Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

The end of the semester is here. I can breathe a sigh of relief that for a few weeks I don't have to read and grade papers generated by AI and papers that show the student really doesn't care about improving their own writing skills and critical thinking skills. I don't have to respond to students who fail to submit work by the due date then email the assignment, asking that I read it even though they didn't meet the due date. It's so quiet now. The noise is gone. I get to focus on a few projects I've been kicking around. I get to focus on Sunny. The snowshoes are by the back door, just waiting for the few inches of snow that is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. I get to look forward to the kids coming to visit over the holidays.  Sunny is growing into a beautiful young dog. He has captured my heart. I've never had a dog that cuddles the way he does. I've never had a dog who leans so completely into my chest that I can feel his heartbeat. Every evening ...

Since Sunny was off for a week due to his muscle strain, I didn't put down any trails for him. I was ordered that he rest, with no exercise beyond a short walk on leash, and when he's in the harness, working a trail, he digs in, eager to do his job. If a week or more goes by without a trail, I figure it's a good idea to back up and do a simple trail. This is kind of like a reboot. That's what we did on Friday. Just a simple, straight trail with one turn. Only I didn't take into consideration that I had trampled all over the area earlier in the day when I mowed the lawn.  I walked Sunny around the block and brought him to the beginning of the trail, which he picked up with no problem. He followed the trail nicely until we reached the area where I had mowed. Then he seemed confused, which is totally understandable. My scent was all over the place. He then found the fresh trail I had put down and got back on track. When he reached the turn, he didn't hesitate at al...

October is just a few days away, bringing about the beginning of my favorite time of year. The cooler nights. The leaves changing from green to orange, red, or yellow. The slowing down of life in general. I'm good with slowing down. Sunny, though, isn't a fan of the slow life movement. Since Friday Sunny has been on restricted activity due to the muscle strain. He did really well Saturday, mostly just hanging out on my lap all day. I'm pretty sure the pain was enough then that he simply didn't have it in him to be his usual puppy self. Yesterday he wanted to be a little more active, but I curtailed all play. We spent the day in the back yard just sitting in the grass or in the house, binge watching a Brit Box show. Today he tried to convince me all day that he was perfectly fine. To keep him somewhat low-key, I spent a lot of time on the floor, working on his down stay, which lasts all of two seconds.  While he's still slightly limping, it's only noticeable beca...

The smell of marigolds isn't completely pleasant. It's not completely offensive either. It's somewhere in between. It's a smell all its own. Hours after my hands have moved their long stems, cupped the blooms in wonder, I have to pause what I'm doing -- making the bed, vacuuming the house, hanging up clothes that had been unceremoniously dropped on the bedroom floor -- when the faint whiff of marigold drifts up to remind me of my time with them. Marigolds are just lovely. Whenever I see a marigold or smell a marigold, I'm taken back to my childhood. To a movie that for some reason became a part of who I am. I was only eight when the movie came out, but I remember having a very strong reaction to it, and every summer when I plant marigolds, I think of that movie: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds. I try to watch it at least once a year, and since the marigolds I planted this summer are blooming, I thought the time is perfect to watch the movie...

Each day this week the heat has closed in around 90 degrees. I have a stack of paperback books on my desk, and the humidity curls back the cover of the top book. I shift it to go underneath the second book so the cover will flatten out. I end up shifting each top book every so often throughout the day. They all end up taking a turn at having their cover curl. I finished reading The Road  by Cormac McCarthy and The Last Coyote  by Michael Connelly this week. The first is quite a fast read, and I'm not sure why I've not read it before now. I've seen the movie, but I just never thought about reading the book until a colleague brought it up recently. I truly enjoyed it -- well, not the subject matter so much, or the ending -- but rather the way McCarthy fashions phrases, offers an objective viewpoint. I found myself rereading paragraphs, sentences, phrases as I was taken by the image, the metaphor, the feel created through the words. The second book is a Harry Bosch crime n...