The Writing Discipline

I found this on morning walkies Sunday and had to have an image.

About a week ago I met Judy M. while walking The Girl out at Riverside Park on the Carson River. I think Judy is about where I was a few years ago after Wife died and I was in the process of discovering what I was to be without her in my life. It was a turbulent time of reflection and introspection during which I ended my engagement with my previous employer, sold my house, put my things into storage, and went on a long wander.

That wander took me many places where I spent time with family, friends, and loved ones. It was necessary for me to take the time to process my loss. It was good to connect with people I love. I cherish that time.

In any event, I think Judy will be an interesting read and encourage you, the reader, to visit her weblog and encourage her to continue posting. I am going to follow her.

Her sharing with me her weblog reminded me that I have not been exercising the writing discipline on my own site for some time. I see that it was early in July when I posted last. To be fair, I was traveling to see family and friends for a couple of weeks. I spent my time and energy on that exercise and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, it meant that I did not have time and energy to spend writing on my own weblog.

I know that I shared before an intention to write here regularly. I find it difficult, though, when I break the habit (or discipline) of writing regularly here to restart that work. I have many things to do and they will take priority if I let them.

That said, I still have the desire and intention of posting here on this site regularly. I suppose that means I need to set a regular reminder in my calendar that posting day is coming so you better get writing and then dig down and do that work.

I make no promise, although I have the intention of writing regularly. I think it is an important part of what I do and I also think I still have plenty of words left in me. Stop laughing…

While walking The Girl this morning we came upon these large wasps working the flowering plants along the path. I think this specimen was nearly 50mm long. The striking contrast between the black body and orange wings caught my eye. So, I made a few captures with the Fuji X-T1 and the Fuji 35mm f/2 lens. Of all the captures, this one I like the best.

I did give them some space. They did not seem particularly aggressive, but the orange wings looked like a warning to me. “Danger, Ruminator!”

When we returned home, I made some lunch (green salad with some ham, turkey, Jack cheese, avocado, and a Roma tomato) and relaxed a little. Then I looked up the wasp. I think it is a Tarantula Hunter, or Pepsis wasp. It was consuming nectar from a milkweed plant, along with a couple of butterflies.

Pahrump

After a fun play, The Girl posed for me.

Work once again brings me to Pahrump, Nevada. I’ll have field work to do for the next couple of days. Then we’ll head back home again.

The drive down was uneventful, for which I’m thankful. The weather was good and the Sun felt good on my body. The Girl snoozed most of the way here, which means she slept most of the day. We did take a couple of breaks to get out of the rig and move around.

But she had quite a lot of pent-up energy. So after getting settled into our room (Older Son is with us), we had a big-old play on the floor. She bounced between Older Son and me, and we roughed her up really well. She was mildly mouthy, which is unusual for her, but she was so gentle that I couldn’t bring myself to admonish her.

In the end, she posed for me before I got out her food for the evening. She was hungry, having forgone breakfast in the nervousness of impending travel.

We then walked over to the sports bar and got supper for the big dogs. I really enjoyed my salad.

I had to correct several personnel there about how to *not* deal with a service dog. Everyone seems to think they can just approach a working dog and engage. So, once again I found myself having to train service personnel on the proper way to (not) interact with working dogs.

I’m pretty good at it. I’m not one of those handlers who loses their mind if someone looks at their dog. (There are many who will.) So I’m a good one for untrained service personnel to interact with.

It was good.

After a long time, our server finally reappeared with the check. She said “Sorry it took me so long. I had to break the bartender.”

I looked at her, raising my eyebrows, “Break the bartender,” with visions of her actually *breaking* someone. I began to laugh.

“No, no, no… I gave the bartender a break,” regardless of me giving her a hard time, she remained (mostly) nonplussed.

I laughed quite a lot. “You look pretty strong… I’ll bet you could break the bartender.”

I was still laughing about this as we paid the bill and headed back to the room. Normally, someone “verbifying” a noun makes me crazy. In this case, I thought it was hysterically funny.

I still think it’s funny.