Moon Conjunct Venus, with Jupiter and Antares

Smokey tore into our bedroom this morning on some Secret Cat Mission, and when I looked out the back, I saw that the sky was actually clear and that the Moon, Venus and Jupiter were out. 

I snapped a ton of shots, shivering in the cold as the dew froze on the table. 

Latest Paper Triangle Craft Project

 Last December, I was using paper triangles to make Christmas Tree Ornaments that were roughly icosahedron shaped.  During the process, I wondered if I could make a stellated truncated icosidodecahedron (or something).

 And it seemed like something my dad would like for his birthday, so...  I fired up the cutter-plotter.

 And cut apart the triangles that were stuck to each other.

 And assembled star shapes.

 Once I had enough star shapes, the idea was to piece together six different colored star assemblies--but the cutter-plotter ate one of my pieces of paper, so I only had five colors.

 Mostly, I was pleased with the outcome.  I think in the future I might have made the triangles a little smaller and used slightly thicker card stock to give the whole thing more rigidity.

 A smaller construction of two star assemblies joined at their points could make a charming little Christmas Ornament for a tree.  Mark says I've run the course with triangles, and started to make Chromolume jokes from "Sunday Morning in the Park with George."

The finished products.  They remind me of hydrangeas,  Mark thought the green and purple one on the left looked like something an evil sorcerer would use, and I had to agree that it had a Maleficent vibe to it.   So I gave the blue one to my dad, who really liked it.

Fine-Tuning the Gym Routine

I met with my trainer today to go over all of the exercises I've been doing and to fine-tune the forms.  It turns out I've been doing most of them not quite as optimally as I could, which doesn't mean that I haven't been seeing results, but it does mean that I've been putting more strain on my shoulders, elbows, and back that I should.

I'm also convinced that when I was getting instructed on these the first time, the head cold I had messed up by ability to remember all the forms. 

One point of all these exercises is that they are "super-sets", meaning I should do a set of A) (say, presses), rest 10 seconds, then do a set of B) (say rows), rest, and then repeat two more times.  They're supposed to compliment each other by alternately compressing and stretching the same muscle sets.  I'd been doing them consecutively, which defeated the purpose.


A) 3x12x20lbs dumbbell presses

I'm mostly doing this one right.  I need to keep the dumbbells over my pectorals and at shoulder-width.  The idea is to go straight up and push with my pectorals and not my shoulders.


B) 3x12x20lbs dumbbell rows

I need to keep my feet closer together, keep my bent knees behind my toes,  flex my quads and not my back, then let the dumbells hang straight down from my shoulders, and row up with the dumbbells following the slope of my legs.  My  forearms and quads should be parallel, as should my trunk and shins -- and to get that position I need to "lead from my butt." 


A) 3x12x45lbs barbell press

I was mostly doing this right; again the barbell needs to be even with my pectorals so on the contraction there's a bit of a stretch and the press is coming from my pectorals and not my shoulders.


B) 3x12x45lbs barbell row

Mostly right.  Good form has the bar starting touching just above my knees and then pulling up and back in a straight line to touch the navel.  Engage the quads, not the lower back (or shoulders).  Make sure the elbows at the top of the row are bent so that they point across the middle of the back (not the top of the shoulders).


A) 3x12x15lbs low cable fly

I had been performing this too high, like it was a press.  I need to grip the pulls to engage the forearms (I'd been hooking them in open hands between my thumbs and index finger).  The push should come (you guessed it) from my lower pectoral muscles, not my triceps.  Start with elbows bent, then end with hands low in a sort of Arnold flexing pose.


B) 3x12x5lbs low back cable fly

I was totally messing this one up.  The grip should be squeezing the ropes above the pulls, my elbows should be bent in a frozen position.  The cables should cross at head level.  Instead of straightening my arms, which turns this into a triceps/shoulder stressor (oops), I should be stretching my chest open and energizing my lower trapezius muscle group.

3x12x10lbs cable twist

I'd just started doing this one, and my form was pretty good; keeping a wider stance than I had been will insure that I'm twisting my trunk (and activating my core) not twisting my hips and knees.


A) 3x12x25lbs barbell inline overhead triceps extension

This one was throwing me because the grip on the barbell always felt wrong.  My hands should be about as far apart when my extended thumb tips are touching (or to put it another way, if my hands are naturally falling palms out with relaxed arms, rolling my hands inward should bring them the same, naturally relaxed distance).  Lean forward in the incline bench in a demi-crunch, the barbell behind the head and between the bench, push up and a little back (not directly over head or chest) to keep the triceps engaged.


B) 3x12x25lbs barbell incline hanging bicep curl

One form that I was actually mostly doing correctly.  Remember to keep biceps engaged (don't "rest" weights at the top of the curl).


A) 3x12x30lbs rope triceps extension

Oh my god, doing this the right way is going to kill me.  Mostly, it's about bending forward (engaging the core) so the weights don't come back down on their stack, keeping my elbows in position near my ears, then straightening my arms so that the rope-pull travels in a straight line (not a curve) which is an extension of the cable's vector.  And not flexing my wrists.  I should be thinking of the motion as a pushing forward with my hands and not as a rotation around my elbows. 


B) 3x12x20lbs overhead rope bicep curl

Another form that I was doing with elbows too low and too far leaned back.  So... sit on the bench, raise the arms and grab the rope pull in a reverse hold with thumbs facing my face, lean back a little to raise weights off of their stack, bend elbow (keeping it near my ears), pull rope pull behind my head, focus on activating the top part (elbow half) of my biceps. 



So there it is.  Now I have to figure out a metric...

Hummingbird Achievement Unlocked

Sunday was my dad's birthday.  He's thirty years older than I am, which means we celebrated his 54th birthday (hat tip to LGL for that math bon mot).  We had a quiet family gathering and lunch.  Afterward, Mark and The Child performed astounding magic card tricks.

My folks have a hummingbird feeder which they keep stocked year round.  Accordingly, they have some resident hummingbirds living around their house.  Over the last four months, I've tied to photograph one of the little guys who has a regular perch in a maple tree at the edge of a deck.  It turns out that the tree is just far enough away, the hummingbird is just twitchy enough, and my camera's auto-focus is just confused enough that I managed to get some artistic photographs of tree twigs with a fuzzy, bejeweled blur. 

This time, I decided to stake out the hummingbird feeder.  The feeder's resident champion hovered a challenge at me before deciding that I wasn't going to try to steal any sugar-water, and I managed to get a few shots, before it flew off to chase some rivals away.  While it was occupied, some of the other hummingbirds visited, and I took their photographs, too.

More here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZVdnrxWsn9RGQvRv7

Backyard Birds

Mark (mostly) maintains a suet feeder in our back yard.

It attracts a lot of birds, mostly sparrows, nuthatches, juncos, and scrub jays.  

And crows.  

And squirrels.  

Occasionally we get other visitors--a northern flicker is a seasonal visitor, and the other day I managed to get a so-so photograph of a downy woodpecker.

Photographing birds when they're on the suet block can be a challenge, because the block tends to spin and then the next thing I know the camera's auto-focus has decided to focus on the metal cage the suet is in instead of the bird.  

Old Mt. Rainier Visitor's Center

I was going through some old pictures and I found some from a trip that we'd taken to Mt. Rainier from about ten years ago.

A group of us traveled there for Mark's Birthday Hike and Camping Trip.

I liked the railings, which seemed to be making a Seattle Needle reference, but probably weren't.

The visitor center offered a 360 view.

Mt. Rainier.

From the outside, the visitor's center looked like an Old Star Trek set.

Or maybe someone's remote mountain retreat.

Apparently, the visitor's center has since been demolished -- it was designed for Hawaii, and melting the snow off of the flat parts was prohibitively expensive.

Mid-Week Report

I was going to go to the gym Wednesday, after taking a rest period after my Sunday extra session, but I got a aura-migraine and stayed home.  I'm trying to decide how much my eyes are bothering me today, because I'm aware of my eyes in a way that I'm not normally -- it's almost like I can feel the light entering into them, and the photons are too wide.

In lieu of much to write about, here's photos of an old craft project...

Dead Keyboard & Secret Things

Thursday.  I'm trying to write between dropping The Child off at an event and picking him up.  The difficulty is that the venue he's at is at the other side of town, about as far away as one can get from our house (and suitable cafes) and still be within city limits.

Of course when I did get somewhere to write, I discovered that I forgot to turn off the keyboard and now its batteries are dead.  Bother.  

Oh well, time to write longhand ...  and doing so has me thinking about identity and revealed identity.  There are some things that I don't write on this blog, and the act of writing them longhand is good in a confessional sort of way and it means they aren't sitting on a computer somewhere waiting to be Googled.  On the other hand, keeping private things private brings up issues of when does one cross over the line from being circumspect to being closeted or repressed or socially invisible?

Also, if shared stories bind a community together, than shared secrets do so even more.  How many times have you retreated to a corner somewhere with a confidant, and whispered, "I found a safe place, and I did a secret thing" ?   It doesn't have to be something that challenges a deep-seated taboo:  it could be boys or men playing with "action figures" or listening to Lawrence Welk or whatever.

Ah well.

Monday.  This morning is partly cloudy, with occasional sunlight.  We need the rain, but it was really too bad that last night was so cloudy that we missed being able to see the Jan 20 lunar eclipse.

On the gym front:  went to the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Warming up with dumbbells, then ...

3x12x20lbs dumbell presses
3x12x20lbs dumbell rows
3x12x45lbs barbell press
3x12x45lbs barbell row
3x12x15lbs low cable fly
3x12x5lbs low back cable fly
3x12x25lbs barbell inline overhead triceps extension
3x12x25lbs barbell incline hanging bicep curl
3x12x30lbs rope triceps extension
3x12x20lbs overhead rope bicep curl

I think there's been results -- and I still haven't actually taken any biceps measurements.  Perhaps I can talk Mark into getting out his tape measure or I can start taking some of those weekly selfie shots with my shirt off and a skimpy towel.  Or a thong!

I've decided that I've been doing the standing cable crunch completely wrong, so I've gone back to hanging Roman Chair curls.  I recently started some cable twists to work my core, we'll see how that works.  I've also scheduled another session with my trainer to go over form, and it sounds like he wants to add a few other things.

Taking a rest day today and will return Wednesday.    

Hieroglyphs and Cookies

 The other day I saw a rolling pin that had been laser-etched with Egyptian hieroglyphs.










I really wanted one, but Mark said that A) those rolling pins didn't work, and that instead of hieroglyph cookies, I'd get a baking mess, and B) I was wrong to want one.

I think he simply doesn't want another Kitchen Thing in our house that will get used once every two years. 


I suppose I'll just have to etch my own cookie dough press. 


The hieroglyphs on the rolling pin looked like they didn't really say anything, anyway.

Parking and Punishment

Lately, I've been having writing dreams, in that I dream that I'm writing down a story or working on a scene.  The only problem is that once I wake up, I can never remember the particulars clearly. 

In writing news, I pitched a story to an anthology, a submitted another story to a different anthology, and I wrote a 800 flash piece. 

Parking at The Day Jobbe continues to be annoying.  The other day there was someone parked over the line of the stall, which made it very difficult to squeeze in.  There's nothing like that to make me want to key their car, or launch it out of its spot with explosives, or relish other forms of intricate punishment (none of which you can get away with today).  I'm sure there's a story in there somewhere--the trick is to keep it from becoming revenge porn.   But still, I have to wonder what biochemical mechanism makes it so rewarding to walk through the lot to work while lowly muttering, "You shall be punished.  Punished!"

Weekends and Cafes

Saturday was a warm and sunny day, and a little warm (50's) for January.  Mark and I went for a 20 minute walk in the sunlight toward a coffeehouse (where I had a birthday gathering a few weeks ago).

By the time we got there, I had unzipped my vest and jacket, and taken off my fingerless gloves.   I stayed and wrote for about two hours.  The place is nice, but always filled to capacity when the university students are in.  When I left I had the wistful notion of wanting to write at home at a table with tea and savories on hand.  So, on the walk back home, I stopped at the local store and got materials for quiche.

Saturday night (between the NPR radio show Wait-Wait and the Netflix showing of Solo) I put together the quiche.

Sunday had a slow morning with tea, quiche, researching Circe's animal transformations, and the Sunday Baroque radio show.  And researching the decayed matter that forms the spent crystalline carbon and oxygen cores of white dwarf stars.   Sunday morning was much more cold and grey than Saturday--church goers are scraping ice off of their cars, and the sun is a faint pearl in the sky.

By 11:30 the fog was burning off, and the sky was tempting me to write outside--where it's probably still a little cold.

Friday Update

Just before I went to bed, I read a New Yorker article about pot.  So, of course, I dreamed about the short I was also working on last night, only with pot-smoking characters added.  This is teaching me that I should choose what I read before I drop off to sleep more carefully.

Lately, I've been sore.  The Child blames the gym, but I'm thinking it's one of the desks I've been sitting and typing at.  Or maybe the bed.  Oh well.

Here, have a unicorn.

Winter Term, Week 1

Sigh.  The Winter Term has begun and parking at The Day Jobbe is scarce again.  I have become resigned to not finding a free spot near the building I work, and figure that I'll have to make due with the lot three and a half blocks away.  I'd hoped the near-completion of construction on a nearby building would result in increased availability, but I haven't noticed a decrease in 4X4 trucks crammed into compact parking spaces. 

Lately I've been writing in my dreams.  It's vaguely useful if I can remember enough of the plots to get a story.  I'm wanting to encourage my dreaming-self to do more of this, which means being sure to write down dreams as soon as I can after I wake up.   Monday I dreamed a good prompt situation that gave me enough to pump out about 500 words of the beginning of a flash story.  Wednesday I kept dreaming that I was writing, and then someone would come up an interrupt me.... and the dream veered between a Stuck At Arcosanti dream, a late to the airport dream, before setting into a writing in prison dream ("The inmates call me 'Happy.'"). 

Tuesday I dreamed I was invited to restore and update a subway or church or carnival midway, changing flat murals into ceramic bass-relief with someone who was mostly LGL, but who might have started out as a Wordo, BH.   I didn't get to write anything from that dream down because all of us woke up about a half-hour late and had to scramble to work.

On the gym front, I've managed to do the routine Monday and Wednesday.  Yay me!

Sunday Herons

Sunday, Mark and I went for a walk at Alton Baker Park and the Willamette River east of the park.   



I was hoping we'd see bald eagles or other raptors.   The sun hid behind bands of clouds, so sometimes the light was defuse -- other times the setting sun cast ruddy gold beams onto the trees.


About five minutes into the walk, I recalled that herons and other waterfowl like the park. 



Mark saw almost all of the birds before I did and pointed them out. 

The exception was a woodpecker, which I heard before I found.


Mark did spot a hawk, but before I could bring the camera to bear, a crow harassed it, and it flew off over the Willamette. 


We managed to get back to the car before huge black rain clouds hid the sun and sprinkled rain.

More photos here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/WK6msxQ8cPtJ9nur8