Dept. of Sunday

[kaffy_r]

Getting Ready for the Week

Tonight is one of those nights where I don't particularly have anything to say. That makes it a night when saying something, even if it's just a comment that I'm incapable of actually saying anything worth hearing, is a matter of sheer determination. Still, that's what the project requires. I want to be able to look back on March and say I accomplished my goal, even if that was only to be wordy without wisdom. Eventually, if I relearn the art of thinking in bursts longer than 140 characters or 10 seconds at a time, I can start writing things that are more worthwhile. 

Exercise for the mind. Perhaps I can make a better go of it than I have of exercising for the body. 

(Apropos of that, I'm going to try getting out at least once a day to walk around the block. A friend once told me her mother used to chivvy her children out of the house by saying they needed to shake the stink off them. It's a crude comment, but it's stayed with me. Walking around outside and noticing there's a world beyond my desk, my phone and even the broad world of the Internet could help me shake my own existential stink away.)

Monday offers me a new chance to be efficient, and to go to bed Monday night happy with myself and what I've gotten done, or what I've at least attempted in good faith to get done.  I'm, again, determined. 

I hope you all had good weekends. 

Comments

[shanghaied]

Keep posting and I'll keep reading!

~offers you a virtual dog to walk several times a day~

[kaffy_r]

Heh - thanks. I still haven't gotten out for a walk, although I may be leaving the office today to do the equivalent of a "Man on the Street" interview. I sometimes like doing those, and at other times, I don't. Today I don't, which means, of course, that I really need to do it.

[shanghaied]

I don't know if this is a useful tip, but when it comes to my damnneareveryday four-mile morning gallop, on the days when my pain levels are high or my interest levels low I spend those miles composing angry blogposts and virtual angry letters. I never turn those into realities, of course, but it serves a dual purpose - motivation and catharsis :-)

~wanders off to do said gallop, as it's daylight here now~

[kaffy_r]

Daylight here as well; in fact, rather nice and warm. There's our local little brown-grey dove poking about for food on the sward next to the sidewalk, along with our cheeky fat little city sparrows, and the whole afternoon is beckoning me out from indoors. I've been listening to music all day, as I've written my deadline story, and now I feel rather more interested in going outside.

[shanghaied]

Oh, thank you so much for this lovely description! Sometimes a few words are worth a thousand pictures ;-)

I've galloped, showered, did a fuqtun of ironing and a soupcon of editing and am now ready to head off to work. May you have a great night and restful sleep!

[kaffy_r]

I ended up suffering a sudden blast of incredible weariness that actually prevented me from going to a meeting I'd planned on covering tonight (I knew that I'd run myself off the road whilst driving, and decided not to tempt fate), but the good part of that is that I can catch up with other things until I fall into bed.

And thanks for the kind words on my words. Heh. I love the little dove. It has a mate that pokes about with it intermittently, but I only saw one of them today.

[shanghaied]

I OTOH was with a bestie watching Galahs land on the beautiful lawn of the beautiful State Library of Victoria this evening :-)

[kaffy_r]

Were there a lot of them? They are so pretty! (Are they noisy? It wouldn't decrease the enjoyment; I like noisy birds.)

[shanghaied]

Yes, lovely birds! Not so many of them this time, about eight or ten, and yes, they're noisy but like you I enjoy bird-noises. But the noisiest - and most marvellously colourful - of all here are the rainbow lorikeets, who have established themselves very well in Melbourne's suburbs and who bed down for the night in large flocks whilst singing themselves a long, very loud lullaby. They tend to choose trees around large car parks, e.g. shopping malls, but also trees along the kerbside 'nature strips' in residential areas. Some people hate them for their noisiness, but I love their time for sleep! time for sleep! songs. (I will, however, admit that parking under trees with flocks of rainbow lorikeets in them isn't a brilliant idea...)

We also have crested pigeons in our neighbourhood these days - beautiful, gentle little things that make a delightful whirring noise when they take off - and more recently, king parrots. Oh, and a frelative in western Victoria has a huge flock of gorgeous Major Mitchells that congregates near her farm. Birds are definitely something Australia gets right :-)

[kaffy_r]

Those crested pigeons are really beautiful, as are the rainbow loris. When my BB worked at a pet store, lo, these many years ago, he developed a fondness for loris, and used to have hang off his lip or a finger; they loved hanging upside down. He was also partial to "Red," a huge Amazonian parrot that lived in the pet shop at the time. I am not sure if he's still there; he was fairly old back then, and that was about 25 years ago. Parrots live a long time, but I think he might have been 35 or so years old at that point.

And goodness, I'm meandering.

Australia does have a lovely crop of birds, doesn't it?

I agree

[shanghaied]

~LOLs quietly~ Even though by rainbow loris I know you meant an abbreviated way of saying rainbow lorikeets, that's given me mental images of a rainbow-coloured loris. Not to mention rainbow-coloured lorries. Language is fun!

The larger parrots do live a long time, sometimes 80 years or more, so B's friend could well still be alive. I also remember reading about a zoo-dwelling Major Mitchell's cockie somewhere in your area that lived into its 80s.

Nowt wrong with meandering in one's own blog :-)

[kaffy_r]

I suspect there are lots of multi-colored lorries, but a slow-moving, big-eyed, eminently huggable-except-they're-hard-to-find-and-probably-wouldn't-want-to-be-cuddled proto-simian ... that I really want to see.

[shanghaied]

Oh yes indeed. However, the best I can offer in that department is an action replay of a baby sloth in pyjamas :-)

[kaffy_r]

I forgot to tell you that you made me make high pitched "eeeee" noises again when I saw this.

[shanghaied]

Always. Baby sloths are a source of permanent squee. As are baby hedgehogs.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

In my family it was "let's go for a drive (on a summer's evening) to blow off the stink". :)

[kaffy_r]

It's pretty definitely a Midwest thing; I never heard the phrase 'til I moved to Chicago.