Journal of a Sabbatical

January 5, 2001

boring boats and firewood

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
northern harrier (2)
Canada goose (114)
herring gull (16)
American black duck (2)
American robin (3)
northern mockingbird (1)
red breasted merganser (7)
common loon (1)
northern shrike (1)
song sparrow (1)
starling (about 1000)
Mammals
white tailed deer (1)

Today's Reading: Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian by Sara Anna Emery

Today's blue tarp photo was taken this afternoon in Boxford - the next town east of here. The two most common things covered with blue tarps are firewood and boats. I passed one driveway where the firewood and the boat were under the same blue tarp, but it was too dark for a photo by then.

I've been heavily into comparing myself to other people lately, unfavorably. I think everyone on earth writes better than I do, or at least proofreads better. I think a blind monkey could take better photographs than I do. Must be either a lack of serotonin or a lack of a list of escapades getting me down.

Speaking of escapades, continuing with my irreverent irresolution, I note I've only done two things on Jessie's list of escapades:

7.Develop and print a photograph without help.

I took a photography/darkroom course about 25 years ago during my black and white period and did make some nice prints. Can't lay my hands on the box where they're stashed at the moment so I'll spare you the results. I don't have a darkroom now and don't want one. I'm much more interested in the seeing part of photography than in the making a nice print part of it. Besides that, at the moment I only have a digital camera. I guess one of my New Year's resolutions should have been to buy the N80 I've been wanting to replace the stolen Pentax ...

8.Learn a foreign language.

Maybe it's not fair to list this is as an accomplishment because I was forced to take French from the 4th grade on. It didn't become a choice until college and by then I was far enough along that I could actually enjoy it. I've let it lapse and can barely get by in French now, but enough of it sticks that I can understand it if I need to. When the herbarium harridans in Beijing couldn't find an English speaking person to kick me out of the conifer collection at lunch time they sent a French speaking woman who had beautiful pronunciation and perfect grammar to kick me out. I understood every word she said perfectly. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would ever use French in China. Then again, I never imagined I would be in China. At least not back in 4th grade French class.