Journal of a Sabbatical

February 14, 2000

reentry

Today's Bird Sightings:
red-tailed hawk
herring gull
great black-backed gull
American black duck
Canada goose
black capped chickadee

Today's Reading: The Wandering Albatross by William Jameson

Despite the fact that it's only a 2 hour time difference and I shouldn't have jet lag, I'm reentering my regular life unaccountably slowly. I got back Wednesday, slept most of Thursday, spent Friday morning putting together a photo album of the trip and Friday afternoon showing same to Tom and Ned in Ned's basement by the fireplace. Then suddenly it was the weekend and time to fetch Nancy from the bus station. We spent a lovely weekend together featuring dinner at House of Tibet Kitchen, a long walk on the beach at Plum Island (where I saw not one single owl of any kind), a productive browse at Old Port Book Shop, and dinner at Ciro's. The browse at Old Port Book Shop yielded a slim paperback entitled The Wandering Albatross, in which I am now deeply engrossed.

Suddenly it's Monday. My goals for the day are to buy new shoes (the upper is separating from the sole of my left shoe), get my hair cut (it's annoyingly long and driving me crazy since I got back), and laundry. Oh, and change the litter box for his royal orangeness.

Later... met the guys for coffee. They sympathized with my loathing of shoe shopping and suggested I just treat it as a chore. Ned has the same shoes from New Balance and they wore out in the same place. I got plenty of miles out of 'em and now is definitely time to replace them. So after coffee and lunch, I hit the New Balance outlet in Lawrence. It took awhile to find the one pair of black W800's in my size and try 'em on, but the mission was finally accomplished. I elected not to wear the new ones out into the slush just yet. That's what old shoes are for.

Next stop was Supercuts for a haircut. There was a 25 minute wait so I sat there reading the stupidest women's magazine I have yet seen, something called Jane, which appears to be directed at people who wear lots of makeup, can't spell, and are obsessed with celebrities. The fake hip tone of the text was positively grating. A month old People would have been better. Finally I got called and the whole haircut thing was over in about the same amount of time I spent waiting. I hate getting my hair cut about as much as I hate shopping for shoes. Too many childhood memories of evil permanents and vile smelling hair spray. Hey, how does Supercuts manage not to smell like burning hair?

Laundry and litter box went much quicker and I got to settle in with The Wandering Albatross in my hand and Wilbur on my shoulder.