Currently 08/20/2020: Elephant Poop!

It was another good week. It probably helps that I'm working to keep my expectations low, and just go with the flow. As a result, several things have ended up exceeding my expectations. I do love when that happens!

What I'm Currently . . .

Laughing About  Elephant poop. Yes, there is a story here. Pretty much every time we visited our older granddaughter in Metro DC, we would take her to the National Zoo. And one of her favorite places to visit there was the Elephant House. And in that Elephant House, in addition to great big elephants, is an impressively large tube filled with, yep, you guessed it, great big pieces of elephant poop. Well, that tube has fascinated my granddaughter like nothing else (it fascinates me as well!) and we have made regular references to it ever since. Including this past weekend when the two of us were in hysterics on FaceTime, joking about all the places in our respective homes where elephant poop might be hiding.

Yes, you probably had to be there. 😄

Listening To  this compelling New York Times podcast Nice White Parents. My younger daughter, a public school teacher, turned me on to this recently, and I have been listening to it during my morning walks. It started out as I'd expected, but took an unexpected turn halfway through that I found fascinating, that being that almost without exception the white parents that fought for a fairer distribution of public educational funds between wealthier and less wealthy areas via more community-representative racial integration, and won, often ended up sending their children to different schools altogether. 

Wow. Just wow. 

I highly recommend this podcast. It has been eye opening to say the least.

Reading  The Last Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles. The writing in this book is truly lovely, but the pace thus far, about half way in, is a bit slow. As a result, I'm plowing through it rather slowly (I keep getting distracted) but I'm determined to finish it due to the buzz in generated when first published in 2016.

Watching  The Democratic Convention. So, so uplifting! I'll start and stop there.

Thinking About  The white quartz with light gray veining that's being installed as a countertop on my hallway linen cabinet today. This is the first step of our upcoming bathrooms/linen cabinet/laundry room remodel. Because we elected to go with white quartz for just the hallway linen closet, (we are doing a light, silvery gray quartz everywhere else), it was better financially to do this part of the remodeling on our own. By independently purchasing a piece of leftover white quartz from someone else's job, called a remnant, we saved over $1000.

Granite/marble/quartz is generally purchased by the slab, and slabs are both very large and very expensive. By purchasing a remnant instead - you have to be flexible and work with just what is available in the lot on a given day - a lot of money can be saved. 

Poking among various remnants to find one that works.

Excited About  Golf! We had our first lesson yesterday and it went from confusing to fun over the course of my 30 minute private lesson (my husband and I are splitting one hour lessons so we that get 30 minutes of private instruction each). I'm thinking that because I do yoga currently, plus have played tennis off and on for years, I was able to quickly tap into things like how to engage my core to better my swing,

Already I can see how much minutia there is to the physical mechanics of the game, and how improving could become a lifetime pursuit, but truly, I just want to be able to hit the ball around without being so bad I tick other people off that might be forced to share the course with me.

For now, however, we'll simply focus on attending our beginner series lessons, and hitting buckets of balls via the accompanying driving range.

Husband on the right looking serious, instructor on the left.

Worried About  My mother. A long history that won't be gone into here, other than to say it has been painful, resulting in not a whole lot of contact over the years. Regardless, she is currently hospitalized and I am re-engaging to see how I might be able to facilitate as needed. Restrictions on visiting due to concerns about protecting patients and staff from the pandemic are making this substantially more challenging, as you can imagine.

Looking Forward To  My first stand up paddleboard yoga class on Saturday. It's going to be nice and warm down at the harbor this weekend, so if I end up falling off my board a time or two during the class, it shouldn't be too unpleasant!

That's about it over here. What's going on where you are currently?