winter walks

waiting for destiny, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

Today I drove to Sister Grove Park, the locale I visited on the very first post in this journal, many years ago. This county park is little-visited, although bikers and hikers do seek it out a bit.

I listened to podcasts on my mp3 player, as I walked, including a podcast about a comet that may strike Mars, three podcasts by the New York Institute correspondence film school about tripods, plastic cameras, and film SLRs. I listened to a podcast which read a 1928 essay of rememberances of a Kansas woman's memories of celebrating Christmas in the 1870s. I loved the description of the unveiling of the tree, with its single night of burning candles.

When iI saved mp3s of podcasts, I must have surfed pages too soon repeatedly, as many ended prematurely. I must practice patience--it's a virtue.

The walk was lovely--crows calling, chickadees chieeping, cardinals singing, and greenery and dead plants juxtaposed with one another.
I usually get lost on the long loop trail at Sister Grove, but I realized that the reason is that I get impatient and turn too soon, resulting in circling endlessly. I stayed patient this time, and it all worked out great, so score one for tihs particular mouse learning from the maze.

We went to dinner at Samui Thai, and then rented the movie Once. This movie was the kind of small, life-affirming movie that is right up my alley, and kudos to folks who do musicals on no budget.

My postal chess games wend on to their conclusion. The "team tournament" proved to be a poor choice, as I played better in the individual events. My recent Scrabulous results are similarly dismal.
It's all a good lesson in humility.