This iguana did not want to move from the dirt road in the afternoon heat on S. Croix so I was able to get up close.
I’ve been trying to get to Austin to attend the big Austin City Limits music festival for years (my brothers live there and I have visited other times of the year). Looking again for 2024 but the Bourbon & Beyond festival also looks fun.
Finished reading: The Covenant of Water (Oprah’s Book Club) by Abraham Verghese. Loved it! 📚
RIP Carl Weathers (NYT obit). We’re listening to the Rocky album in your honor. (Record came from my wife’s family home. First time this has been played in decades.)
A good week done. Chicken Provençal roasting in the oven, vintage Springsteen vinyl on the turntable, cold margarita in the hand of the one I love & a Great Lakes Brewing Company Dortmunder Gold in mine, our children healthy & well, friends & family nearby. So much to be thankful for.
Another cherry pie (with filling made from sour cherries picked by me last year in Virginia) for a family meal tonight. Michael’s cocktail ratios book at the ready.
Just learned that I can buy books written by @patrickrhone on Lulu.com. I’ve admired Patrick’s posts on Micro.blog, and I’m looking forward to reading Enough and This Could Help.
The January 2001 issue of Northern Ohio Live (a magazine!) featured my innovations column (Inventing the Future), that month a story about a neurosurgeon at the Cleveland Clinic using deep brain stimulation. This week, I saw that same surgeon, Ali Rezai, featured by Sixty Minutes.
Morning coffee with a friend (fellow soccer player) then home to make sesame salt pretzels with brown beer mustard (from Sunday Suppers cookbook by Karen Mordechai).
I am reading The Covenant of Water (Oprah’s Book Club) by Abraham Verghese: I’m on page 84/724 and I know I will love this story. (Cutting Foe Stone is one of my favorite novels.) 📚
We seem to have survived the big storm. Rains snd winds have ceased and house is feeling calm enough to put a record on the phonograph. When sun is up will look for fallen branches.
Rain most of the day. When I woke from my nap, stillness, so I walked into town for coffee. Back home, I seeded pomegranates for the semiannual batch of homemade grenadine while listening to Peter Gabriel’s Passion album on vinyl.
This is a test
Friday, January 5, 2024
This is a test. I am refreshing myself on how to send a post to Micro.blog from iA Writer.
Another book I finished reading this month: The Point by Steve Woodruff. I previously read Woodruff’s Clarity Wins book about clear and direct communication. Both are very instructive.📚
I finished reading How to Know a Person by David Brooks. A lot of what Brooks focuses on, including pausing and deep listening, is what I’ve been working on this year. A longer blog post to come to reflect on what I’ve learned about myself in this. 📚
It took me half the year, but I finally finished reading Victory City by Salman Rushdie 📚
Woken early by young nephews so I took a pre-dawn walk on the wide streets of Fredericksburg, Texas. Yesterday we enjoyed good wine and family conversation at Signor Vineyards. Saturday was UT football win. Fun vacation so far.
Last night at soccer near Pittsboro, I noticed a marbled salamander walking through the grass toward the playing pitch. I moved it to a safe distance away. My phone was in the truck so I didn’t get a photo of the beautiful, moist creature.
A few nights ago, this copperhead snake was crossing the gravel road near the old house. I stopped to move it (with a long pine branch) back into the woods. I love snakes but I’ve since been convinced that I should have run over this one to best protect the people and pets in our area.
