16 miles

Yesterday my sister and her husband introduced me to their favorite exercise, bike riding. We rode sixteen miles around a reservoir near their house. Over gently rolling hills, beneath oak trees, and past vineyards, I huffed and puffed--and squealed when we zoomed down a slope. All in all, I enjoyed it.

Sore but happy

I've started exercising regularly again. For the past seven months, I've done nothing for my body. Last week, I returned to the gym.

Endorphins! EndorFun!

(Gack. I just read BH's post for today. Strange and unsettling synchronicity. Now I have to resist feeling like a cad for taking delight in exercise.)

Fruit-harvesting etiquette

Strawberries, plums, peaches: the ones that won't respond to a polite tug aren't ready yet.

Apples, oranges, lemons: no need to be polite.

Plum time

Sweet and juicy. Just reach up, tug gently, and they come fat and ripe into your hand.

Lesson 8

Perspective requires distance.

Samorost

A friend told me about Samorost, a browser-based computer game that's available online. Samorost 1 is free, and so is the first part of Samorost 2. The second part of Samorost 2 costs $10. After playing the first game, I bought and played both parts of the second. The games are simple, gentle, and fun; the graphics are attractive, and the music is low-key. Together, they take only a few hours to complete.

The main character is a little guy who lives on an asteroid and wears what look like white pajamas and a sleeping cap. In Samorost 1, he climbs inside a funky old rocket and travels to an approaching asteroid, where you help him figure out how to divert that asteroid so that it doesn’t collide with his home. In Samorost 2, space aliens steal his dog and fly away to their asteroid, he follows them and crashes his rocket, and you help him figure out how to get his dog back and then find and fuel a space taxi to fly back home. There’s no combat, no mad adrenaline rush, and almost no need for hand-eye coordination. You don't have to travel hundreds of lands to solve the puzzles, and the solutions often have a quirky humor. To solve one puzzle in Samorost 2, you have to make the guy’s dog pee on a plant.

My kind of game.

Chomp

Once bitten, twice bitten, thrice bitten . . . back into the pit.