Quiet Day

Posted: January 8, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: health, sabbatical | 2 Comments
(January Frost. January 2006. Photo by Robin)

It’s been a relatively quiet day. I exercised, did a little cleaning, organized some photos for M, and sat down with pencils and sketch pad to draw. I’m new to drawing. I have a feeling it will take many years of practice before anything I draw is recognizable as the object I was looking at. That’s okay. It was fun, yet relaxing.

I’m on day 8 of a Fitness Challenge. This is one of the best fitness challenges I’ve seen as it’s a holistic approach that includes a mind/body challenge and not just the usual cardio and strength challenge. It’s also set up for people of all fitness levels, a good thing for me since I’m just getting my fitness levels back up to something resembling normal (for me) after months of pain. I’ve had to modify things somewhat because of my back problems, but in only one week I’ve gone from not being able to do more than one or two reps of some of the exercises to being able to do a set of twelve reps. This mostly applies to the abdominal exercises which pull on my back and kick up the sciatica more than the other types of exercises do.

We started the day here in WC with rain and wind. Now it’s sunny, clear, windy and the temperature is dropping. I think winter might be finally putting in an appearance. A glance at the weather in the Bogs shows they’re getting some light snow. There hasn’t been much of a winter there, either, this season.

I may be getting a new wardrobe out of this move. I managed to turn a bunch of white shirts pink last week by accidentally including a small red item in the load. Not that pink is so bad. But it’s not a particularly pretty shade of pink. More like a dingy shade of pink.

I wonder if this will qualify as the most boring blog entry ever. 🙂

When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving. ~-Steven Wright

A Mummer a day

Posted: January 8, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: mummers | Leave a comment
(Mummers Parade. Philadelphia, PA. January 2007. Photo by Robin)

This is one of the examples of a joke in the Comics section that I just didn’t notice during the parade. See the truck off to the right.

The Mummers are a Philadelphia working class family institution and tradition. We saw people of all ages and whole families strutting together in the parade. Lots of kids, even those in strollers, were costumed and enjoying the parade. This guy above doesn’t look too happy, though, does he? Not a very cheerful 2007. Or maybe I just caught him at a bad moment (in between smiles).

The Mummers are not without controversy, that’s for sure. The Comic clubs have a history of being politically incorrect. I’m guessing they’ve been rather slow to change when it comes to certain issues, but have nothing to back that up.

Note to Kel: I think last year’s Mummers parade was the first year of corporate sponsorship, but I’m not entirely sure about it. I saw something about the 2006 Southwest Airlines Mummers Parade so I’m assuming that was last year’s parade.