9/366 | Night Walk

After driving home from work, I park a few blocks away, and text P that I’ve positioned myself. Then I wait.

P wakes the sleeping K-dog and says "Hey, Let’s go get N!" Then they walk towards my car. In the mornings and afternoons, the fearful pup is completely unable to handle those sidewalks. But at night, with this context, he walks with very little concern. As soon as he sees me, he pulls forward with all his might. And when he gets to me, he throws me the best welcome-back party ever, every single day.

Then, we drive to the nearest large park. With the Sun setting around 4:30pm nowadays, the park is totally dark. We’ve bought a red light attachment for the harness so we can see K at the end of the 30-feet leash. The pup is ecstatically happy. I see straight and zigzag red lines in the darkness, around and around, back and forth.

By this point, I’m so very hungry, cold, and tired, but this sequence of routines has been such a therapeutic part of my fall and winter evenings. I can’t tell who needs it more. Me or K.

8/366 | Dinner Party

We were invited to P’s friends’ home for a dinner party. The husband cooked and the wife prepared the table and the room. It was nice and fun, with a simple dish like spaghetti meat sauce and garlic bread. I’m not too confident about hosting any sort of parties. (I didn’t even have a housewarming when I moved into the current place, and my friends still give me a hard time about it after 5 years.) Maybe I’ll give it a try this year. Maybe.

6/366 | Splurge

Purchasing dog food at a pet store.

It’s amazing how “generous” I am when it comes to my dog. It’s like “well, of course, he deserves the good stuff!” I’m kinda glad I don’t have a human kid. I’d be so broke.

5/366 | Miniature Ice Columns

It’s got quite cold during the last few days. The warmth at the beginning of the year have made the ground all muddy. Then the temperature dropped to 9F the day before yesterday (at night). Now it’s very frozen.

I’m happy to see the surface of the Charles is half solid. Puddles are fun to walk on now, with the breakable translucent covering. I do love having winter every year.

4/366 | Geeking Out

I spent some time today and last night setting up the TwentyTwelve site. The big geek in me rejoiced. I like playing with CSS, HTML, PHP. Figuring stuff out and seeing the results right away on the screen is really satisfying. I almost wished I could do this stuff all day long. I wonder, though, if it was a job, would I still like it?

3/366 | Commuting

Unlike the last 11 days, I’m by myself in the car and I’m not headed to a fun place. First day back at work was full of the same old boringness as the last year.

During the first meeting of the day, all I could think of was monster.com.

1/366 | My jammed thumb

I jammed my thumb on 12/26 while skiing. My brand-new ski poles’ strap caught my thumb while I fell on a sheet of ice.

Since then, I’ve been learning every day how often and how much a thumb is used.

I’m pretty sure it’s not broken. It just hurts whenever I use it or accidentally hit it. Going to a doctor seems unnecessary. I’ve gone through my medicine cabinet and found this wrap. For now, this works fine.