Nibbling at the Year Ahead in Everyday Ramblings

The parking lot at the train station in the town Kes and Most Honorable live in was full on Christmas Day afternoon so we drove to the very back were there were a few spots. There was this bare perfectly shaped oak tree back there. Huge. We were so entranced we didn’t notice that my bus home had arrived. There was also a train in going to California, The Coast Starlight.

The whole thing is evocative of a different time. The beautiful little restored station is like that too, vaulted ceilings and historic details which contrast with the very electronic sounding voice of the AI announcer on the PA system.

Yesterday I went for a walk at sunrise and there wasn’t much to capture my imagination in the gloom, but I was thinking about all the years now I have been walking the neighborhood taking pictures and recording details. This is another old oak, not so perfectly shaped in the community garden that is not mine. All very Pacific Northwest evocative. Particularly is one knows what oak leaves look like.

When I got home there were two big trucks parked across the street. Tree service trucks with a wood chomper. I was concerned about the level of noise, but actually all I could hear was the motor once they got going. The old tree was in the back so not a street tree, but still sad to see it go. We are not planting enough trees in the neighborhood to replace those that are coming down. They are replacing the street trees but not the ones on private property.

The trees are coming down, partially because of their natural life span, but more because of the extreme weather brought on by climate change. Understandable but a bit counter intuitive. We need more trees, not fewer. Better thought out planting.

I am a little embarrassed by my last post. I still have to write, or at least assemble the book. A big project that will take at least a year or two.

Christmas was lovely. I hadn’t gone down on the actual holiday before. They often came up here, or we exchanged gifts a couple of days before. Mrs. Sherlock, as a gift for me, picked me up and took me to the train station and home after. All very luxurious. It was cold and quite wet, but traffic was light and the train down even a bit early.

There is a plan in the next few years for them (my sister and brother-in-law) to move into a retirement community that is significantly closer and available by light rail. A much less time consuming and expensive proposition and will allow us to spend more relaxed time together.

Still, that is then, and this is now, and all is well.

I am all discombobulated not teaching this week. Everything in my life hangs around my teaching schedule and I am like wait, what day is it? Yesterday I washed the bedding and did other light chores, read, and watched a documentary on the Monty Python farewell shows in 2014. It was fascinating to see how they all aged. I have heard a few of them on the radio or podcasts but not seen them since they were young.

John Cleese is 84 now and the oldest of them. Still saying controversial things, I see. They were all talking about being 70 in the documentary. It is something I am thinking about myself. Less than 6 months now before I hit that milestone.

As I heard someone say the other day, the runway ahead becomes a driveway.

Something to contemplate as one considers what to focus on in the year ahead.

Last updated December 27, 2023