Sorry for the empty emails this morning, oh-email-readers! I was trying to post to the blog from my phone & the Kindle app: it’s one of those things that I’ve meant to learn how to do for a long time and was always too busy to get around to when I was traveling. Unfortunately, I obviously didn’t figure it out — as far as I could tell, I just managed to create some blank posts. One of them was supposed to be the above photo and the other was going to be a quote from a book I’m currently reading at a friend’s recommendation. So it goes. I will try to avoid sending out future experiments via email!

But the above photo is from yesterday’s morning walk. I woke up around 5:45 to a beautiful clear sky — an uncommon sight in the home of one of the world’s foggiest airports. (According to Wikipedia, the Army Corps of Engineers built the airport specifically to test fog dispersal techniques, none of which worked. I like the thought of the optimists saying, “Sure, we can figure out how to get rid of fog,” though. What do you suppose they had in mind?) But since it was such a gorgeous morning, I promptly hopped out of bed and took Zelda and Riley on a good walk, the mile to the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Center.

I should probably be walking them there every day. It’s certainly close enough. But there are actually enough good walks around here that I haven’t settled into a routine at all. Sometimes I do the short walk to the yoga studio and think wistfully of some future when people can exercise together again. Sometimes I do the uphill walk to the park and playground. Sometimes I walk along the abandoned railroad tracks, now turned into a bike path. I like having lots of options.

I also like Zelda’s enthusiasm, although I have to keep reminding myself not to yell at the senile dog who seems to be forgetting how leashes work. She keeps running ahead, then hitting the end of her leash with a jerk. I should dig out Bartleby’s harness, which is somewhere in the van, and start using it with her. Neither of us like it when she gets choked. But it is, of course, delightful to have her running with enthusiasm.

As for the quote, I posted it to Instagram. I am mentally arguing quite a bit with this book (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)) — it reminds me of the parenting books that never took hunger, tiredness, discomfort or overstimulation into account when considering behavior — but at the same time, I’ve highlighted a number of quotes. I never read Kindle books with the feature that shows other people’s highlights turned on, but I might reread this book when I’m done with highlights on. It would be interesting to see what other people took away from it. I don’t know whether what I’m taking away from it is what my friend thought I would, but I also highlighted:

Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.

The Four Agreements

It made me want to say, “Yes, exactly! Ha! Take that!” in my ongoing imaginary arguments, which somehow made me laugh. It’s so satisfying to thoroughly win an imaginary argument.