I mean, I’ve managed to go without updating Bloggle for a while at a time, but this is a stretch even for me.

I had the best of intentions, of course. And it’s only on the occasion that I picked up a bug and have been away from the office a couple days that I’ve found time even now to post something, so hey… this virus has been good for something.¹

Here’s hoping that you’re doing a better job of enjoying the change of seasons. Me… I’m a bit behind.

Notes and Links

1. For the record, I have no reason to believe that it’s swine flu, not the least of which because just 48 hours after coming down with whatever it is that’s made me groggy, weak and achey and without much of my voice I’m feeling better, thanks verymuch.

I was certain I had, but… you know. Memory. Goldfish. Mad Cow. Mooooo. Regardless, I haven’t yet forgotten I’m supposed to be writing something here from time to time.

Let’s see… my last post was written while still at sea, making for Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska. Made it. Got the pictures to prove it, at least some of which you can find on Flickr, and more of which I have still to sort through, as I’m still in the habit of taking several dozen photos for every one that I might want to keep. On this trip I averaged more than 1100 photos a day.

(I was an English major, you do the math.)

Alaska was one stunning vista after another, interspersed with too, too touristy ports of call and some of the most lovely sunny, warm days I’ve experienced this year. After telling folks for weeks that I was leaving for Alaska to escape Vermont’s chilly spring weather, nobody was more surprised than me (and maybe several thousand sun-burned Alaskans) to discover that was true.

All in all, I think the tribe of extended family and friends enjoyed themselves, and Mom & Dad well and truly were moved by our celebration of their 50 years together. And if they try to deny it, we’ve got video to prove it.

Meanwhile…  more recently I’ve:

• Made an offer on the quintessential Vermont homestead, which the seller subsequently withdrew from the market. Our string of real estate misadventures continues unabated.
• Upped the fitness routine to 60-90 minutes, most every day. I’ve lost only 5 pounds, but I can now bend iron bars with my thighs.
• Got a Palm Pre, which makes me feel more cool than I have any right to be. I’m enamored of this gesturing thing and dearly wish I could make the rest of the world respond like my Pre.

None of these is remotely like a viable excuse for not writing, so I guess I’d better get back to it… and perhaps with something substantive, besides.

Watch this space. :)

Meanwhile…

At the moment, I’m saddled up in the Explorations coffee lounge aboard the Ms Volendam, steaming north to Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park by way of Juneau while an extremely versatile string quartet plays Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Yes, Toto, we’re not in Kansas, anymore.

Alaskan Inside Passage Cruise

We made way from Vancouver at a pretty good clip last night to catch the tide; the narrows around Vancouver apparently can’t be sailed in a big ship if the tide’s too low, and so our captain put the screws to it. Er, literally, I guess.

This is my first cruise so I don’t have much reference on what’s a good ship and what’s not… aside from the essentials like, a good ship is one that doesn’t sink. (By that token, we’re ship-shape thus far.) There’s lots of wood, and lots of glass, and water, water everywhere.

Tomorrow, there will be glaciers.

• Star Trek Plots in Haiku Form
• Bad Astronomy on Star Trek
• Star Trek: Not So Futuristic

Meanwhile, on with the show.

Mother’s Day has just slipped by, and it appears that Amazon and ProFlowers aren’t keeping promises… the lovely flowers pictured here have *not* arrived. So Mom: here’s what you were *supposed* to have had delivered over the week-end. Sorry ’bout that.

Finished Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book over the weekend. The guy does good stories, through and through. Didn’t read so much like Kipling as I’d been led to believe, but that’s just fine. Not so macabre, either; but emotionally, very honest and true, which, I suspect, is why it won the Newbery Medal. (Note to self: punctuation, much?)

My to-do list is taking an ugly turn. Where normally it would have a bunch of simple tasks to be done and scratched off, now it has entries that read, “Convince you-know-who to do whatsit *this way* and not that way,” and “Arm-twist so-and-so to agree to thus-and-such.” Oh, here’s a simple one: “Create canonical list of origin attributes.” Yeah. And it’s all in need of clearing before I can fly away to vacation-land in June.

On the plus side, it’s warm enough to roast coffee in the garage, again… and I think I will.

For some while my wife and I have known it was nearly Jessie’s time… that the discomfort of living with glaucoma was reaching the point where — despite the medication and treatment — the pain and bother would overcome the joys of a full dinner bowl, of walks in the warming sun, of hugs, and treats, and just hangin’ out with fambly on a lazy Sunday morning. Over the past several months her tail-thumps have gradually lost their vigor, her appetites their keenness. Our overgrown pup — always present, and frequently underfoot — had taken to finding a quiet spot, an out-of-the-way corner.

In retrospect, it’s pretty clear she knew it was time, too.

Most of what I know about being a grown-up — about really being responsible, and accountable, and answerable for what I do and don’t do — I learned from my dog. I learned that you get out of bed in the morning even when you don’t want to, ’cause it’s not just about you. I learned there *are* such things as good habits. And that nobody’s above cleaning up dog poop.

My life has been graced by no small number of fortunate events, and by people with whom I’ve been privileged to share them. For this, I’m grateful. Now there’s a dog-shaped hole in my heart that will never be full again. And for that… for that, I’m grateful, too.

Good-night, Jessie.

This can’t possibly end well.

‘Cause face it — this is Vermont. You get sunny days and seventies in the month of April you’re gonna pay for it. Fire, mudslides, tornados, a throng of poisonous snakes, or maybe lawyers; a werewolf uprising, a zombie apocalypse… Prepare now, for we are doomed, doomed, say I.