13 January 1999: Tidbits

On the bus this morning the sunrise was remarkable. It is so seldom cloudy here that for the emerging sun to reflect on a skyful of clouds with just a break along the eastern horizon allowed a strange angle of sunlight into the city and reflected against the cloud--all gold and flame and the light laying a film of yellow watercolor over all.

Then the earth turned just enough so that just the very tips of the front range peaks were lit. It felt like the earth was moving up, not around, into the sunlight. I love that sun rises earlier on the mountains than it does east of the mountains, here in the city. I love that I can sit in the bus and watch that instead of drive through it, or sleep through it.

By 9:00 the sun was well and truly up, past the break along the eastern horizon and trapped above the thick layer of clouds. Over the mountains the sky was clear, though, so I looked west from my office over 30 miles of city (with a line of smog before the foothills), the foothills under cloud, and then patches of blue sky and patchy cloud with complex patterns of shadow and light. Mt. Evans's peak glimmered, escaping obscurity because the sun gilded one ridge which shone through cloud thin as mist. Other clouds, impenetrable, obscured all the other peaks of the front range. As the clouds moved, Mt. Rogers's peak emerged just visible in silhouette against the dark masses of more clouds along the Arapahoe peaks.

Owww. Owwwwww. Owwwwwwwww. I sound like Mundo Cani Dog, as yesterday's tale of being nearly maroooooned foretold. We did too many lunges last night, or too many for my current abilities.

I stopped in the salon on the way home for shampoo but didn't remember if I had the "Energizing" or "Hydrating" formula. I figured the bottles would be color-coded so I might recognize them, but they weren't. And I wouldn't've even noticed there were two sorts except a hairdresser asked. I shrugged: "I dunno." She reached up and felt my hair. I cracked up. I mean, of course; she's a hairdresser, she wanted to know the texture or moisture of my hair, so she touched it. But it startled me, rather an invasion of personal space since I wasn't sitting in a barber's chair, so what I was laughing at was (as usual) myself. (I got "hydrating.")

My Macintosh isn't Microsoft-free and ya know why? Because I'd miss the MS Word assistant. Not that I consult it. No, I like to watch it. MS calls it Max, but we all know it's a Banana Junior.

I called BJWL since I didn't mail her birthday card until today, when her birthday is oh, real soon now. I had to repeat myself approximately every seventh word, or fifth if any word were polysyllabic. Do I really talk so fast? If I talk as fast as I type and with as many speakos as typos, I can see that I'd be hard to follow, but no one else seems so incapable of understanding me. No one else whose native language is English, which in fact hers is.

I had decided not to Nordic Track when I was still wincing as I sat down early this afternoon but did intend to do some yoga tonight. It's 9:34. So ha, I say, ha ha. Give me From the Heart of the Country and a full-body massage and I'm off to bed.