I'd probably be better off if I let my law license lapse -- I know I'll never practice again big-time, and being licensed but uninsured is just creating temptations best avoided; clients are only happy with lawyers who get what the client wants, and won't hesitate to sue for malpractice if things don't go the way they want. I have to be careful even answering vague questions at parties and such, because if someone regards that as "legal advice" and follows up on it to their detriment, they can, again, allege malpractice.
To this day, if any sort of legal question arises in conversation, no matter how innocuous, I preface remarks with, "I am not an attorney and what I say does not constitute legal advice." Old habits die hard.
I always thought it would be nice indeed to spend autumn in a college town in the upper Midwest. I was right.
The songs of birds perched on top of my chimney carry all the way down to the basement (where I normally work), so it sounds like they're right next to me.
Walking back into the stable where we kept our horses for many years. I went there because I was horse-hungry; both of ours died last year. The smell and sounds took me right back to what it was like to be devoted to equine care. My son keeps mules and horses on his small ranch, but it's just not quite the same as driving a mile down the road to visit my own dear horse girl and horse boy.
Not exactly the same, but when I grew up my best friend's dad owned the local grain elevator, and we boys often wandered over there on weekends and summer days, climbing on the hay bales and the feed bags and so on. That smell still takes me back there, even when I simply open a bag of sunflower or safflower seeds for my bird feeder. And for the last 10 years of my dad's life my folks lived on an a small farmstead with a big, but empty, old barn under a large cottonwood tree. The smells still remained, albeit a bit musty.
As I think I mentioned before, one story we read in our grade-school reading class had to do with a boy who planted a pumpkin patch. Every day he carefully examined and handled the young pumpkins, to the point they came loose from the stems and dried up. At the end of what had been a disappointing season, he discovered a huge pumpkin on the other side of the fence, that had grown because of benevolent neglect. For some reason that story resonated with me, and does to this day, something about letting life do its work. Well. We planted zucchini this year and harvested them as they reached the "right" size, which ain't that big. Every few days we would seek them out, pushing leaves aside. Imagine my surprise and delight when the leaves died off in the autumn chill, and I discovered a huge one that had grown, unnoticed, along a large railroad tie serving as a border.
Yeah, their football program isn't a thing. None of the schools up here do much of anything, except for PC basketball. I should be more into it considering the campus is in my neighborhood, but I never got into basketball.
Smells trigger memories so quickly. Once upon a time, a friend (also originally from the South) handed me a book and told me to open it, take a sniff, and say the first thing that came into my mind. I followed instructions and was immediately transferred back in time to my grandparents' big old house in Arkansas. The lovely smell of paper that has been damp and mildewed! Basketball: my grandmother played in the twenties, my mother played in the forties, I played in the sixties/seventies, and in the 2000s, my daughter played volleyball. There's always one... My son, however, played basketball for a year or two, so the tradition was not completely lost.
Bought two donuts today from my favorite shoppe (one blueberry old-fashioned for me, one chocolate old-fashioned for my son) and without telling me, they slipped in an extra one for me.
Something that makes me happier is playing the piano. A goal for the next year is to play more because it does bring me peace.
Tried to make oatmeal in the instant pot today, and the float valve didn't seal, and spewed out an oaty broth. I went to google and found a site in which the guy talked about the little spring inside getting distorted. I had vaguely wondered why there was a small twist of wire laying down where the valve sits, vaguely thought I hadn't seen it there before. Freezing the video, I got a pair of tweezers and pulled out the wire. Sure enough, it was the spring. So I put carefully put it back into the valve and tentatively used the pot to hard boil a couple eggs. Worked fine and now I feel like a handyman. At least until the next "crisis."
