Guess.What.Day.It.Is?

Oprah! “Visited Jordan this week and there was so much to see and experience! We visited the site where John the Baptist baptized Jesus, Petra and all its fascinations, camels, and the spot where the big boulder comes rolling out of Indiana Jones. So much history there in the “Rose City,” voted one of the 7 new wonders of the world. It takes 3 days to really see it all we only spent 3 hours. Put it on your must see list if you haven’t already!”


Notes:

  1. Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.
  2. Thank you Horty for sharing!

Wally’s Great Adventures (59 – VOLUME UP – I’M HUNGRY)

hello friends, wally here. been playing with Sully for 2 days, and i’m gassed!  and you know, when you work hard and play hard you get really really hungry, right? well, there’s no breaking the rules in this house, 3 meals a day, 7am, noon and 5pm, and no deviations.  and 1/3 of a cup of puppy chow for each meal, and it has to be level to the top and not heaping. i love mom but she’s a meany-cat and immovable. just look at those pics of me, i’m withering away and you can see my hip bones. this is a dangerous situation. so i decided to share with mom Pearl Jam’s tune “Hunger Strike” so maybe she’d get it or i’m going on a no-more-cute strike. will keep you all posted. have a great evening. yours truly hungry Wally.

Wally’s Great Adventures (58 – VOLUME UP – I had a lot of things to do today but…)

hello friends, wally here. decided rather than telling you all about my adventures, i would share lyrics from a great song by Gunnarolla titled “I Took a Nap” that captures my day…here we go: “I had a lot of things to do today / But you know what I did instead / I took a nap / It was a very good nap / That email / I took a nap / Zoom call / I took a nap / What about your lunch plan / I (ate lunch then) took a nap / House chores / I took a nap / Home workout? / I took a nap / Bath time? / I took a nap… / I woke up from the nap to get things done / But you know what I did instead / I took a nap / It was a very good nap…..” have a great sunday. Wally.

Wally’s Great Adventures (57 – I want it ALL)

hello friends, wally here. mom and dad keep all my toys in my toy basket, sorry baskets, plural, as there are two now. i have to dig down and around to find what I want, it’s kind of a pain and it takes so much time, so i drag the baskets around the family room, and then as dad says, i shake the cr*p out of the basket like i’m some sort of animal, and then i try to dump them all out to find just the right toy. dad said he’s exhausted from picking up all my sh*t and maybe i could pick up my stuff after i’m done. but why put them all back in the basket when i’m just going to dump them all out 5 minutes later. i don’t get it, and he said he didn’t either. Have a great weekend. Wally.

Lightly Child, Lightly

Finally day breaks over things that I can’t predict, as I cannot predict myself. Only a stone, a celestial body, a fool can, sometimes, be predictable. Finally day breaks over a circumstantial, differentiated, risky, improbable world, as concrete, multicolored, unexpected, and, yes, beautiful as the one I see, feel, touch, admire.

Michel Serres, in Italo Calvino’s from “Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, La Nouvelle Alliance” in “The Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays. Translated by Ann Goldstein. (Mariner Books Classics, January 17, 2023) 


Notes:

  • Photo: Daybreak. 29° F, feels like 21° F.  6:00 to 7:00 am. March 16, 2023. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. See more photos from yesterday’s daybreak walk here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Wally’s Great Adventures (56 – Workin’ 9-5)

hello friends, wally here. i started my morning being an apprentice banker, and it didn’t end well because…oops dad told me not to share it with all my lady friends on social media as they are so over-the-top sloppy wally lovers, whatever that means, so he sent me out to do yard work with mom. mom said i am the best yard dog ever. i love mom, (and dad only because he gives me so many snacks.) Have a great evening. Wally. #frenchie #frenchbulldog #pet #dog #funny #wally #cute

Monday Morning Wake Up Call

Photo 1 was taken this morning.

Photo 2 was taken in March 2022.

Oh, what a year makes.

Yes, different weather.

No, I was not standing in the exactly the same spot, and likely not the same focal length.

But close enough for you to get the point.

Photo 1 was taken after the completion of a major dredging project this winter to remove “sediments and debris” from the marina and channels.

Yes, it is likely that the park’s upkeep depends on marina revenue.

Yes, certain boat owners’ livelihood may depend on the marina.

No, this isn’t close to being on the same scale of the Amazon deforestation.

But…


For more photos from this morning’s walk, click here.

Wally’s Great Adventures (55)

Wally’s Great Adventures (55 – VOLUME UP) hello friends, wally here. after my tummy aches earlier in the week, which led to 2 vomiting episodes @ 2:30 am which dad called the release of “a toxic chemical bath” all over the bed – – several of my girlfriends on FB suggested that maybe we should try snacking on carrots rather than the scat in the backyard, ‘nasty scat’ is what dad calls it. my girlfriends are so smart. i don’t have tummy aches any more, and i just love carrots. they are so sweet. dad says my poopie now looks like little bitty orange popsicles, and mom says leave it to dad to go over-the-top on snacks. just wanted to thank all of you, and if you have any more tips for snacks, all beef sausages would be amazing, tell dad, please! have a great weekend. Wally.

Walking. In cool water from Lake of Memory.

1040 (not your tax return), 1040 consecutive (almost) days on this Cove Island morning walk. Like in a row. 

But for the wind and the light rain, it would be a pleasant, 35° F morning in March. Ah yes, but for the wind and the light rain…it feels like 26° F, and the hood is up to protect this morning’s erratic ruminations. Diane Ackerman: “the brain’s genius is its gift for reflection. What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to…,” no, i can’t say the word, let’s just say whatever comes after the End.

My weather app flashes an alert for a Coastal Flood Warning. With heavy rains overnight, the park, and its paths, are splotched with puddles. My boots are caked with mud from yesterday’s adventures, and rather than step around the puddles, I step through the center of them hoping the water line falls short of my boot tops. There is something ever so soothing about the clop clop clopand racing barefoot through puddles during rainy summer days in August as an adolescent. The body light, floats like a feather, B.A., Before Adulthood, and the accumulation of the Heavy. My body veers towards one puddle and then the next, clop, clop, clop.  Give me quickly / the cool water flowing from the Lake of Memory inscribed on a fourth-century-B.C. Greek tablet.

I walk. [Read more…]

Wally’s Great Adventures (54)

hello friends, wally here. i’m missing Sully so much after he left. naps and night time without my bro-bff just aren’t the same. speaking about night time, my tummy has been a little upset lately, 2x around 2:30 am my tummy starts to girgle, and then up it comes, brown gunk all over the white duvet cover and then mom rushes me onto the floor where i finish my business. and then mom yells at dad saying that he might get out of bed and help so she can clean up the mess, and dad says just leave it, he’s not getting up, ’he’s exhausted’, he doesn’t mind sleeping ‘in it’ and ‘its not so bad’. mom fires back, ‘are you kidding me!’ so mom takes care of the bedding, dad takes me outside where its freezing cold, and he’s not happy (again) and says that good boys don’t be puking on the bed. and i should stop eating scat and dust bunnies and other crap because i was cutting into his sleep time, cutting into the few hours of sleep that he manages to get in, and he cant be walking around like a zombie all day. i don’t know what a zombie is but it doesn’t sound good. anywho, we all get back into bed, my tummy feels better, i cozy with mom, she loves me and doesn’t yell at me like dad, and there’s dad mumbling about not being able to sleep, and he’s staring bug-eyed reading something on his light box. that’s all for tonight friends. Wally.

Wally’s Great Adventures (53 – “you’ve got a friend in me”)

(VOLUME UP) hello friends, wally here. big day. its the weekend, and my big brother came to visit. dad’s fun and all (note to self – show training can get a bit long in the tooth, but that’s ok, he means well). sully and i wrestle, play tug-o-war with my toys, play outside, go for walks with mom, and then we take long naps together, have snacks, and then i cozy with sully between mom and dad at night when we go sleep. sully’s leaving in a few hours. i will miss him. have a great night everyone. Wally.

Wally’s Great Adventures (52 – “Born to Run”)

Wally’s Great Adventures (52 – VOLUME UP – BORN TO RUN) hello friends, wally here. big day. its the weekend, and you know what that means, dad’s training sessions to become a world class show dog. and, i had extra lessons during the week to (a) ‘unravel all of moms softy training,’ like spiraling backwards he said, and (b) due to last week’s disaster, ‘disaster’ as dad described it, with not a whiff of exaggeration, calling me ‘a poor excuse for a Canadian, shivering like a hairless chihuahua, tip toeing in the snow, and running into mammas arms after like 3 minutes, sad, sad as sh*t’ he repeated. so he taught me how to be respectful to others, how to be polite, how to be passive aggressive whenever there was conflict (he must have failed that lesson, disaster, that’s what i would call that), and finally the need to become a good ice skater. he said i was not half bad on the canadian training, and coming from dad, that’s like a miracle. and then dad took me outside for more training. and what i show i put on. dad’s hands where like beet red from the cold snow balls he was rolling and tossing. but, he said, and first a moment of silence here to let this sink it, ‘dad said i was just incredible. like olympic caliber snow ball chaser.’ olympic star! did you hear that?!? could that have been a tear i saw from dad before he turned away? could dad have been that proud? wow. let’s see THAT again. have a great weekend everyone. Wally.

Walking. On Sunday Morning.

There she is. 7:30 am, December 28, 2022. She’s the middle aged runner that I mentioned in prior posts, a runner who runs every day, every day at least since I’ve been out on these morning walks, and again this morning, 1026 consecutive (almost) mornings, like in a row.

It was a mild December morning, 32° F, but, oh, that sunrise, and oh the photos on that glorious day.  I happened to be in the right spot at the right time to get a shot of her coming and going.

I want to use a ‘Lori word’ to describe her, diminutive. I had to look it up. But anyone who runs with the persistence that she does, is anything but diminutive.  Driving rain, biting cold, humid August mornings, she’s running. [Read more…]

Walking. On Sunday Morning.

It’s not the red car, but the black sedan behind it. Shot was taken this morning from across the cove, from a distance. At the start and end of my morning walks, I pull in here to take my first and last shots, but not today. Heavy cloud cover, and…

1013 consecutive (almost) days on this Cove Island morning walk. Like in a row.  It’s brisk out, 28° F, feels like 23° F.

For the last 6 (?) months, mostly every morning, the black sedan is parked here, overnight. Car running, exhaust drifts upward, condensation drips and pools on the asphalt. 

Who are you? What’s your story? Sleep here by choice (not really ‘choice’ with rents at nose bleed levels)? Bad decisions? Bad luck? Working 2 jobs, banking cash for better days ahead? [Read more…]

Guess.What.Day.It.Is?

Water, Highly Commended: Romain Miot (France)

Location: Oualata, Mauritania

Caption: I met this salt caravan after a four-day expedition into the middle of the Sahara desert. No roads lead to this place, so we navigated by compass. Hundreds of dromedaries and their masters were present on this desert plain where nothing lives.

Two wells had been dug to water the camels before they left for Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso to sell the salt. When I returned from the trip I realised that this image of a camel owner ordering the dromedaries looked like a conductor with an orchestra

Source: “The worldly winners and finalists of the 2022 Travel Photographer of the Year competition in dpreview.com, January 31, 2023


Notes: Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.

Walking. In place inaccessible to unbelief.

5:05 am. I peek at the weather app: 27° F, feels like 15° F, wind gusts up to 32 mph.

Camus: “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Hmmmmmm, not feelin’ it.

Everyone in the house sleeps, snuggled under their comforters. Wally snores peacefully. I slide my hand onto his belly, and it moves up and down with his inhale and exhale. What joy this creature has brought, this little ball of life.

I get out of bed. Sigh. Thick wool socks. Smart Wool, long underwear. Hoodie. Snow pants. Lined Boots. Come on Arctic blast, hit me, give me your best shot.

I walk.

Not a soul in the park. No runners. No walkers. No dredgers, who are off for the long weekend. And here I am, 985 consecutive (almost) days on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

Surprised, I am, at the ebbs and flows. 12 years here at this blogging thing, and it’s ebbing, a low tide that ebbs 1 day, and ebbs 2 days and ebbs 3 days, followed by a shoulder shrug. Time with Wally. Time with book. Time with Netflix. [Read more…]

Guess.What.Day.It.Is? (Greatest Ever)

 

 


Notes:

  • Thank you Lori for sharing!
  • Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.

Guess.What.Day.It.Is?

Is it hump day yet? Even camels are working overtime, the AP reported, as Qatar welcomes more than a million fans for the month-long World Cup. Handlers are cashing in on the opportunity, forcing the animals to give 15 or 20—even 40 rides—without a break. Sometimes, when they’re tired, they simply refuse to stand up and get to work. We feel you, camels.

Mesaieed, Qatar (AP) — Shaheen stretched out on the sand and closed his eyes, but there was little time to rest for the camel. World Cup fans coming in droves to the desert outside Doha were ready for their perfect Instagram moment: riding a camel on the rolling dunes.

As Qatar welcomes more than a million fans for the monthlong World Cup, even its camels are working overtime. Visitors in numbers the tiny emirate has never before seen are rushing to finish a bucket list of Gulf tourist experiences between games: ride on a camel’s back, take pictures with falcons and wander through the alleyways of traditional markets.

On a recent Friday afternoon, hundreds of visitors in soccer uniforms or draped in flags waited for their turn to mount the humpbacked animals. Camels that did not rise were forced up by their handlers. When one camel let out a loud grunt, a woman from Australia shrieked, “it sounds like they’re being violated!” Nearby, a group of men from Mexico dressed in white Qatari thobes and headdresses took selfies.

“It’s really an amazing feeling because you feel so tall,” 28-year-old Juan Gaul said after his ride. The Argentine fan was visiting Qatar for a week from Australia. [Read more…]

Guess.What.Day.It.Is?


Notes:

Guess.What.Day.It.Is?


Notes:

  • Thank you Sawsan!
  • Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.
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