9/30: dog club

Here's another Los Angeles memory: we would walk to the LaBrea Tar Pits park in the evening after dinner and watch all the dogs brought by their humans to play there. We called it dog club. On the ridge we have our own sort of dog club. There's no leash law outside the city limits, so a lot of our neighbors let their dogs run free (and, truth be told, we know some of the dogs better than we know our neighbors). At one point in our walk tonight five dogs were keeping us company. A happy kind of mayhem.

9/29: tea with jam and bread

Mid-morning snack: chai tea, LaBrea Bakery bread, and orange marmalade!

When we lived in LA, the original LaBrea Bakery was in our neighborhood, so I was very excited this week, though also surprised, to see LaBrea Bakery bake-it-at-home bread in the local Arkansas grocery store. The take-and-bake bread is not as wondrous as the kinds we could buy at the actual bakery, but since I'm now a thousand miles away from the bakery, I'm not going to complain...and I will happily buy it again, for both the taste and the nostalgia value.

9/28: substance

Three good conversations in a row in office hours today. Not that conversations in office hours are ever bad--just today I felt like I was able to click really well with the students who came by.

9/27: at low volume

I don't usually like to listen to music while I'm working, but today I enjoyed having some music playing very softly in the background while I was in my office preparing for my classes.

9/26: in between seasons

Maybe in-between is the best place to be? This morning I heard geese on their way south. This evening I smelled honeysuckle on our walk.

9/25: late-morning sweetness

There's the smell of autumn in the air, but my cantaloupe still tasted like summer (even like sun).

9/24: not alone

Chris was taking a nap this afternoon when I decided to go walking, so I was solo on the ridge. But not really solo: I listened to the very excellent opening chapters of The Princess and Curdie, I caught sight of a hummingbird, I said hello to some neighborhood dogs who walked with me part of the way, I stopped to chat with a neighbor I rarely see, and I smiled at all the flowers (in the family Commelinacaea?) along the road.

9/23: on a calm note

It's been a busy, busy week, but this afternoon the work-day drew to an end in a gentler-than-expected way, a grace to be grateful for.