I am feeling pretty good today, thank you for asking. The knee pain went away just as soon as I stopped running on it, and my understanding is that it comes back when you start running again, which is what makes the healing so tricky. And my fist feels great until I start pounding nails with it! (Maybe that's not a good metaphor.) Anyway, I'm going to have to talk myself into a couple days off, which is a good thing.

Of course, today's patio cover tear-down didn't help. There was a lot of ladder and sledgehammer work, and I often wonder if it all qualifies as "cross training." I count it as such, and just continue on. (If they ever have a running event that includes drill-drivers and claw-hammers, I will be the regional champion.) But it was a beautiful blue-sky and gusty fall day. And I chose the Carlsbad transfer station over the one in Escondido, just for the view.

Thanks to everyone who came to the Little Digger's party bearing presents that whirrr and clickkk and sing and siren and bellow and buzzz, especially at full volume before sunup. You will be amply rewarded in the afterlife for such thoughtful gestures, no doubt, and I will continue my evangelizing of all the virtues and pleasures of simple reading, and at as early an age as possible. Surely, I jest, but books are lovely, silent things. Currently, the Little Digger is utterly enamored of this piece, which was clearly designed by modern devils intent on torturing family-minded adults:




Woe to the giver.

(It was my loving sister.) But did we not all have one of these at some point in our childhood? And did our parents not bark and yell at us for inarticulated reasons at some point in our childhood? The classic Fisher-Price "Corn Popper" may be the earliest documented source of all broken relations between parent and child in the latter part of the 20th century.

It's an amazing toy, actually, alienating parents from their offspring since 1957. I admit that it is pretty gratifying when you push it to get that random PLOKKK-PLOKK-PLOKKKK sound, and yet, it is so impossibly annoying when someone else is at the helm. Like cigarettes and social drinking.

The Little Digger is pushing it right now. I may just leave the room, and look for my concentration elsewhere. (Hmmm... it was here before these cute kids came around...)

~