But Not Today

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Sometimes a day is a day when you are overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for family or friends who bring food over when you call them to tell them you lost track of time and forgot to make the dinner you invited them over to eat.

Sometimes a day is a day when you are told to be the adult in a relationship, and you're able to answer, I'm ahead of you by a month, I already extended the olive branch, he hasn't taken it, ball's in his court.

Sometimes a day is the eve of a journey that could fulfill a childhood dream, and you are overwhelmed by that realization.

And sometimes, a day is just a day.

But not today. Today, was a day.

This is My Helping Me

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Travelling is a great way to test even the most patient person's patience, and I am, by far, not the most patient person.

Yet, I've been working on that detail of my personality. I can't say I'm becoming more patient, but, who knows, I might be. Or what I'm experiencing is a New Year's enthusiasm for all things new and shiny, including a new and shiny me.

In no order other than "this is how I recalled them," things I've found to be helping me:

1. Experience

For traveling, at least, experience helps a lot in being patient.

My New Four* Questions

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I met up with Moazam for lunch today. He is loaning me a water-proof, at least water-resistant, backpack for my next adventure, and was willing to have lunch with me during the exchange.

I'm really grateful that he's willing to loan me the backpack. I was ready to spend money on more equipment, but not really excited about spending the money for equipment I'd use once, maybe a couple times. Borrowing infrequent use items is part of my new purchasing process, which includes four* questions I've started asking myself before purchasing anything new.

My questions are:

1a. Do I need this?
1b. Will this bring me (immense) joy?

Starting the Year off Right

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To my great surprise, I did stay up last night until after midnight. I know, I know! For someone who has been going to bed at 8pm, midnight is crazy late!.

The late night meant "sleeping in" until 8am, at which point Chase was pacing, and breathing heavily, not quite whining, but not quite not whining, and as comfortable as the bed was, Beagle called. The walk was a brisk morning walk, around the normal morning route, but Beagle was ALL FULL OF SNIFFIES! I would have guessed this was a new route with the cataloging he was doing for every delta.

We arrived back at the house with enough time for me to figure out with Cads where I was going to meet up with him. I grabbed a couple mandarin oranges (so good!), the rest of my cashews, and dashed out.

Blue Moon

Book Notes

This is book 24 in the Jack Reacher series.

Book starts out with Reacher on a bus. In his usual way, he notices things. In particular, he notices both an old guy with a wad of cash in his pocket, and a younger guy who also notices the old guy with a wad of cash in his pocket. Reacher follows the young guy, who follows the old guy, off the bus, and thwarts the young guy's mugging of the old guy. Reacher then helps the old guy walk to his destination, which, unsurprisingly, is to pay off a loan shark.

Except, the payoff doesn't exactly happen as expected. Reacher, with nothing particularly planned, stays to help the old guy and his wife (and, inadvertently, their stricken daughter). Along the way, Reacher returns to form. There's the girl (nearly always the girl he bops then leaves). There's the violence with many deaths. There's the repetition of some theme (several in this book, something about 10000 generations and another one I didn't note except when reading). There's the impossible situations that Reacher survives. And there's suspension of disbelief required to keep reading about non-trained individuals being able to handle situations that are difficult for even the most highly trained individuals. You know, Classic Reacher™.

I enjoyed the book. This one is non-stop action, with some strategy in the middle. Fun read. If you're a Reacher fan, read this one. If you're not, you'll miss much of the history and nuances of the story, possibly some of the humour by repetition, but will likely still enjoy the book if you enjoy absurd action novels.

“It’s something they teach you in the army. The only thing under your direct control is how hard you work. In other words, if you really, really buckle down today, and you get the intelligence, the planning, and the execution each a hundred percent exactly correct, then you are bound to prevail.”

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