The cats are restless this morning

Sometimes there are polite interrogatory meows in the morning as we get up. Sometimes less polite. By the time I'm up and making coffee, they have escalated to firm demands to be fed. Now! Curtis gets some wet food warmed up and some crunchies added. He likes the crunchies more, so I'm a bit light on the supply. Celina gets just the crunchies (unless it's a freshly opened can and it's the morning) and she leads the way downstairs. That way she can crunch in peace till she's had as much as she wants.

There is a temporary lull. Coffee making proceeds.

Then Curtis hustles downstairs to wait for the door to open. There are more demands. Sometimes Celina will tell us she's done, and there's usually a few crunchies left over. Curtis loves to eat clean up, he's such a helpful cat that way.

The coffee production is well underway by then, and by the time it's poured peace usually has had happened. I'll browse the internet and sip. Depending on the season and time of day I might go out to the patio. Yes to be outside, but also to escape cat nagging. Sometimes they tell us (me) that breakfast is inadequate, and they want more attention, or for me to get the other human up and out to pay attention to them.

I used to be in the same boat as many other people. Morning as a race to get up, get done whatever needed to get done, and get out the door to get to work on time. Morning when we just want to be in bed for a few more minutes, when we have to cope with our sluggish selves, children, pets, recalcitrant breakfast production equipment, and traffic, and for what? To get to a specific place, usually by a specific time, to be with people you probably don't like much, especially first thing in the morning, to do stuff you probably don't particularly want to do. No wonder we look old after a few years of that.

Now, most days, I wake up when I want to wake up. Which is still about the same time as always, usually between 3am and 6am. The difference is that I can lie there quietly thinking about things if I want. Or I can get up and read if I want.

Or I can start coffee. I enjoy the routine. Start water boiling. (Feed the cats!) Decide which coffee to grind. I usually have 3 bags of beans from Crickle Creek coffee on the go; a dark, a medium, and whatever coffee of the month is. This time it's a lovely India Mysore. I'll weigh and grind the beans, getting the French press and mugs prepped. A few minutes later the cats are fed and the water boils. Pour over the grounds, enjoying the smell and billows of steam.

Four minutes later, pour into a mug, and ahhhhhh! I'll usually drink one mug, then make some breakfast and eat it with another. Sometimes I'll have some ideas about writing and I'll work on that. Sometimes, more rarely, I'll have a photo project on the go that still needs editing.

There are days, of course, that I need to get up and get going. Like to get to Repsol for a swim after the swim kid swoosh, and before all the rest of the people show up. There's a sweet spot in there, (no, I'm not going to tell you what time, because then you'll show up and it will be a crowd, but at least we could chat in the hot tup so I suppose it wouldn't be a total loss.) for a swim where I almost always have a lane to myself, and sometimes the entire pool. Much more rarely I'll have a morning appointment.

Which while I'm thinking about it, the swim is slowly coming back after the 2 months off. Very slowly. It always starts good, but falls apart much sooner than I would like. The particular muscles involved seem to be getting lazier.

I think part of is that some of those same muscles are involved in using a camera. I'd never really realized how heavy a camera and good lenses are till after the first race. My shoulders and arms were tired.

By way of not changing the topic, I note that Ironman Canada is back in Penticton after a few years in Whistler. Most of you probably know that I'm coming up on 9 years since I did it. 10 years ago I was in serious training and went to volunteer and sign up. I know some of the people that are signing up again, and good for them. Not me. No way. Seeing the recovery times involved for when I push on the swim, and that was my best thing, I don't think there is enough recovery time after a hard bike, even without working. Plus, I don't have the fire in the belly to get out there and train train train anymore. That ship has sailed.

Last night we watched Elizabeth the Golden Age. Recently we watched The Crown. We've watched many other shows involving royalty, The Tudors, The Lion in Winter, Henry V, and many others that don't come to mind instantly. I wonder what they were really like at home out of the public eye, if they got a chance to do what they wanted to do, and what that might be.  If they ever got to sip their favourite drink and be themselves. I'm pretty sure there wasn't much of that; there's always someone bringing them a problem.

Work was often like that, someone bringing me a problem. I was fortunate in that it was often a problem I enjoyed solving, but sometimes not. Now I'm in the position of deciding for myself what problems I want to solve. Being in the well off first world, my problems (thankfully) are not where my next meal is coming from, or where I'll sleep tonight.

Now I mostly get to find my own problems. I think that if you aren't finding and dealing with problems, the universe will send them to you, trying to be helpful and all, to keep you from becoming bored. Sometimes it does anyway, apparently just for fun. Some of every day is devoted to avoiding future problems by being active today. The last little while has been somewhat less active for a variety of reasons we need not get into, but more recently I'm trying to get more regular about activity. Swim 3x a week. I've started to track daily steps and need to pick it up a bit. I've taken the hybrid out for several rides, and that's been fun enough to do more often.

Sometimes I think of great big important problems, like ridding the world of reptilian politicians, but my problem there is looking at the bigger picture. It might be that they are put here to force society to respond by becoming better than them. Sort of like a predator prey relationship, where the predator culls the herd of the weakest elements. It sure seems like the weakest elements of society are identifying themselves through the comments section, complete with ignorance of the issue at hand, and astounding grammatical and spelling illiteracy.

In some of my worlds, I'm tempted to have the voting booth be manned by cranky ex-schoolteachers of a certain age, who assign each prospective voter a topic. They have to handwrite a short essay on that topic. It isn't marked by the position on the topic, it's marked by how clearly and accurately you can state your position, with marks deducted for grammatical and spelling errors, and failure handed out for gross distortions of fact. (The elephant, a Federal or Provincial responsibility, for example.)

Sometimes it's small problems, like how to stay on top of the lawn jungle between daily rain showers. But usually it's deciding which of several choices is the thing to do today. Which, since they are all things I'd like to do, is a sweet choice. Decisions, decisions.

Let's start you off with a hit of colour. The ant is easy to find.

I like this second one better for composition reasons, but that ant is so cute I couldn't resist.

From a walk beside the Bow the other day. I had the wrong lens for bird photos, and was just getting close enough to get a shot with the lens I had. The heron was giving me the eye, but didn't seem upset. Then someone let their dog off the leash. Sigh.

You didn't think a walk near water would go by without capturing some distressed wood, did you?

Peony of the Day (June 30)

Driftwood of the Day