A Short, Blunt, Human Pyramid

This morning when I got up to go rowing, there was a mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor, still breathing, but not for long.

( cut for dying mouse photo, no gore but it is a mouse )

I didn't really have my wits about me when I encountered it, but eventually remembered we have a jar in the basement with holes punched in the lid, so I scooped the mouse into the jar and left it on the dining room table to come back to later. Sometime after that I noticed additional gore elsewhere in the kitchen. Martha had been snuggled with me in bed for most of the night, so my best guess is that George caught this mouse. I appreciate having cats that will actually catch the mice, because at best Emma would just point them out to us and be entertained while we clumsily attempted to catch them.

We'll see how mouse season goes this year. This is definitely the time of year they are thinking about moving indoors, as outdoor temperatures drop.

My teammate S and I went out for a row in Petrichor, and once again the river conditions were sublime.



We didn't stop for many photos, just focused on enjoying ourselves. It was a great row, once again. Tomorrow the rowing club starts hosting a 3-day sculling clinic. I have signed up to drive a launch for the morning session, and then I'll row for the afternoon session. I need to figure out what to do about snacks and lunch.

But until then, I need to keep working on course prep. There is a lot of it to get through.

I baked a second peach cobbler last night. It came out differently from the first one, but just as delicious. We ate the first chunks of it in the Catio, with the cats' company.

Today it is raining, and at first I had that instinctual reaction of, "Ugh, I don't want to go outside in THAT weather, it's all cold and wet! I just want to stay inside here and be all cozy and work from home."

Then I remembered that I might have an on-campus meeting with a student today. I also realized that actually, the weather today is PERFECT, because it's a day where I have plenty of extra bandwidth to try and remember how to bike commute in the rain, compared to mornings when I don't and won't.

So, you know what, thank you, weather, for getting all gloomy and rainy today. We have definitely needed the rain, and the cooler weather has been a real relief.

I even got a compliment from someone on my go-go bike shoe covers while I was riding along. Can't beat that.

After the Row to Troy, it was a weekend of incremental progress and small projects.

There were more half-peck tote bags of peaches at the grocery co-op on Friday, so these are now ripening towards that 30-second window of perfection.



S brought back baked goods from the farmer's market, so we enjoyed those on the catio on Sunday morning, along with our morning coffee.



The cats like to lurk along this edge:


Some time ago, we found a discounted disco ball at the grocery co-op for $5. S then attempted to hook it up to one of the pull switches on the dining room light, but the glue holding the hanging part failed and the disco ball has been waiting for someone to do something with it ever since. So yesterday I threaded a wire all the way through, added some random charms to the bottom, and hung it up in the catio.



This isn't the greatest picture, but shows you that we can see and enjoy the disco ball from inside the kitchen.



On Sunday S also helped me make progress on the project of dealing with some rust on one of Big Red's panels (Mazda2 - panel at the base of the door). I decided to go ahead and obtain a fancy angle grinder, so we went over to the hardware store to buy one. This is after the corded one for sale at the used tool store proved to be unuseable (mechanism for unthreading used discs is stripped). Unfortunately, by the time we got home I wasn't up for actually starting to take down the finish to sand out the rusted section. But I'll get to that very soon.

After the hardware store, we stopped in at the auto parts store, and learned that particular one doesn't carry touch-up paints, just the store one town over that isn't open on Sundays. So today I instead went ahead and ordered the appropriate paint and finish online.

Before I headed in to work this morning, I tried to work on replacing a broken fender stay on Frodo's rear fender:


Unsurprisingly, the nuts that are holding the fender stay in place are totally seized up. You can tell from the inside of the fender, that this is a region of the bike that experiences all of the winter snow and salt. I didn't feel like trying to tackle the larger project of dealing with seized nuts, so I just gave up and rode in to work.

It always feels a little unsatisfying to only make it partway through various "small" projects. So I am trying to be patient and persistent with these things.

And now I need to buckle down and ramp up my preparations for teaching. Classes start the day after labor day.

Once again I find myself organizing the rowing club's annual Row to Troy. I didn't exactly ask to be the organizer, nor was I asked, but here I am, so I'll do my darndest to make it a good experience for as many people as I can.

The thing about that is that it's helpful to have specific experienced people drive the safety launches. I worked with one of our coaches last week on reviewing our safety launch logistics, and will have her accompany the faster crews while I accompany the ones that intend to travel at a more scenic pace.

Since I won't get to do the Row to Troy tomorrow, I had my own personal Row to Troy this morning, which brought back so many memories of preparing to do the Marathon Row back in 2020. Of course, I haven't really had any chance to do any preparation for longer distance rows this year, so it wasn't going to be a pretty expedition. But I adjusted my expectations and pace accordingly, and the weather cooperated by being just splendid, so it was a solid row and I only acquired a small handful (ha!) of new blisters on my hands.

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In the meantime, now that the catio is complete, I am finding myself dreaming about various different lighting ideas. I might also be dreaming about lighting because the days are starting to get noticeably shorter, and while living in the northeastern US I have found that my reaction is to want to put bright shiny lights in as many places as possible.

It seems like there might be some awesome solar-powered possibilities for the catio. *steeples fingers together*

I am hoping to create a couple of themed photo posts from adventures in DC and surroundings. But before I get to that, here are some photos of our new catio, as we all enjoy it!



( more photos behind the cut... )

Not much downtime on this trip, but getting to see and do lots of fun things and there will be loads of photos to share, too!