Life's had it's share of bumps and lumpy bits lately, but Heather and I did have a very nice day on Monday. Since we both had the day off, we slept in until an obscene hour, then rose and puttered about the house a bit. In the afternoon we went to Barney's and picked up some lunch to go (I got a chicken sandwich, and did not get one of their incredibly fine cheeseburgers or great shakes, thus maintaining my efforts to eat less and better). We headed over to Lake Merritt and sat under a tree and had lunch. Here's the tree:

After a while, we were set upon by geese, which roam the park in great waddling breadcrumb-seeking flocks. Here's a representative of the geese, with his cohort in the background:

Once the geese wandered away, and we finished eating and tickling each other and chatting, we decided to get out on the water, since neither of us had ever done so at the Lake. We rented a peddleboat and lazily paddled around. Here's a view from the water, with fountain and gazebo:

When we'd returned to dry land, we decided to go up to Berkeley so Heather could buy a few magazines, to help her research the YA short fiction markets, since she's doing more work along those lines lately. I ambled around the bookstores in a less focused way, picking up a used omnibus of the first three "Ripley" novels by Patricia Highsmith for $15. Since I've been thinking a lot about unsympathetic-but-fascinating characters and sociopaths lately, it seemed a good choice, and it'll be good to take a break from Wodehouse -- I just finished a three-book "Jeeves" omnibus, and while it was wonderful, I want to cleanse the mental palate before moving on to the next book.

From there we came home again, and lamented the lack of something good to watch on television, and decided to sign up for Netflix again. We had Netflix for a long time, and enjoyed it, but canceled the service when our movie-watching habits spiraled down to almost nil. Lately we've been going to the video store at least once a week, though, so it seemed sensible to sign up again. (We got our first shipment of movies today, ones the video store never seems to have in stock, too, so I'm already happy we rejoined.)

All that was Monday. And now somehow here it is, Wednesday, my workday over, the sun beaming down, and I'm just passing the time while Heather's out friend-visiting and working out. Things at work have been a bit more stressful than usual of late, with me feeling perpetually behind on everything, so a night to unwind, listen to some music as loud as I like, engage in the repetitive zen act of washing dishes, read, and perhaps write a little, sounds wonderful.