Stone cold

Tuesday began much the same as Monday, except that Nicole went to a different school, and the kids were able to carry their teacher appreciation gifts themselves, in plastic bags, so I didn't have to ride the bike. I helped Rachel get out the door and then I got ready and walked to work. By then it was no longer raining.

I made a poor wardrobe choice and wore short sleeves at work. It was cool but bearable in the morning, but seemed to get colder throughout the day. Unnatural! I had goosebumps in the afternoon, and thought about leaving early, but ended up finding something to keep working on.

Nicole was out and about when I was ready to walk home, so she met me on the other side of the bridge and we drove up to Ken's Market to get supplies for dinner. Well, she did that while I finished the crossword puzzle. When we got home I saw that the golden currant for Karen was still here. I wondered why Nicole hadn't delivered it when she picked Rachel up from school—they live in Wallingford not far from Hamilton. Nicole decided to deliver it then, so I worked on dinner, and was just finishing up when she returned.

After dinner I fed Pat (the sourdough). There was a little guacamole left from dinner, and Lydia decided she would want guacamole toast for breakfast, in which case we'll finish the bread sooner than anticipated. Then I settled in to read Sea of Tranquility. It combines time travel, the simulation hypothesis, and a pandemic. Perhaps that's not universally appealing, but it's fun for me.

I saw that the CDC has reissued the recommendation to mask while traveling, due to transmission increases in the east. Of course it doesn't carry the weight of a mandate, but it further highlights the silly timing of recent changes. Why does it feel like we've done this before?

I found another fantastic word in French reading: parpaing. Today it refers to concrete construction blocks, but it entered French in the 13th century, so it hasn't always. (Although I remember listening to a podcast discussing Roman use of concrete, many years ago, so maybe it could have.) The dictionary definition is a stone the width of a wall, so that it has two exposed faces.