On Jackie’s last visit to see our friend Rosie, they visited a Navajo trading post, and Jackie bought a Navajo blanket. This morning we got it hung up in the living room.
This is directly over my living room chair, a spot where I’ve long resisted hanging framed pictures, out of an irrational fear that they might fall on my head. With a small blanket, I figure it’s no big deal.
The flowers in bloom on our patio.
When Ashley was a puppy, she was pretty bad about chewing up stuff. As a stop-gap measure, we piled a bunch of stuff on the window seat, which put it out of reach of puppy-Ashley’s jaws.
The stop-gap ended up lasting about two years. But today I finally cleared the window seat, so Jackie and I can sit and look outside.
It’s a very nice place to take morning coffee.
Jackie has a Big Grove old fashioned, which she says is very good. I have the Destilh ILL-IPA. I haven’t had one since they closed their local restaurant early in the pandemic.
Some months ago my elbow started hurting. (The little bump on the inside of my elbow joint was where it hurt.) I don’t think it was a sword-fighting injury; I think it was a dog-walking injury—but the sword fighting seemed to aggravate it.
So I did less sword fighting. I switched from three times a week to just twice, and then just once, and then I quit going altogether. Then last week I traveled to Amherst to visit my brother and my mom, and just about didn’t exercise at all while I was on that trip. My elbow got steadily better, so that for about a week now, it hasn’t hurt at all.
So yesterday I went back for a sword-fighting class!
The class was kind of abbreviated. At the beginning of class we did a bearpit for a member’s birthday, so I got to do three passes at longsword. Then we did an actual class on rapier fencing. Then we were going to switch to longsword, but there was a tornado warning, and we all stopped to stare at our phones, looking at weather radar and texts with friends and relations in the area, making sure we were all okay.
Turns out that’s just a well. My elbow seemed to hold up fine during class, but today it’s a bit twingey again, so I’m glad I didn’t aggravate it more.
This pretty clearly means I’m not ready to go back to three-times-a-week training, but maybe it doesn’t rule out once-a-week training.
I’ll see how my elbow feels over the next few days.
It’s warm enough that Ashley’s place in the sun is almost entirely in the shade.
Daffodils and squills! The squills were my idea, but Jackie did most of the work in our little flower garden, except that the lilies, which won’t bloom for another couple of months, were left by the previous member.
Outside a Chinese restaurant near the Big Y, a big ol’ flock of (I think) Black Vultures. (Not Turkey Vultures, which are the only kind I can recognize.)
The first crocus, the first squill, and the soon-to-be first dafodills.
