With a knockdown case of the flu now behind me, I promised myself that I would not sit on my ass all weekend, and I think I did an OK job.
My original plan was to get out to lumber on Saturday since there were no football matches that I was mentally committed to watching. But, somehow, I got sucked into watching Leeds, and before I knew it, I was readjusting said plan. Glad I did ’cause the EFL Championship promotion battle is excellent this year!
I took most of the morning to watch the game and make breakfast and then decided that I was going to start Phase 1 of 10 of the post-winter garage cleaning process. A process that could take until next winter.
After a couple hours of that bullshit and a trip to the store for provisions, I was ready to commence afternoon slacking on the back porch as the sun beamed down on my gelatinous body of slack slouched in a deck chair, taking in the wonderful 55˚ day like it was 80˚. Given the amount neighbors out and about, it seems I was not the only one ready to enjoy the warm weather after 5 months of darkness and wintry slop.
I was up at my normal 6 AM on Sunday, and after tending to Lola, I decided that I was going to go for quick lumber/photo creep at the Sylvan Solace Nature Preserve.
Earlier in the week, I had a frustrating time with the “new to me” Nikon macro lens I picked up a couple months ago, so I went back to the vintage Lester A. Dine manual focus macro lens combined with the z50 and the Nikon F2Z adapter.
I can’t even remember the last time I went to Sylvan Solace. I think I crept around the various local nature preserves with my camera so much between 2017 and 2022 that I associate them with giving up on cycling, not having a Plan B, weight gain, The Bed of Torment, the horrible antidepressants ill-prescribed by Mindbender II (The Wrath of Kahn), coming off said meds, and an absolute hatred for myself and the world around me. Why bring that shit up if I can avoid it? Luckily, MBII (TWoK) is long gone, and I’m in a much better place now thanks to hard work, 10 milligrams of Lexapro, and the OG Mindbender. So, to Sylvan, I went.
It was just after 7 AM when I started and had the whole preserve to myself, minus some blue jays and crows squawking and some ducks in the river.
I crept around, took some shots, got some I dug, and got 3 miles in my feetz. My pace was SUPER slow due to the patience needed when shooting macro, but it was great to get outside for “active rest” rather than sitting around the house in fart-scented sleepwear guzzling coffee that will only make me super anxious and blow out my system like a caffeinated enema shot out of a cannon.
If I chose to, I could say I ended my week of lumbering with 29.46 miles. But I chose not to; the pace was WAY TOO SLOW to qualify as a lumber, but I was outside and got some images, and that’s what mattered to me this morning.
I made it home with a few minutes to spare before the Spurs kicked off. I made breakfast, sat in my comfy chair, and 8 minutes in Spurs were down 1-0. I hate them.
Since ain’t nobody got time for football that shit, I turned up the volume and went into my “office” to edit photos and write this dross. Spurs would lose 4-2—I still hate them but hope they manage a win in the Europa League versus Frankfurt on Thursday.
Looking forward to another week of lumbering with my camera.
Later.