more normal than not

These take a while to make….but the wait is worth it.

Of course, waiting isn’t the hardest part.

What’s hard about me waiting for somebody else to have an adventure?

Check out his website at https://bhiking.com/  ….good stuff.

And…check out the music! He scored this himself…..

Man.

A good pressure washer and a good weed eater.

That’s all I need.

I’m kidding, of course.

My needs seem to be endless.

Even trying to work your way towards a simple life, you have to have the things that support simplicity…like the perfect bowl and wooden spoon.

Wasn’t the wooden spoon part of the Nearing’s simple living style?

I don’t remember.

We rented a pressure washer that got harder and harder to restart as the afternoon progressed….but it was a revelation how nice you could get stuff looking if you could blow off the crud with a high pressure stream of water.

That pressure washer worked great when it was working.

The good weed eater was something that we had already, and I spent the morning whacking all the tall grass and weeds I could find.

You feel like you have some control when you can beat all the vegetation down to short nubs with a good weed eater.

I like feeling like I have some control, sometimes.

Things like weed eating or mowing the lawn….pressure washing….are so straight forward that they’re a pleasure.

Other than running over someone’s shoe or a toy that got left out in the yard, there’s not a whole lot of pondering that goes on with those activities.

There’s not a lot that can go wrong.

It’s kind of a dodge that keeps me from worrying about how to do the things that take more concentration, too.

It’s good to get outside and walk around and only concentrate on walking around….even if it’s behind a noisy lawnmower.

It’s been dry here…and that makes yard work easy.

Easy is good…sometimes….even if it’s hard work.

These Billy Yang films are excellent.

Most/all of them are about running.

Watching these films, I realize that maybe, for me at least, some of the appeal of all this is that there seems to be such a strong focused intention that….again, maybe….

What was I saying?

Oh….focus….something about focus.

Something about…..

I guess that it’s breaking it all down to the most simple application of effort to serve a goal.

I’m not very good about doing that, sometimes.

I’m all over the map….trying to cover too many bases….not covering any, sometimes.

But….to have your running shoes laid out the night before….step out of the doorway in the darkness of morning….waiting for the day to wake up and start while you cover a little distance….that’s a good feeling.

I like to watch these people prepare to do this thing they do.

That’s the thing about running that’s so appealing….it’s simple.

That’s kind of strange, too,  that one of the appealing things for me is to watch people get ready to do the action packed stuff.

You can’t spend your life preparing.

Sometimes you just have to step off and see what happens next.

And sometimes you just need a little focus.

It’s not a bad thing to concentrate on one thing at a time….sometimes.

The electric fan on my Mail Jeep seized up yesterday towards the end of the route.

I have two fans….one that’s belt driven that turns all the time…and one that’s electric that comes on when the temperature really climbs.

I noticed that, over the loud radio, the car seemed to be running a lot more quietly….and it was the absence of the working electric fan that was contributing to the peacefulness.

A Jeep on a mail route runs hot.

I think that’s the nature of the Jeeps to run hot, anyway, but all the stopping and starting on a hot day gives it a chance to REALLY WARM UP.

I think that I might have come close to melting the wiring harness going to the fan motor, too.

There was a bunch of white smoke….er, some white smoke….and a burnt plastic smell.

That’s not a good smell.

(I listen to and smell my car all the time….watching for the pre-breakdown warnings.)

Anyway….exciting day.

I turned around and booked for home to give the engine a chance to cool off, and got the old Toyota truck that I used to deliver with before I got the Jeep.

It was like riding a bike (remembering wise, that is) to drive from the passenger seat.

That’s what it is to drive one of these rural routes.

No matter how much preventive maintenance you do, something is going to go wrong with your vehicle at some point.

I just don’t like it if something is ALWAYS GOING WRONG.

That’s hard.

I’m hyping it up….stuff rarely goes wrong.

It’s usually pretty smooth sailing.

Then, why is it the hard stuff that I remember?

Oh, man.

A beach called “Paradise”…..surfing….and….a GREAT WHITE SHARK!!!

Could it get any better than that?

Here’s a clip from a new movie called “The Shallows”.

I didn’t know anything about this movie before seeing the trailer, but it looks pretty good.

You can get a lot of mileage out of a Great White.

I remember seeing Jaws when I was a kid and being terrified of what was down in the lower parts of the water….even the depths of a lake.

Sharks don’t live in lakes, though.

Big survival at a perfect beach.

I’m going to have to watch this one.