At 57 degrees with no wind and nothing coming out of the sky — oh there were a few drops but nothing serious — I was actually a wee bit too warm walking this morning. Silk/wool t-neck, polartech vest, leggings, and smartwool socks. How about that sunrise? The sun is currently rising just before 7:00 AM. After next weekend, my walks will be plunged back into darkness for a month or so.

The days are packed this week. I have been “assigned” a large prodject that is shallow in depth but wide in scope. I have been immersed in tackling the necessary busy-work while thinking about how to organize the spec and nipping into that when I get an inspiration. When I was working as a youth theatre guild administrator, every play production provided a different set of challenges. I loved that part of it. I did NOT like having to deal with panicky know-it-all helicopter parents and we have plenty of them here on The Planet Ann Arbor. These days, every bit of functionality that I design for our product provides a different set of challenges. The upside is that I do NOT have to deal with a bunch of helicopter parents and my “team” is remarkably free of problem-type people.

A bump in the road? My supervisor is retiring. I do not know how or whether that will shake up my cozy little world. The world where I can sometimes put my feet up and smoke my pipe (or check my blasted cat yard) if I am “processing” how to describe something or what picture to make or whatever. Doing the kind of busy work I did today, blasting through our high fidelity product demo to make changes (html/css/javascript) sometimes gives me inspiration. It certainly helps me come up with questions. The truth is that more often than not, I get my best inspirations the minute I hit the I94 18-wheel Slogway, heading for home in the late afternoon.

And late afternoon is when I took the second pic of the sun heading down toward the horizon through the woods the other way. As I entered the south side of the woods, the one with the “locking” gate that is also directly behind my house, a couple of women standing by the gate warned me that their dogs were romping around in the woods. I told them I wasn’t afraid of their dogs and one of them said, “yeah, I have seen you walking.” You don’t walk like I walk if you are afraid of dogs. At least not in the woods, where dogs run free (and once upon a time, I would let my brother’s dogs run free there when they visited – I don’t get to see those guys any more and I miss them).

All three of those dogs came bounding back to greet me! A young male golden retriever, who jumped up on me despite his owner’s commands but it was okay because I knew he would do that. A wee little golden retriever puppy who tried to jump on me but wasn’t tall enough. His owner said that he was usually shy around new people. Not me. I have not owned dogs (except for my childhood dog Tigger) but animals kind of “get” me if I hang back and let them come to me. Finally, a *beautiful* 13-year-old black dog who walked up to me just looking to be petted. Like my dog Tigger did in her old age. That dog reminded me a bit of my cousins’ dog Fury that they had when I was a little kid. I was afraid of Fury (for no reason). It was Tigger that got me over that early fear of dogs.

I did not obtain pets as an adult but that might be a topic for another time or maybe I have addressed it a few hundred times already 🐸

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