experience due to time limitations - reason alone to go back. 

Partly what had sparked me to visit was an article about a visiting exhibition, a retrospective on the African American artist Faith Ringgold. Amazing and breathtaking, to follow the decades of her evolution to the current day. The below-ground exhibits were part of the permanent collection, interesting and intriguing modern art displayed in a very conscious way to make connections and contrasts. No photography indoors is allowed, which then drove me in the direction intended: engaging with the art directly. I was entranced with an installation that was an entire room, with running water from multiple sinks, along walls evoking a forest, and stacks of newspapers making piles everywhere. What was it about? No clue in any notes, we were left on our own to experience it for ourselves

The trails only cover a mile or two, not a serious hiking experience. But to the delight of many visitors, including me, a large wild turkey family crossed the path in front of us, from one part of the tall meadow to another.

I was taken aback to find, down by the shady stream, a vast expanse of a very very nasty invasive weed, Japanese stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum.  It's expecially egregious to have it growing on the banks of a stream, where the seeds are going to wash downstream and spread further than by air alone. Once seen in this beautiful place, it couldn't be unseen. To me it was like an artwork that had been defaced by vandals, detracting significantly from the experience. (I provided this feedback to the museum, hoping they had a plan to manage this. I am aware the only way to manage it is very labor-intensive, but it really has to be done.)

Kind of a Shrek vibe, no?

One of the most famous pieces at Glenstone is Jeff Koons' Split Rocker, a huge sculpture with interior plumbing that feeds an annual display of colorful living plants. I had seen photos, and it was part of my impetus to visit. Because it's living, it is different every year. One of the guides told us that due to this year's weather, it was the best it had been in years. It was magnificent, and I lingered to both take pictures and study how it was put together, what plants were used, what glimpses of the plumbing and works I could get.

Imagine my delight when, going through the old travel photos of my mother, I came on this! While info in my mother's scrapbook is sketchy, from what I can tell the photo is from the year 2000. An internet search suggests the sculpture was in Avignon, France that year., the year it was created. How cool is it to have this!

Norway in the 20th and 21st Centuries

TL;DR - there are some Norwegian TV shows that will be even more fun if you have a little background in Norwegian history.

I've been watching Norwegian TV shows, and that sent me down an internet rabbit hole to understand some of the larger context and to go a little deeper on some points. (Aside: I am struck by how lucky I am to be able to sit on my couch with my tablet - a device with no moving parts - and have the entire history of the world - with moving pictures - at my fingertips!) Most of my information comes from Wikipedia, a source I figure to be fairly reliable (and one I give an annual donation to, because they are so very useful). Already, sitting down to write this piece has led me to several additional clicks and digressions, so this may take a long time to get finished!

I have always had a special interest in Norway, due to my family heritage. My maternal grandfather was born in Norway; my maternal grandmother was born in the U.S. but had elder siblings born in Norway. So I've had a sketchy knowledge of the history, have visited the country a few times, and even met the Norwegian relatives in one of those early visits. (Sadly the families all lost touch with the death of the older generations.)  This has no doubt given me a predilection to be more likely than the average viewer to watch Norwegian TV.

I watched a Masterpiece series called Atlantic Crossing. This is the 8-episode story of Norwegian Crown Prince Olav and, especially, Crown Princess Martha, during World War 2, from the invasion of Norway by Germany in 1940 to the surrender of German troops in 1945. Martha spent most of the war years in America, where she famously and possibly scandalously was great friends with FDR. From there, I encountered a movie called The King's Choice, which focuses on the first few days of the German invasion of Norway and the government and the King's response to it.

So here's a recap of some of the history of Norway in the first half of the twentieth century, including the events in these shows:

Current borders

In 1905 Norway finally threw off the oppressive yoke of its foreign ruler, i.e. the Norwegian and Swedish parliaments agreed Norway should be its own country with self-determination, for the first time since the middle ages. The Norwegians decided their own form of government should be as a constitutional monarchy, and so they elected a younger son of the King of Denmark to be their new king. (Aside: Norway had full women suffrage by then, far before England and the U.S., so it was not only half of the country deciding this, but all the adult citizens.)  Viewers of The Crown will be familiar with the duties of the British constitutional monarch: a lot of ceremonial and symbolic things, and specific recognition of the legitimacy of the Prime Minister and "the government"; Norway is similar, except the king routinely sat in cabinet meetings with the top ministers. Norway's new king enthusiastically embraced the Norwegian-ness of his new role and ensured his only son was raised thoroughly Norwegian.

So it was this elected King and his adult son and daughter-in-law, and their three young children, that were the royal family during the second world war. 

Norway, along with Sweden and Denmark, stayed steadfastly neutral during the first world war. They all three planned to do the same as the second world war broke out in continental Europe, and none of them had a large standing military. But this was a different time and new norms emerged. Norway's strategic importance came from its long, mostly ice free Atlantic coastline which gave year round open ports, unlike Sweden and Finland who became ice bound in the Baltic Sea. Germany did not have sufficient iron ore to support its war effort, and decided the Swedish iron mines in that country's far north would be their reliable source. The only way to get the ore to Germany in sufficient volume was via rail to Norway's northern coast and then via sea down to Hamburg and other ports. 

Finland was attacked and invaded by Russia (which was initially allied with Germany), partly to get access from the other direction to the Swedish ore. So Britain decided to invade Norway to secure the coastline, ports, and rail heads. Initially they asked for free passage from both Norway and Sweden to do this, and both countries declined. And so, in early 1940, Britain made a plan with France to invade anyway, hoping the Norwegians would bow peacefully to a fait accompli. But the allies squabbled over details and pushed their plans back by just a few days. During that delay, in April 1940, Germany invaded both Denmark and Norway, using the imminent British invasion as their reason. In just a few hours, little Denmark surrendered - including their king (the Norwegian king's older brother). (Aside: Denmark retained some internal independence for the first couple of years, but then became completely subordinate to Germany. But Denmark was the only country in Europe that effectively protected the entire Jewish population, evacuating essentially everyone to Sweden overnight, and it was done with the King's support).

The tiny Norwegian military, without any instructions from the dithering government, resisted the German invasion in Oslo long enough for the cabinet ministers and the royal family to escape to the northern countryside. This gave the Norwegian government time to decide on their response to the invasion: surrender or declare war on Germany, ally with Britain and France, and fight?

Remember little Norway had only been independent for 35 years at this point. Surrendering would put them under Germany's thumb, though with a puppet Norwegian government headed by a Nazi-associated member of parliament, Quisling, who had proclaimed himself head of government and seemed to have Hitler's backing. (Does the name ring a bell?) The only possibility of fighting was if the allies came with troops and ships, and they were busy fighting and losing in France at that time - the Dunkirk evacuation yielding the continent to Germany was still a couple of months away. But if Norway went to war, there would be likely massive loss of Norwegian life and destruction of their country.

As the cabinet wrestled with the ramifications of their possible choices, the King and the Crown Prince independently reached a decision. The Crown Princess and her children had fled to Sweden, seeking refuge from her uncle, the King of Sweden, and eliminating a possible pressure point. If the cabinet decided to surrender and recognize the unelected Quisling as head of government, the King and his entire house would abdicate rather than legitimize this puppet regime. Who knows how influential that was in the cabinet's decision? At any rate, tiny Norway declared war on Germany.

Britain executed part of their original invasion plan by occupying the Faroe Islands and Iceland, both at that time considered part of Denmark. Allied troops did land in northern Norway, and actually defeated German troops there and held them off for months. But eventually, the allies decided the position was untenable, they wanted the troops for continental Europe, and they evacuated, leaving the Norwegians to years of occupation and resistance. 

The cabinet and King and Crown Prince fled to Britain, where for a while the King and Crown Prince lived in Buckingham Palace with their cousins the British royals. The Crown Princess and the royal grandchildren proved an embarrassment to Sweden after they rejected a German plan to bring three-year-old Harald to Norway to be the new King of a puppet regime. (Tiny Sweden was trying hard to persuade Germany of the value of maintaining nominal Swedish sovereignty and neutrality in a very friendly regime, rather than simply annexing them.) So the young royals made their way to Finland and then to America on a still-neutral American ship that was fetching home Norwegian-Americans and others who had ties that gave them visas to get there. For a while, the Crown Princess and her children lived in the White House with a smitten FDR, making it official that the Norwegian royals had the nicest reception of any refugees anywhere any time. 

Norway, like France, maintained a government-in-exile in Britain, sponsoring many effective resistance efforts. One notable one included thwarting Germany's atomic bomb efforts through destroying a plant making "heavy water" needed for these weapons. Norway suffered greatly during the occupation, with the Nazis seizing and sending food to Germany, leaving the Norwegians to grow cabbages in every square foot of arable land. In 1944, after D-Day, the Soviets combined with the Norwegians to open a northern front, recapturing the mineral rich north. The hapless Finns had much of their northern territory permanently ceded to the Russians with the allies' blessing at the end of the war. Little Norway escaped that same fate due to support from Britain and the U.S., and now shares a far-northern border with Russia. The Royal Family returned to Norway after Germany's surrender to much acclaim and remains very popular there. The current King Harald V is the little boy who evacuated during the German occupation.

Fast forward to the latter part of the twentieth century and early days of the twenty-first. Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, with enormous reserves of oil under the North Sea yielding huge revenues, much of which goes to the government and is used for the benefit of the people, not private oil companies. They try to balance their green values with being a major world oil producer. They have a social welfare model and multi-cultural values, like the rest of Europe having accepted many more refugees than the United States. They also have a significant racist faction and have experienced white terrorism with significant loss of life. 

So with this backdrop, we (finally!) come to the two near-future 21st century Norwegian series I've been watching. The first, Beforeigners, has so-far a single season, and a second under way. I wrote in May 2020: "my absolute current favorite is Beforeigners from Norway via HBO. The premise is amusing: people from ancient times start to appear in present-day Norway in sufficient numbers over sufficient years to present an immigration issue that challenges the culture. It's neo-nordic-noir; our heroes are a present day troubled and cynical detective and his rookie Viking shieldmaiden partner. There are also some naked men."

And one I've just barely started: Occupied. It's premise is just on the edge of plausible:  A very green Norwegian prime minister chooses to shut down all oil and gas production in order to go renewable and prevent more global warming. Europe needs the Norwegian supply and is in crisis as a result. Russia sees an opportunity and with Europe and America's passive acceptance steps in "just to re-start critical energy supplies". When I first started this 3-season series last year, I was taken with it. But in last year's considerable constant real-life political angst, this tale of consciences struggling with compromise and collaboration versus resistance was too hard for me to concentrate on, and I only watched a couple of episodes.

Now, with my more in-depth background understanding the Norwegian experience and occupation in WW2 and the subsequent Russian invasion in the far North, there are additional overtones to the story I will look for. It's available on Netflix, and it'll pop up in my rotation fairly soon.

Hey, It’s October!

 I finally woke up to the fact that if I’m going to use my pumpkin tablecloth at all, I’d better hop to it. I love this little vignette!

The Dog's Room

I have a small room off the main house, like a place that was conceived of as a screen porch, but was converted to a year-round room sometime in the distant past. It has huge windows on three sides, and even a glass door and a leftover window on the interior wall to the main house. It has knotty pine paneling, a symptom of the times in which it was built. It also has fake beams in the ceiling, and an incredibly ugly and in-your-face linoleum now hidden beneath carpet tiles. It has its own electric baseboard heating system, and I installed a through-the-wall air conditioner. 

It used to be the dog's room, since my Abbey adopted it as her own maybe twenty years ago, because she had been an outside dog and she wanted the visibility. When I got Rocky, he needed to be confined initially because he was undergoing heartworm treatments, and I used this room, which had room for his big crate. Later, he had to be confined in order to manage his voracious destruction. The TV has always been in there. Bixby is not generally left in there, so perhaps it’s becoming the TV room. Or, maybe it’s becoming the green room, as I concentrate plants in there.

The last time I substantially upgraded the room was in 2013, between Abbey and Rocky. Between dogs is often a good time for a really deep cleaning. I took all the books off the shelves and dusted and vacuumed all the dog hair, and shampooed the carpet. I acquired my first flat screen tv, and worked the wiring to set up a sound bar.

Now, I’m contemplating a major upgrade. It could use a more efficient and quieter heating and cooling system, so I want a mini-split to hang on the wall. But that requires rerouting an electric line from the opposite wall. Once that is in place, the through the wall air conditioner should be removed, so the outer and inner walls will need to be patched. Patching the knotty pine wall might be a problem, so why not just drywall the whole thing? If I’m doing that, should the fake ceiling beams come out as well?

And so the dominoes begin to fall.

I typically think about these things for a long time before acting. I have researched mini-splits (but don’t understand the name or it’s origin). It’s time to discuss with a contractor. 

Clearing Out

Once upon a time, photography was one of my main hobbies. As is my wont, when I’m into something I can be all in. I always had a camera with me, and I learned to see the world with an eye to lighting and framing. I took classes, I read books, I subscribed to magazines, and of course I acquired equipment! My mind is going right now to a longer essay about how photography has influenced my life, but that’s not the post I had in mind when I started this, so I’m going to push ahead on my original intent. While I did learn how to develop and print in a darkroom, I never got into that aspect of photography, and so didn’t gadget up for that.

I plunged into the world of high-end SLR photography in the early 1990s, the dark ages of miniaturization of electronics, and firmly still in the world of film. I went with the Nikon brand for my camera backs and changeable lenses and was fortunate that they have had a commitment to compatibility - lenses I bought back in the beginning still work on the latest cameras. But, as things got “smarter”, not all functionality transfers. The quality of lenses depends largely on the quality of the glass, however, not on its electronics. And I bought some very high quality lenses.

I also wanted to always have a camera with me. Sometimes things happened, or light became extraordinary, and a pocket camera would be just the ticket. I did NOT have a camera with me on 9/11, and that prompted me to buy my first ever digital camera, a pocketable Nikon. 

The last time I used my film cameras was around 2006, when I went on a big vacation with my first digital SLR, also a Nikon. That was also about when phones started having cameras, but not very good ones. Pocket digital cameras, however, started becoming very very good. So I kept buying equipment, but what I got shifted. But I never got rid of anything! 

One ooky day this past week I decided to tackle the issue of camera equipment. The huge pile of cameras, lenses, accessories, and especially cords and wires took up half of a closet. And since I never trusted cameras to the formerly damp basement, it was prime closet space off the dining room. I could think of better uses for the space. 

I laid everything out on the dining room table, sorting, and figuring out what went together and what still worked and what was just trash. Then became the hard part - I had to decide what I might want to keep and what could go away. And related, what might have some value to someone else, and how could I keep it out of the landfill?

Pocket film and digital cameras were easy for me to part with. I have one nice pocket digital camera that I definitely use, but the rest (some from my mother) could go. Hooray, posting on the neighborhood listserve found homes for all I was willing to part with. Oddly, young people want to experiment with film. Parents want digital cameras for their kids trying to stave off phones for them.  I also had a vintage 1950s film camera, and a broken digital one with retro good looks, and someone else in the neighborhood took them for display purposes. Win win win!

I will definitely part with my Nikon film camera back. I will not got back to film. But all the other SLR equipment I can’t decide about. The digital camera back I have is from 2011, but it was high end and is still good. I do not know if I’m going to use it again, but I can’t quite part with it. And as long as I might use it, I am also hanging on to at least some of the ten lenses and the many many accessories I have to go with it. At least for now. I put all the stuff I have left into a big box, and its in my spare room until I’m ready to take the next step to sort and dispose. I imagine taking out the camera back, and doing some photography around here with some of the nicer lenses, and trying to decide if I should keep any of this at all. Will I ever use it? I’m not likely to ever schlep it on a trip that involves airplanes. Too heavy and bulky.

So what I have that I definitely use are a very nice pocket digital camera (bought in 2011), and a high end Sony self-contained large and heavy digital camera I bought for my cancelled 2020 trip to Iceland. I don’t know how to use all the features of the Sony camera, and perhaps I should focus on that instead of idle dreams about the SLR. The joy is that I don’t have to decide this now, it can wait a while.

I believe I will be able to find someone to take all of the Nikon equipment that I’m willing to part with in a batch. When I’m ready to part with it, I’ll start by putting out feelers among young people I know that are in the local art scene. I know some of this equipment has monetary value, but not enough money that I’m willing to go through the extra trouble of actually selling it myself. I won’t mind if someone takes it all and sells it because I just want it to be used.

Delicious and Indulgent Foods that are not Sweet

 

I am trying to cut back (but not eliminate) sweets from my life. Sweets play an important role in my life - few things feel as luxurious or indulgent as do sweets. Sometimes I want soothing, a feeling of taking care of myself, and baths or hot tea don't do it for me at all. I'm not a huge fan of wine, and I've cut way down on all alcohol, wary of migraines. In my quest to find alternative satisfying luxuries, I ended up at the Georgetown Olive Oil Company.  

They are a tiny little storefront on M Street in (duh) Georgetown. When I went there, the door was locked and I had to ring for admission, and the sign on the door said they were only allowing three customers in at a time. I was, at first, the only customer. 

They stock several olive oil varieties, and many flavored olive oils as well. They also have dark and light balsamic vinegars, other vinegars made from different wine varieties, and flavored vinegars. They had to serve the tastings to me - in tiny paper disposable cups, just to wet your mouth and get a sense. Drinking even a swallow of olive oil or vinegar was a new sensation for me. On a subsequent trip, I may bring in my water bottle for clearing my mouth. Other customers came into the shop, and so I didn't get a chance to sample everything (which I would have enjoyed!)  I came home with several small dark bottles, Moroccan picholine varietal oil, lemon-flavored oil, premium white balsamic, and peach-flavored white balsamic. (They re-use the bottles, and there is a discount for bringing them back.)

Reading about how to do an olive oil tasting, the pure taste without food is recommended,as is done in the shop, but I decided to set it up with some extras: a baguette, some leaves of butter lettuce, some (homegrown) cherry tomatoes, a farmer's market peach. I pulled from my cabinet the standard bottle of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, for a comparison. My girl came over, and we happily went to town. 

The Moroccan picholine olive variety had a real bite, a taste that came back in the back of the mouth. I liked it fine on the baguette, but it was overwhelming on the plain lettuce - it would need something to tame it - or compete with it - like a lot of good pepper. The lemon-flavor was good, but my girl and I were disagreed on whether it overwhelmed the underlying flavor of the oil. The white balsamic was heavenly, sweet and sour at once. I loved the peach flavored balsamic, but my girl couldn't stand it.

I'm indulging myself on the oils, keeping in mind that olive oil degrades rapidly - no point in hoarding it. Vinegar will last for years, literally. I have used the peach vinegar to cook with once - finishing some pork chops. But where I found I really liked it was as drink. The peach vinegar mixed 1:1 with rum over ice makes a lovely little tipple. I looked up "shrubs" and they are pretty much this. (Oddly, I tried some seltzer in the drink, and it made it much worse.)

Georgetown Olive Oil does mail order, but I enjoyed the experience in the shop, and I want to return the bottles, so I imagine I'll be back down there before much longer.

The (Mental) Health Part of My Report Card

 It's so hard to measure mental health. This shows simply what I can actually measure. But there is some really good news here:

My migraines, the only thing tracked in red, are on their way down!  I had three months this year with no migraines at all! I had two in January, but each of the other months that show any migraines reflect only one, though the number of hours varied. Sadly, my streak has broken, I had a migraine in early October. (But I got 5,000 steps anyway!)

The rest is fairly mundane. I meditated a lot in January, reflecting both participating in a challenge and also trying to deal with migraines. My anxiety went through the roof in May (thinking about my upcoming trip), and I used meditation to try to deal with it. So more meditation is, perversely, negatively correlated with mental health. 

My sleep is ok, and resting heart rate is acceptable. That's all there is to say about that.

The Activity Part of my Report Card

 My activity level through September was down overall from last year, pretty much any way I try to measure it.

June stands out as the least active month, and July and May tied as the most active. In May, I was getting ready to sail to Bermuda and started getting active. I was inactive (as my fitbit measures it) in early June. When I got back from the trip, I was zonked, and spent way too much time on the couch. Early July had me in Maine, hiking lots (some days more than I wanted) and when I got home I kept that up to some extent, getting ready for the Boston boat trip. The August stats reflect the lower activity from a week on the ship at the end of the month, though I did take some long walks in Boston before leaving. September, I started to turn things around on the activity front. 

One of the things about measuring, is looking only at averages can be misleading. That's why I add the high calorie days (>2,000 cal) and the very low step days (<5,000 steps). Back in my working life, I was going to get 5,000 steps just going about my work life, from the car to the office, around the block-sized office building to meetings, across the street to lunch. Now, to get 5,000 daily steps, I do have to work at it a bit. It's pretty much impossible to get there without leaving the property (unless I use the treadmill or the trampoline, neither of which have been appealing lately). Some days, I'd just as soon hang out with the dog in the house and yard.

I've read a few newspaper articles that suggest a strong positive correlation between more steps and longer longevity. There seems to be general agreement that very low average daily steps (<4,000) has near-term bad outcomes (ie, those people die soon) and there is almost a straight line increase in longevity as steps increase, up until about 8,000 a day. Above 8,000 steps a day probably has health benefits, but the relationship to longevity is fuzzy. (A very big note here: everything I've read on the subject from original sources notes correlation, not causation. Many newspaper headlines are sloppily along the lines of "Want to Live Longer? Walk More!". No one has shown that a person working to increase the average number of daily steps will by doing that improve their own longevity. Perhaps as your body winds down to die, you walk less.)  I care less about longevity than my quality of life, and fitness is so very important to that.

My trend on those very inactive days has been in the wrong direction, even giving myself a pass for June and August multiple days on board a fairly small ship with no where to go, and a need to hang on to keep from falling. I decided to aim for zero days of less than 5,000 steps in the month of October. While the dog is very happy to be out ranging in the back yard, he also approves of walks. To get my 5,000, I need two or three times around the smallest block here, with separate trips usually spread out over the day. I have also have a goal of having October average 8,000 daily steps, which means each day of only about 5,000 steps has to be offset with days of 11,000 steps or more. So far so good on both these measures, though 10 pm sometimes has found Bixby and me taking another spin around the neighborhood to hit the target.

I may have noted before that "miles" come from my Garmin running watch. Those miles only come from deliberate walks of at least a mile, not from incidental steps accumulated during the day. Those have trended up, as I go out more often on a trek or a run, sometimes with my girl.

Workout days suffered during my weeks of summer travel, but are trending up. I've noted that I just don't work out well on my own, and I'm regularly working with my long-time personal trainer. I definitely can tell the difference, that I'm getting stronger. I will do a shorter workout on my own, mostly on days I have been otherwise pretty inactive. I know my body feels better when I move. I'll often do squats or balance exercises while waiting for something in the kitchen, or sometimes when watching TV. Those things don't get recorded here, but my body knows and appreciates it.

Why a Report Card?

I compiled my stats for the last two months since last I reported. I have some categories for the way I look at things - activity, mental health, amusements, weight, and money. I've been posting the first three here. As I took a look at this, and looked at comments from previous report cards,

I also spent some time thinking about why these particular stats.

In my working life, I spent a lot of time with metrics. How you measure them, how you interpret them, what you use the information for. There was a fad in the 1990s for the "balanced score card". The basic idea was it was useful for companies to measure not only traditional things like finances and productivity, but also other items that could prove important to the company, like human capital and customer satisfaction. The theory was that things you paid attention to were likely to improve, and if your company believed these "softer" things were important, you would pay attention to them, try to improve them, and reward your people for doing them well. But softer things are harder to measure directly. Often they need to be measured indirectly, inferred from other items. There are tradeoffs around how much effort should go into counting the hard to quantify. And there are debates around whether the things you can count are shedding light on what is really important. So there is art as well as science to this process.

When I first started this blog, I focused on diet and exercise. I've been tracking my weight more or less daily since 1998. During my first Big Weightloss, I tracked not only my weight, but also my exercise times, recorded manually, into a spreadsheet. The first personal activity wearable trackers hit the market in 2010, just as I started this blog, and I was an early and enthusiastic adopter, poring over the statistics they produced. I learned my memory is not a good record of what I've actually been doing, and wanting to see a positive change in the numbers can be a good motivator for me. So I'm sold on personal measurement for personal improvement.

The approach of the balanced scorecard is attractive to me. Fitness is very important to me, so is my weight (possibly more than it should be). But clearly a well-rounded individual has more to them than fitness and appearance. But how to measure these?

So the things I choose to show here are partly chosen simply because I can count them. Just as I have a wifi scale that records my weight automatically, and a fitbit that does the same with my sleep and steps and other items, I've aimed at things that can be measured with minimal effort. I meditate using an app on my iphone that keeps stats for me. I track my migraines on an app as well - it'll produce a report I can share with my doctor.

How can I measure personal fulfillment and social connections and creativity? I need to start by trying to get more specific about what are my goals. So in no apparent order: I want to stay mentally engaged, including with current culture. I want to stay socially engaged, keeping up with good friends and finding new people. I want to travel. I want to sail. I want to be a good steward for my little slice of the planet. I want to support my family. I want to be engaged as a good citizen. I want to lead a bigger life than I do on the couch with my ipad. 

Also, I don't want to be creepy by recording every interaction I have with friends and family! 

So that's what's driven the categories I'm recording under the general heading of "amusements".  What can I measure with a minimum of effort that reflects the above aspects? Many areas are not measured at all, but several are, at least indirectly. 

Because most of my reading is on the kindle, and the kindle can be connected to automatically record finished books in Goodreads, I can count my books with a minimal of manual entries. I found an app for recording movies watched - it's a manual entry to note what I watched (but all the info about the movie is in the app, I just check a box that I watched it), but otherwise similar to Goodreads - it keeps the records and produces the stats. 

Blogging, taking pictures for blogging, making graphs for blogging, thinking and planning about blogging, is one tangible bit of my creative life, and it can be captured neatly by looking at the number of posts I've done. "Trips downtown" shows when I'm leaving my couch and my block to venture further afield. Sometimes it's to see friends (that's mostly from the Before Times), sometimes it's to shop, to go to a museum, or to take a walk. Number of nights away from home measures longer travel, and days at the boat is self-explanatory.

Dog Walks

After I retired, and continuing through the pandemic, I got in the habit of driving downtown on Sundays for a sunrise walk. I don't do it often, and until this last week I hadn't done it since acquiring Bixby. In fact, my last time was the morning of the day I acquired Bixby, in December of last year.

Having a dog to walk with was one of my main goals in getting another dog, but Bixby has been challenging to get to the point where I was comfortable walking with him far from home, or far at all. The problem is he is a scaredy-dog, afraid of all people and dogs he doesn't know. This turns into barking and lunging at potential dangers. I've worked hard with him, under the guidance of a trainer, to counter-condition him. Instead of "stranger-danger" I'm trying to condition him to "strangers=treats!".  Now, most days, around the neighborhood, we can walk around people, and with a sufficient physical distance, can even pass other dogs. It seems like after some time, or after a surprise close encounter, his anxiety tank is full to overflowing, and he's like a two year old having a temper tantrum, unable to control himself at all. The trick is to prevent his tank from filling up. When I see him approaching the limit, the only solution to prevent a melt-down is to pick him up and hold him, oriented so he can't see the approaching danger, and move away from it. I've acquired a shoulder bag that can act like a baby sling, holding him close while still having at least one hand free. I use that also for rest breaks - he is, after all, a very small dog.

So last Sunday we did a sunrise tour of the monuments. It was perfect weather, and I (at least) had a great time. We parked literally at sunrise by the Smithsonian, and spent about an hour and a half total walking and sniffing, accumulating 3.5 miles. At first, there were very few people and no dogs. By the time we were done, after nine o'clock, the mall was getting crowded. But in the whole time, he never had a meltdown. I'm not sure Bixby had a great time, because he was on high alert so much. But he has serious FOMO so I'm sure it was better than leaving him behind.

In the sling - my arms aren't long enough for a good view

Flamingos Spotted in the Wild on Morning Run!

 The flock was on a hillside; the solitary was under a viaduct:

In other news, I've started my first slow steps toward running again! It's been two years since I was doing any significant running. I made an actual effort in the summer of 2019, right after I retired, but it all went away in the fall after my mother died. But I'm signed up with my girl for an actual 5K race at the end of October, and I want to make an effort to train for it. This is the incredibly fun Dead Man's Race at Historic Congressional Cemetary, which I have done before.

Me in 2015 at Dead Man's Race
Possibly the most fit I've ever been

I've been walking quite a bit more recently, and when my girl took up running this summer, I got the bug again. My running is Slow AF, but the mechanics of any running are different than the mechanics of walking, so there is a distinct difference between the two. A customary Slow AF approach is to run/walk very short intervals - right now, for me, it's literally 45 seconds of running followed by 60 seconds of walking. But by putting the walk intervals in, I can right from the start of training go a reasonable distance.

I have a target of finishing the 3.1 miles in less than hour. Most of my daily dog walks are at closer to two miles an hour than three miles an hour, and very fast walking isn't comfortable for me. With the run/walk intervals, my walking is naturally much faster than dog rambles, but three miles an hour would be a challenge for me to sustain outdoors (I can do it on a treadmill, level). But interspersing run intervals gets me there nicely - I was just over an hour today.

An added bonus to running:
nerding out on my stats and performance

My goal is to run three times a week for the next three weeks leading up to the race. On the off days, I'll do walks with the dog. Maybe after the race, when I have a base, I'll try running with Bixby. Right now, I don't want to have to focus on managing him while I focus on running form.

In Our Neighborhood

 Spotted a block away:

Fall Rituals

I've tried to up my game at making things "nice". That includes changing displays through the year. This rotating also works for my desire to have stuff but to not be cluttered. While I'm not strictly seasonal, this village strikes me as appropriate for Fall.

The black horse at the left was a recent impulse buy at Ikea. It'll be put with my other swedish horses when I dig them out with my Christmas decorations, but I don't want to forget it. For right now it's looming over the Bergen townhouses.

National Shame

 I took a dawn walk down on the National Mall, and saw the current art work honoring the (as of yesterday) 700,234 deaths due to Covid-19. While not all of this was avoidable, things could have gone very differently.

I took the time from my walk to take some photos. It was really breathtaking how big it is, and how it really sneaks up on you. Each flag has a hand-written name and other info on it. Like the Vietnam Memorial, there is an index to find someone specific. 

The display is in between the Washington Monument and Constitution Avenue, and takes a large amount of space.

Fall Eating

Brussels and Sweet Potatoes

I've gone full on brassica-vore since it's now Fall. (Aside: it's bangin' out there with acorns pelting down, making the term "Fall" a bigger deal than the image of gently wafting leaves down. I was thinking I needed a hardhat in my front yard!)  Many of my favorite foods are now in season, and it just feels right to eat them. Cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, I love them all! But it doesn't always feel right to eat them, when they are not in season and they don't look great in the store. Only broccoli do I buy frozen, to add to other dishes. All the others have to be fresh.

I made this fabulous version of roast cauliflower the other day, from the New York Times, source of many of my experiments. This version has pancetta, olives, and parmesan, and half a cup of olive oil - so it satisfies my seasonal craving for blubber (got to fatten up to get through the winter, don't ya know). It definitely  made some meals by itself for me, not a side. I didn't think it would freeze well, so having done a whole head of cauliflower (and why not) I needed to eat it up quickly - three or four days. I have been known to eat an entire head of roasted cauliflower in one sitting, but this version is so very rich even I could not do that.

Roasted brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes on a sheet pan were even better for having bacon, shallots, and apples added (the apples for only the last ten minutes). Again, a complete meal, which I ate for several days. I need to be careful about over-buying, because when I'm with other folks, mostly we're eating out (or takeout) and it takes me a while eating alone to use up the vegetables.

Cabbage I don't roast, but it sautes up nicely and pairs perfectly with onions. I will have it with eggs scrambled in, or leftover rice as fried rice. Or, it can go with anything with gravy (omitting a starch) or be tossed in the pot for soups. And a shout-out to cabbage for being a champion keeper - I've had them last a month in my vegetable drawer. I wouldn't have tried to make a fresh coleslaw from the old head, but it was just fine as a well-cooked ingredient.

Broccoli is the easiest. Quick chop into my pyrex casserole, a quarter cup water, put on the lid, and microwave away. It's fine by itself, especially with parmesan and/or creme fraiche, or like cabbage, on the plate with something else. I've roasted broccoli in the toaster oven (especially for the sparse harvests when I grew it myself a year ago) but if I'm going to spend the time to roast, I'd rather have cauliflower or brussels sprouts.

No offense kale, I don't hate you, but I'm not in the habit of cooking you. 

As the brassicas take over my cuisine, lettuce-based salads fall off. I buy pre-washed lettuce mixes and I find some leaves are tending to slime before I get around to finishing off the bag, tainting the whole bag. Time to get out my countertop garden and grow my own!

I've got another head of cauliflower I ought to cook today. I'll do it roasted with just some olive oil, because I've got some fancy Octoberfest sausages I did on the grill yesterday. Yum!