Anticipation

I'm so glad my wife reminded me that my skydiving Groupon would be expiring soon. Last year I was a little frustrated that I couldn't find a weekend in which my schedule and the weather would cooperate to allow me to redeem it, but figured I'd get plenty of opportunities this spring. Well, that hasn't exactly been the case, but the whole thing slipped from my consciousness, too. Based on my previous attempts to schedule, I'm of the impression that their schedule is completely packed on any potentially decent Saturday, so you have to schedule way in advance of knowing whether the weather will cooperate. It also tends to be pretty full on Sunday, though there's a better chance of getting in. But weekdays look way easier for availability, so today is the day!

I'm sure I'll grow increasingly nervous as we drive down, get the orientation, suit up, board the plane and approach the drop zone.  Just listing those steps along the way are bringing a grin to my face!

I'm also sure I'm going to be both exhilarated by the jump and disappointed when it's over. I've had it to look forward to for so long!

Today's words

ceorl \CHAY-orl\ - a freeman of the lowest rank in Anglo-Saxon England

wergild \WER-gild\ - the value set in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic law upon human life in accordance with rank and paid as compensation to the kindred or lord of a slain person

These both seem like the sort of thing I should have known already. The second was used in one of the examples for the first.

Geronimo!

A rough wake-up yesterday was no portent of the day.  It was a tiring one, but good.  Men's group was a great opportunity for me to regain my perspective. The move was accomplished about as efficiently as we could have managed, and I'm really glad we didn't have our daughter rent a truck even though we ended up with one more two-vehicle round trip than we'd have needed with one. The talk for our marriage encounter group - for which we'd only minimally prepared, but only so much preparation is really necessary when you're sharing from a book that was pretty much written for this purpose - spoke deeply to everyone there in an area in which it is too easy to allow inertia to stifle both awareness and growth. More on that later, I think.

I'm still a tired and sore old dog today, but feel pretty good about things.

And tomorrow I'm jumping out of an airplane!

SLAP!

There is nothing quite like waking up still in a really positive mood from a very nice evening and night - despite only having a few hours of sleep -  to an unintended reminder of my failure at my most important role.

I clearly still have work to do on forgiving myself for that.

Today's word

fuliginous \fyoo-LIJ-uh-nus\ - 1a. sooty  b. obscure, murky  2. having a dark or dusky color

Actually, from late March.  Not sure how I missed this one, but am glad they quizzed on it today.

Today's word

force majeure \forss-mah-ZHUR\ - 1. superior or irresistible force  2. an event or effect that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled

English is such a mutt of a language.

Bicycle dream

I was riding my my bike along the path, in a group ride, I think.  We hit an area where the path was badly deteriorated. I managed my way along it slowly, working the pedals at a low cadence. The other riders were still there, but now became extremely peripheral; perhaps they passed it more quickly than I did and moved on ahead? I got past the damaged area, and cruised along for a short while before reaching a spot that was degraded to the point of really being unsafe to traverse on the bike.  The others were within sight, riding through it somehow.  As I started into this section of path, the loose pavement shifted under my tires and mired me down; I had to really work to maintain my balance and keep making progress. Then I started to get a cramp in my right foot.

A real cramp, which woke me from my dream at 5:00 a.m.