Lost in the trees

I started playing disc golf, cause Lord knows I need another hobby.

Matt and Jenica took me out for my first round a few weeks ago. It was one of those activities that had been sitting at the back of my brain for some time. Years ago, Buzz and I would go to a park and throw the Frisbee back and forth. It was a good excuse to just get outside and catch up on things - talk about nothing and everything.

Anyway, disc golf was pretty different than expected. I had traditional golf in my head as I showed up, so I imagined clubhouses, tee times and grass fairways. Not so much. The course we played wound through the woods with lots of trees between tee and hole. Unlike traditional golf, you can't just step up to the tee and try and hit it as hard and straight as you can. You have to thread an opening or bank your disc around pines and maples.

There were lots of distinctive "thunks" when I hit trees squarely, and several times when I thought I had nailed a shot, only to see the disc clip a branch and veer sharply, but it was a great time. I played with a disc borrowed from Matt, but we saw guys carrying around ten or more discs in a backpack, specific discs for specific shots. Like any sport or hobby, you can make it as complicated as you want, but I settled for buying a couple of $10 discs the following week. With no charge to play at most courses, it is about the cheapest hobby I could add to the collection.

After work last Friday, I decided to check out a course in Kirkland. It winds through the campus of Northwest University. I didn't even know the college existed, much less the disc golf course. Like the course in Bothell, it wasn't entirely clear where to start, or where the next tee was after each hole. No signs or golf cart path to follow. The course was much more open, though, with only the fourth hole being heavily wooded. The openness should have made it much easier, but I guess the combination of beginner's luck decreasing and expectations rising meant I wouldn't do as well. Still, another good time.

As I opened my car door to head home for dinner, I realized I didn't have my eyeglasses. They had been in my shirt pocket while I was wearing my sunglasses, but they must have flown out on a throw, or fell out when I bent over to pick up one of my shots. Panic started to rise, but I assured myself that I would find them. Not only is the course relatively free of underbrush, but the grass was either dormant or cut short, so the glasses wouldn't be hidden away in any US Open style rough.

I walked the course, remembering pretty well where my throws had gone. I moved briskly, hoping to find them before anyone else had a chance to step on them inadvertently. Eyes scanning left and right, looking for a flash of blue or a reflection of glass. When I saw other "golfers", I let them know I was looking.

I made it through all nine holes without seeing anything other than occasional strips of blue tape lying in the grass. I started over and walked more slowly, sweeping my gaze on a wider swath. When I got to the wooded fourth hole, I pawed through the underbrush in case the glasses flew out on that one throw. Still nothing. I walked the course a third time, walking the width of each fairway this time, even when I knew I did not go anywhere near one side or another. The third time was not the charm.

I wrote up a quick sign on a bit of paper bag and stuck it to the sign at the first tee. I went back to the forth hole one last time with a flashlight to see if I could find a reflection in the bushes, but all I found were beer bottles. I went home with fading hopes and the realization of what I had lost. This is only my second pair of glasses, but I had uncharacteristically splurged. In my head on the drive home, I thought it would be $600 to replace them. When I looked up the receipt later to try and find the model number, I realized it would be closer to $900 or $1,000 without insurance this time around. This $20 hobby just got very expensive on the second time out.

In a past life, I would have verbally berated myself for being so stupid and careless, but as I have written before, I have turned a corner on this behavior. This would be an expensive example, but maybe that guy is (nearly) gone.

I found a picture of my glasses online and made up some fliers. Saturday morning, I posted them on the first and fourth tees as well as on doors of some of the university buildings. After posting the fliers, I went for a run along the Kirkland waterfront and new cross-city trail (I am way behind on marathon training). Of course, I had left my water bottles in the fridge before heading out, so I was continuing the trend of knucklehead moves.

After getting in about ten miles and grabbing some breakfast I headed home. As I pulled into my driveway, my phone rang. It was the security guy from the university, and he had my glasses. After a quick shower I dashed out there. He was out on patrol when I got there, but he had stashed them in a hidden spot for me. I didn't get a chance to find out where they were found, but I left $60 as a thank you.

Very fortunate to have made it through the weekend with a pretty inexpensive lesson. Like leaving myself Post-It Notes on my bike to remember my water bottles, I may need to find some routine or reminder whenever I take my glasses off. Or maybe I will bring back those sweet 1980s cords to hang my glasses around my neck.

Looking to meet my match

At forty eight, I realized I had never been on a date. Well, not really. I have certainly dated some lovely women in my life, but it dawned on me that I hadn’t been on any real dates with people I was just getting to know. The women I have dated I have known from work or through a mutual friend. I went on what was essentially my first date back in February with someone I had met at a wedding. She was a perfectly lovely person, but after three dates it seemed that there wasn’t enough of a spark to continue.

So now a few months later at forty nine, I have thrown my hat in the online dating pool. It has been a bit of a weird experience so far. Not only am I a novice at dating in general, but the online aspect adds another layer of oddities. Like anyone who has signed up for Facebook, you are actively giving up some of your privacy with any dating site. As someone who has been posting semi-intimate details of his life on a public blog for several years, the initial act of putting my stuff out there on another site was not that big a deal, but there are new layers that I was surprised by.

You start by putting up one or several pictures of yourself. Naturally, you try to put pictures up that are not only flattering, but give some insight of who you are. All the decent photos of me were either from a run, a bike ride, or out in the woods on backpacking trip, so that worked out nicely. After putting up a dozen pictures though, I realized that I didn’t have glasses on in any of the photos. Trying to be as accurate as possible (apparently people lie on these things), I stepped out into my backyard and took a quick selfie.

Below the pictures is a section where you write a few words/paragraphs about yourself and what you are looking for. Sort of the cover letter to your online dating resume. And then you get to the checklists.

Back before I was actually divorced (but the writing was on the wall), I was over at a friend’s house for some gathering. We were all hanging out and chatting when one friend from across the room asked, “so, what are looking for in a woman?” It was one of those record-scratch moments when everyone stops talking and looks at you. Again, still technically married and not having thought about it, I answered off the cuff, “Non-smoker, non-hater.”

The non-smoking thing is obvious. I am allergic to cigarette smoke, but more importantly, I don’t want to kiss an ashtray. The non-hater thing is more about not wanting to be with someone who is always looking for the dark cloud behind that silver lining, going through life thinking the world is out to get them. I don’t need or want a Pollyanna as a partner, but I don’t want to be around someone who is constantly expecting the worst out of everything and everybody. To be clear, this was not a reaction to my soon-to-be ex-wife. She was neither a smoker nor a hater.

Several years down the line, I don’t have much of a better, quick answer to what I am looking for in a partner. There are definitely things I hope for, but the list of non-negotiables still basically sits at non-smoker. But with online dating, you are sort of trying to order up your perfect match.

There are checkboxes for height, body type, hair color, eye color, salary, astrological sign, faith, exercise habits, education, occupation, income level and more. I certainly get it, but the volume of it feels like a tailor made desire in what is more of an off-the-rack world. It is the online shopping mentality with the entire world at your fingertips, and it feels like we should be able to punch up our perfect mate on Amazon.com.

It is both amazing and discouraging at the same time. Through the website, you have possible contact with so many more people than you would ever see in your normal path in life, but the sheer volume makes you think there is always going to be someone more “perfect” for you if you just keep looking.

So you keep clicking on pictures, looking for criteria and reading introductions, looking for something to jump out at you. Back to the privacy thing, on odd thing is that when you look at someone’s profile, they know. On your own login, there is a little list of people who have checked you out. On the one hand, it is kind of interesting to see whose eye you caught, but on the other, you sort of hesitate to click because you are being tracked. You also know if someone has read your email. This is mostly nice, since you can’t fool yourself that the person you are interested in hasn’t seen it yet. Nope, they read it, and they just weren’t interested enough to respond. Move along, no interest here, keep clicking on.

It has only been two weeks, so we are a long way from any final judgment. It is an interesting new adventure, and we will see where the electronic path leads. Now please excuse me, I think someone just sent a wink to me. 

Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon

The planning for a marathon can run anywhere from four months to over a year, depending on your level of preparation, training and tendency to make stuff up as you go along. My buddy Steve in a fit of excitement at the finish line of last year's Seattle Rock n Roll Half Marathon, signed up to run his first full marathon at the same event a year later. The cheaper price and promise of a free jacket probably helped sway him.

I was not tempted to pull the trigger then, but a couple of months later, a Groupon came out to run the marathon for $60, just $5 more than if I had signed up still sweating at the finish line, and noticeably cheaper than what they normally charge. It turned out I had a 20% coupon sitting on the Groupon site, so my final bill was $48. With a jacket, it was almost like they were paying me to run this thing.

After running at least two marathons a year from 2008 - 2012, and four in 2012, I had only run one since, the wonderful Chicago Marathon experience in 2013. My main excuse was that the tax season schedule really messes with training for or running spring and fall marathons, but if I was as motivated as I used to be, I would have made it work. Running a couple of half marathons in 2015 sort of re-lit the spark, and a number of other friends signed up to run either the full or half marathon this June, so I was inspired to take on the challenge again.

When you sign up for these things, they often ask you for a predicted finish time. This helps them stage the runners in corrals by their pace, hopefully reducing congestion of runners weaving in and out of jams. Even if you have run a number of these things, it is still hard to know what kind of shape you will be in eight months down the road. If it is your first like it was for Steve, it is basically a wild-ass guess.

And then of course life intervenes in those months leading up to the race. Maybe work or family demands increase, maybe you get injured, maybe what seemed possible so far out, feels impossible as the deadline approaches. Several of the people that signed up either didn't make the start line due to injury, or had to change to a shorter race as a backup plan. My own training schedule was of course interrupted by taxes, and I was also trying to train for a couple of big bike rides around the marathon date. In trying to train for both running and biking, I didn't do a particularly good job at either.

Since this was Steve's first marathon, I tried to think of what I wished I had known going into the race. We of course talked a lot about training for the race in the early months, but I also ended up writing a few pages of thoughts about the week and hours leading up to the race, and then some tips on getting through the 26.2 miles. The exercise was a nice reminder for me of what the adventure entails. But of course, even with the best of plans, things can still go sideways.

Some marathons let you personalize your running bib with a short phrase. In the intervening eight months, I had of course forgotten what I wrote down. It turns out I was in a Douglas Adams sort of mood back then, but the phrase seemed appropriate now.

A gal at the start line asked if I had remembered my towel, clearly getting the reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which set me off with a smile.

Steve and I met up with a few of my other friends Tami, Jenica, Joseph, Wendy and John who were either running the 8k or half marathon. We shared some hugs, photos and nervous energy before setting off to our respective starting corrals.

I decided to go for a bit of stretch goal and set off with the 3:50 pace group. Though Steve and I had finished within a minute of each other at the half marathon the month before, he hadn't had a chance to get in the final long runs, and decided on a more conservative (and probably wiser) goal of 4:25. The route kicked off at Seattle Center, ran along the Viaduct for a bit before heading south though town and down to Lake Washington.

I stayed with or a bit ahead of the pace group for the first half of the race. After we looped around Seward Park and started heading back north, things started to turn. At the halfway point, new pacers took over the mantle and lead us on with fresh legs. Oh how I wish I had the same option. My hips tightened up at mile thirteen, and my right calf not long after, and it became twelve mile struggle described in the picture at the beginning of this post. I hung with the pacer until we climbed onto the I-90 bridge at mile seventeen, but slowly watched her slip away as the miles ticked by. My brain and determination chanted to push on, but the growing pain in my hips and legs eventually won out. The last three miles was a run/walk/stumble to the finish.

I crossed the finish in 3:58 flat. Absolutely nothing wrong with that time, but I just wish it hadn't hurt so bad to achieve it. I don't know if I had set off at a 4:00 pace if I would have finished in roughly the same time, but feeling strong. I had not had any hip pain leading up to the race, so who knows if starting more conservatively would have made a difference.

My friend (and biking buddy) Joe surprised me at the finish. His daughter had run the 8k and his son the half marathon, but he stuck around to watch me finish, even though he is one of the many who think running a marathon is crazy. He managed to catch a video of my just about to make the last turn to the finish. Thankfully the downhill slope aided my shuffle, but even then I swept over to get high-fives from strangers to push me on. Didn't even see Joe until he shouted my name.

Since there were two out and back loops on the course, I was able to see Steve twice heading the other direction. I saw him first when I was at mile 14 and he at mile 9. He was a bit behind his pacer, but looked great. I later found out the only reason he was behind was he had stopped to use the bathroom three times - clearly well hydrated. When I saw him again, we were on the I-90 bridge, me at mile 22 and him at about 17. He was now ahead of his pacer, and looking like he was feeling great. Given my head start, I was able to finish, grab some food and my drop bag and make it back to the finish line to see Steve cross. He ran a great race and finished strong in 4:20:15.

We met his girlfriend Tania and headed to the beer garden to have our free Michelob Ultra, a low-carb, beer-like substance, and swapped stories of struggle and victory. Steve thanked me for all the tips I had given him, but I was feeling more broken than marathon guru at that point. He swore that this would be his only marathon, checking off the bucket list item, but there was a gleam in his eye that tells me he will be back someday. I promised not to ask until the endorphins and soreness subsided. Or at least until I see him wearing his finisher jacket again.

49

Damn, still trying to wrap my head around that number. Seems like such a long time on paper, but it flashes by when you aren't paying attention.

Age hasn't meant much to me up to this point. I don't recall freaking out at 30 or 40, but the next round number is starting to sink in.

When I am looking through my client's information, and I haven't met them, I will at some point look at their age. From their set of information (income, kids, deductions,etc.) I will have formed a picture in my head of how old they are, and sometimes I am surprised when I see their actual age. Anyway, when I see someone in their 50s I think, "Wow, I didn't realize they were that old." And then...wait a minute.

The other thing that has me thinking about that number on a sheet is that I am about to throw my hat in the ring of online dating. At damn near 50.

Dating in itself seems like a young man's game, and the online version even more so. I will (likely) resist using the app that lets you whip through pictures/people with the swipe of a finger, but even putting up pictures and a profile has me hesitating over the keyboard. But that is another story.

I am not sure what 49 is supposed to feel like. However, with that said, I don't feel 49. Well, most of the time. The hills seem a bit steeper this year and the strains and pains linger longer than they used to. And of course, I have reached an age were some of the aches are chalked up to "sleeping on something wrong." I always wish that I'd at least earned the soreness through strenuous effort, or at the bare minimum have a better story to tell.

I don't deny my age, but I suppose I want to change what the number means. I am still pedaling up mountains and running around lakes. I want to earn that low bib number at Ramrod as the oldest rider someday, and I want to be that "old guy" that shows up at the local 5k every year and runs with a smile. I suppose every milestone age I reach will be translated into "not that old" on my own personal scale.

Here's to the next 49!

Capital City Half Marathon

I ran the Capital City Half Marathon recently. It was my eleventh half marathon, but like any race (or day in your life), even if you have been down this road before, there is always something to learn. I suppose the lesson this time was confirmation that is sometimes pays to be the tortoise.

This race was not a goal race necessarily, but you always want to do your best. I am training for a full marathon in June (now in a few days since I am so lazy posting), and this event fit almost perfectly into the training. It was also a race a couple of my friends were running, and one that was out of town with new roads to discover.

Training had been sporadic during tax season (as usual), so I have been playing catch up for the past month (as usual). I am also trying to split my time with preparing for some bike rides this summer, so I was feeling pretty average at two things, rather than totally prepared for the race in front of me. I showed up at the start line more or less ready, but not exactly confident.

After not running a half marathon in four years, I ran two last year, mostly through the positive influence of a couple of friends who were now running. Though it is always hard work, it was great to be back at it. The dedication of getting out on the roads even when you don't feel like it, the camaraderie of the start line and the joy of the finish. The half marathon is almost the perfect event. Plenty long enough to be a challenging undertaking, but the training doesn't take over your life and weekends.

I was running again with my buddy Steve who had run both halfs with me last year. He is more recent to this running thing, but has been making great strides (see what I did there). I had been his carrot to chase, and he has pushed me forward. This year he has proved quicker than me, and has taken me down in both the 5k and 10k distances, all the while claiming he wasn't a "runner".

He, his girlfriend Tania and I hit the road in the wee hours in order to make it to Olympia by the start. The race, while not small, is not one of these colossal productions with tens of thousands of runners. It had a small town feel, running through neighborhoods for much of the route. Olympia is Tania's old hometown, so there were probably memories around every corner.

Steve and I took off together, but soon he was rabbiting ahead. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of the start line, but I tried my best to stick to my plan. The route was a bit hilly with a two mile steady climb early in the route, and a more dramatic hill at mile ten. The plan was to keep a steady effort, saving some juice for that last hill, and then turn it loose (if I had it in me) on the downhill from mile ten to the finish.

Steve had a bright orange shirt on, so it was relatively easy to see him in the crowd, but soon he was speck in the distance. As we ran through the neighborhoods, several people were set up on their front lawns, cheering us on, and in places handing out oranges. I stopped at a make-shift water station, mostly because a couple of girls maybe ten years old had set it up like a lemonade stand, and I traded high fives with other enthusiastic kids down the street. I have read that keeping a smile on your face (even when you don't feel like smiling) will help keep pain at bay. No problem smiling at this race so far.

I caught up with Steve at around mile six. We chatted for a bit, but soon he sped up. This had been a pattern at our other half marathons. He is the rabbit to my tortoise. When I caught him again at mile eight, he cheered me on as we headed downhill, shooting off again. At the top of the climb at mile ten, we joined ranks one last time, but this time it was I that was able to push on. The next couple of miles were mostly flat, and then the last mile was noticeably downhill. My shoe came untied a mile out, but there was no stopping at that point. The feed of gravity had me feel like I was flying, and wasn't sure I would be able to recapture it if I stopped.

I crossed the line in 1:46:18 just a few seconds shy of my second best time. It felt great to have run a strong race when my training had seemed so iffy. Steve came in just a minute later, notching a new personal best. Some of Tania's friends and family were at the finish, and some others were out running the half marathon as well, so we cheered them all in. We all earned ridiculously large medals, complete with a bottle opener on the back. All we needed was a bottle of Oly.

Another great day on the roads. New places, new faces, and free race photos. Can't ask for much more.

Memories trapped in time

We like to believe that our memories are captured in an amber-like resin, preserved unchanged through the years. Some polished as jewels, others left to fossilize in a dusty drawer. But of course that isn't how it works. We recreate our histories every time we access them either intentionally or by a random connection that prods them forward. We are not reviewing a recording, but rather re-writing a story. They are recreated each time they are recalled, the details changed inadvertently by our subsequent experience.

My older brother sent me an email the other day, "Do you remember someone named X? Someone you dated when you were 16?" The quick answer was no. First, no girl was interested in me, much less dated me when I was sixteen. Second, my dating history is hardly voluminous enough for me to forget someone. He replied that this person was sure she knew me, that we had worked together at McDonald's, and that she had described me pretty well (no one forgets the afro). The plot was thickening, which my brother found hilarious. I scanned my memory, walking through the past, trying to find someone by that name. The sixteen year old thing had to be wrong, but maybe she dated my roommate and the story was confused in the telling.

My brother had sent the email mostly as a heads up, as I would likely be running into this mystery woman in a few hours. Her daughter was in plays with my niece, and we were all going to a a fundraiser for the youth group that evening. The mystery woman had seen my name on the guest list, prompting her question.

My brothers and I met for a drink beforehand and tried to tackle the mystery. My brothers laughing, me starting to get concerned about senility. The mystery woman was married, so the last name didn't help. To the internet! My brother showed me her Facebook photo, but that didn't jog a connection. I scanned her friends list, looking to see if my old roommate's name might be there. Then I saw a last name amoung the faces that finally pried lose the memory.

My 48 year old brain tried to recreate the faces and places. She had gone by a less formal version of her name back then. We did indeed work at McDonald's together. She dated a good friend of mine, and the three of us often hung out together. I remember her as beautiful and confident, and their relationship as somewhat volatile. In the winter of 1984, they broke up. I will leave the details and justifications to the dusty drawer of history, but for two weeks she and I dated, before she broke it off to return to dating my friend.

It was a crazy two weeks. That first real moment when someone finds you desirable, among all your teenage anxiety and awkwardness. A whole new world was opened up to explore, and just like that it was gone. That two week aside showed me both the amazing and ugly sides of relationships. I lost both friends, walking away more of an adult for better or worse. Imagination surpassed, illusions shattered.

And here she was, more than thirty years later. Married, three kids, successful, and by all hopes, happy. She brought a copy of my senior picture to the fundraiser as proof that our memories were real, that those seventeen year old kids existed. My niece enjoyed seeing the photo with my out of control curly hair, encouraging me to grow it out again. I looked at that same kid in the photo and wondered about it all.

We hugged and chatted a bit about what was going on with our lives. I met her daughter, just a couple of years shy of the age when her mom and I knew each other. We didn't talk at all  about when we were seventeen together, and I wonder how she remembers that time. The scenes are shot from a different perspective, a different director calling out what she wants emphasized. The soundtrack is different, and I can't even be sure we would be reading off the same script.

I've often wondered this about my former wife. What would it be like if we caught up over coffee. Would we try to bring our past scripts into alignment, and try to show the other what we had seen through our perspectives. Could comparing our differing memories bring some sort of clarity, or would we just touch base on our sequels, sticking to the stories un-entwined. I used to long for that future coffee date, to find out what she saw and why it all ended, but these days I am less sure of any promise of clarity.

And of course what I really want is to unearth that original memory preserved unchanged, so we could look at it together with the fresh perspective of time. But those perfectly preserved moments don't exist. In addition to our different understanding of the exact same events at the time, our recalling would change the details and feelings enough to make understanding elusive once again. Even still, I am curious, be it for seven years of marriage or just two crazy weeks as a teenager,

Back in the present, as I drove away from the benefit, the first song on the radio was "Night Moves" by Bob Seger, a song about those teenage moments.

"Working on mysteries without any clues...
trying to lose those awkward teenage blues."

Seeing those memories in the flesh, thirty years on but only a few blocks away from where it all took place, all through some chance connection of the next generation. Every so often, the universe just gives you a wink.

Strange how the night moves.

Jar of memories

On New Years, most everyone does their own little mental review of the past year. Hopefully recalling some highlights, but often recalling things that you did or didn't do that you would like to rectify as you move forward to the clean slate of a new year. 

It is pretty easy to recall the big events. New jobs, new houses, new relationships, fun trips and big days on the calendar. The negative events - lost jobs, broken relationships, illness, passings and other losses - seem to leave marks more permanent on our psyche. It easy to let the smaller moments that lie between these major events fade into the background. In more quiet years you are left wondering what you even did with those 365 days you were given. 

I don't remember where I saw it exactly. It was probably a Facebook post, but it definitely had a Pinterest kind of feel. Fill a jar full of slips of paper with notes and memories as you go through the year. Then come the turning of the calendar page, go through the slips of paper and recall the smaller moments that make up a life. The practice not only helps a memory fading with age and electronic distraction, but it also helps bring you into the present to recognize these smaller experiences, to appreciate joy and connection as they happen. Like a similar project of taking a photo a day, it forces you to open your eyes to the world around you, and to see the beauty that often fades into the background. 

I opened up my jar this morning. Like many resolutions, I was pretty active for the first few weeks, but the dedication faded as the months went by, ending in my last entry on March 1st. All but one of the memories was about spending time with friends. Celebrating New Year's Eve at the Keg with friends I had met there twenty years before, and gathering with even more people the following week to mark the closing of the restaurant that brought such wonderful connections. Another slip recalled meeting my brothers for drinks and conversation, a new tradition started and continued through 2015 for which I am very thankful. The last slip was about waking up with Jennifer in my new home The Sanctuary, sitting on the couch, staring out at the lake, cups of coffee and good conversation. 

Strangely absent were those tinier moments. Moments where I saw physical beauty and felt deeper connection with the natural world. Moments where it felt like I saw behind the veil. Tiny moments that brought epiphany or revelation. I know they were there, but they have faded without the anchor of a note or photo to help me bring them forth again. 

I am going to use the memory jar again in 2016. I hope to make the habit stick throughout the year, again for the dual purpose of remembering these experiences at the end of the year, as well as to be more focused in the moment and to recognize these tinier snippets that make up this wonderful life. 

This New Year's Eve was a quiet evening at home, and New Year's Day was not much more memorable in the grand scheme. The past few years I have started off the year with a 5k and dip into Lake Washington. This year I went on a solo run in the afternoon, but spent the morning admiring the lake from the relative warmth of my house over some pancakes and coffee. It was more of an easing into this new year rather than jumping in head first. I did at least take a photo of the beauty recognized in the moment. 

As I was typing this, I saw a reflection in the computer screen of a Blue Jay landing on the railing just outside my window. I turned to see it, but as I moved to get my phone/camera, it took off. No picture of the day. A moment that I would surely forget a year later, if not an hour later if I hadn't been writing here at the time. I don't think it warrants the highlight reel of the memory jar, but a nice moment in time. And I think nature is calling me to get dressed and get outside into the frosty day.