10:45; Ms. S. leaves for work. It’s a weird schedule we keep. A beautiful day, though, reviewed in reverse.
I.
Nutrition, Fitness, Motivation, Wellness … those “healthy lifestyle” topics. I work actively and successfully on the first. Even during the years when my weight was not what I wanted it to be I could at least take a kind of comfort in knowing that I ate better than the average bear, and for the past half decade or so I’ve been more concerned with eliminating processed goods, excessive sodium, hidden sugar, and the like from my daily intake. Fitness … well, that’s perhaps the weakest of the four, the one I look back on and say, ah, remember the days? Wellness? that’s a holding pattern, I think. But Motivation … I suspect that’s where so many pitfalls await.
II.
I’m up before dawn to feed the the feline furies — this time they needed a refill to their food storage container –, but most days I return to bed. Eight hours and all, when I can get it. Part of me wants to return to getting up every day at 5:30 and staying up, but the realist in me realizes that requires going to be before 10pm, and that’s an unlikely proposition these days, in contrast to last year.
Our staggered schedule gives me hours to work while Ms. S. sleeps, but it also necessitates me being relatively quiet. Except for the regular click-clack of typing, programming and other computer-based tasks are at least silent. White noise at worst.
We’ve been planning on observing the girls one of these days for a twenty-four hour stretch. Record what the cats actually do. How much time is spent asleep, how much around food, how much at play, etc. It would require both of us, but that’s where a staggered weekday schedule can help. It would just be a matter, I think, of dividing the day into fifteen minute blocks … that’s perhaps granular enough, perhaps with attention paid to ‘events’ … feeding times, trips to the litter box, etc. Our own nature documentary, but inside.
III.
I should get more vitamin D, but by the time I venture into the sun shadows already envelop our east-facing porch.
I’ve always lived places where autumn could be beautiful — the falling of leaves, changing of colors, the oncoming desolation of a desert landscape — but it was never my favorite season. If I had a favorite, I told Ms. S., it would probably be spring, though nothing beats the most beautiful winter landscapes … I just do not want too many days in a row of them. But then I moved to a part of the country where summers are too hot and humid, springs too wet, and winters too dully limp and gray, a kind of limbo, though the mornings are often crisp. That leaves fall a fabulous time, with the temperature just right, the sky clear, many of the plants still green.
And I end up wondering what sorts of plants, mainly herbs and some vegetables, we could grow during these off seasons, perhaps in a window.
IV.
We returned to the ‘rotation’ this afternoon and evening; during the latter hatchets were buried and new streams of violence were developing on ‘Oz’ (season 4). Earlier we had Daniel as a Prior of the Ori in ‘The Shroud,’ a late season 10 episode of ‘SG-1.’ Only six episodes to go, the next four of which are almost filler before we get to wrap up major plot points as much as possible.
Once we’re done with ‘SG-1’ we’ll seek out another ‘anchor’ show, probably an old sci-fi series, something 40-50 minutes long (before commercials) that will have enough seasons so as to keep us occupied for some time. I’d suggest ‘BSG,’ except that Ms. S. has been rather negative about it … on the other hand, it’s probably the kind of thing she would come to love after half of season 1. And come to hate by season 4 (I’m in the minority, I think, in liking the latter part of the run).
Another plus to autumn? Oscar-bait and other ‘good,’ less blockbustery movies. It’s not all about television. And for me, despite my focus on Calibre these days, it’s not all about books.
V.
A tasty solution to the extra canned pumpkin was just cocoa, sugar, butter, vanilla, and almond milk. It was not a ‘replacement’ for a more standard recipe (i.e. pudding, custard, mousse, etc.); it stood alone nicely enough, though I think I would have preferred to have just had another pudding. But that takes several hours to set properly, and this took less than five minutes.
