We aren’t alone. The neighborhood is completely covered in these piles. Our streets are mostly clear which is not true of many other neighborhoods and so most people are just walking on the street. Honestly, that’s not that different around here. It is surprising to see that behavior on the main street, but people don’t have much of a choice.

We went over to bust my mom out of her house yesterday afternoon. We managed to make a path from the backdoor to our car and then we slip-slided out onto the road and went to a new Mexican restaurant. I think she was thrilled to see other humans.

We also took a walk at a local state park and explored a part of the park we’d never been to before. It had been a ridiculous amount of time since we were even at the park, so no surprise we took a trail that was unfamiliar to us.

Ate cheese and crackers as a snack, the better-half made egg drop soup for dinner and then we rescued a bat from inside the house before going to bed. It was a pretty good Saturday.

Change is good and it is how we move forward, but I am a bit sad and excited for those changes. The downsizing means I won’t be reporting to my manager any longer as he is leaving the organization. He and I came together as part of a re-org so it seems fitting that we’re ending as a result of one. He was a good leader for me and I hope some of the lessons learned will come in handy later. Who am I kidding, of course they will. I’m also hopeful that some of the things I’ve been working on for the last year or so will finally stop being roadblocked for whatever reason and we can move forward. It will be a time of growth for me and, more importantly, a time of growth for other people on my team.

In other goodbyes, I’m doing PT for my left knee to get rid of the nearly constant low-level pain. Apparently, there’s hope for this thing yet. In the manipulation/massage part of the session yesterday, the therapist said good work, I can tell this tight spot is not as ropey. The power of doing your homework, kids.

In the few months she’s been away, she’s turned into an adult. She navigated all our subway trips, figured out how to get us to where we wanted to go, picked restaurants and made suggestions on plans.

While I enjoyed our excursions, what I liked most was hanging out and having wide ranging conversations.

Some snaps:

After paying for a rack for our car, in 2015, we finally purchased a tandem kayak. We spent some time on Sunday in the boat and we need practice and we need more comfortable seats. But on the whole, I’m thrilled to be back on the water.

Taking a break

The better-half and I are going to take a very quick trip tomorrow afternoon through Saturday late afternoon to the eastern shore of Maryland. No good reason other than we haven’t done something like that in forever.

Then in mid-April, I’m flying to Phoenix for a conference. That’s a little nervous making, but I’ll mask up and do my best. In very early May we’re both getting on an airplane and headed south for a handful of days in the Keys. Never been and looking forward to it.

I know there’s another variant out there so I’m also aware that all these plans could get screwed, but I really hope they don’t.

We also saw my family for Christmas breakfast and then at our house for dinner. We had a good time all around and I was happy a friend of ours could join us for dinner. She brought mac and cheese and it was pretty darn good. Friends with mac and cheese? Thumbs up all the way.

We celebrated Boxing Day by napping (him) and finishing a book (me). Then we watched the new Matrix movie. We both enjoyed and I reflected on how we watched Wonder Woman last year on Christmas and it wasn’t as much fun as the Matrix movie this year. I guess you can’t have everything all at once? But, you can have popcorn and beer on the couch while watching thousands of bullets barely kill anyone. In the opening segment of the movie, we commented about no one got to be a better shot in the last 20 years of the Matrix universe.

I think our immediate next door neighbors are 90% complete with their new patio so we have no more concrete saw noises to look forward to, but the house two doors down is being renovated so that noise keeps on keeping on. I know this is a sign of normalcy, but working from home and listening to the process is not that great. Actually, the reno isn’t too bad. That freaking concrete saw or whatever–they are having large stones, slate or some other hard surface put in–it doesn’t matter because it is loud, dusty and awful and was for the birds.

The main reason for the trip was to celebrate the better-half’s birthday with hikes, drinks and good eats. I think we succeeded on all fronts.

On one of the hikes, we discovered the trail hadn’t been maintained in quite awhile. The path was covered in grass and briars. We are still covered in scratches. I tripped and fell over a tree branch-pride wounded more than anything (thankful the path was not rocky right there). As it turns out a search and rescue was going on while we were there. I bet that trail has had some maintenance now.

My favorite hike was our last one. The trail was on and around an old coal mine and it connected with the Huckleberry trail. We saw some people, a frog and we startled a snake who really startled me.

Looking forward to our next long weekend over Independence Day. No plans yet but a long weekend is pretty good anyway.