Uzumaki

Old KYLady does way too much whining, so she will try not to whine today.  Last Saturday, I got out and played golf on a gorgeous afternoon.  On Sunday morning, the kayak and me went out on the Little Sandy River for a new adventure.  Adventure is a very good remedy when things start to spiral.  Things have been spiraling lately…lots of things.  There are just too many things lately; my “thing limits” have been exceeded much too much too much in recent weeks.  Even two fun things over the weekend was not enough to slow the spiral, in fact, taking those hours off seem to have only contributed to the spiral.

I had never been on the Little Sandy, but I’ve driven over it more times than I can count.  Many times I’ve looked down from the bridge and thought about putting my kayak on it.  There is a boat ramp less than 15 minutes from home very near where the Little Sandy empties into the Ohio River; super-convenient.  Those first minutes on the river were not so pleasant.  The highway traffic is noisy (the marina is right off the highway).  As I paddled toward the bridge, lookout geese began honking to warn the others I was approaching.  Swallows came out of their mud nests built in neat rows under the bridge.  They dive-bombed me (I was grateful that none pooped on me) until I was well passed the bridge.  Under the bridge, geese were in the water all around me and also watching from high above as they stood all along the concrete pillars that support the bridge.  I looked up and felt very outnumbered.  Geese can be mean birds.  I wondered if they might come after me, like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie (The Birds).  They all honked at me – their noise and the traffic noise was deafening. 

  

On the other side of the bridge, the shore was lined with camp sites of people sitting around playing loud music, some fishing, some drinking beer at 9 in the morning (but who am I to judge?).  Then on up the river, it got quiet and lovely, other than some debris from recent flooding and farmers plowing fields.  I paddled past a dock where a man was just pulling a giant fish out of the water.  He had no reel for the line – so he just pulled this big creature out hand-over-hand.  The river must be very deep there with all that line, but finally the fish was out and flopping around on his dock just in time for me to see it.  I saw several duck families and geese families along the way, and two blue heron which are beautiful and exotic (not as fancy as peacocks, but pretty awesome birds nonetheless).  On my trip back down the river, the man who caught the fish was now cooking it on his grill right there on the dock.  He called to me and asked me if I wanted to join him for breakfast.  Tempting, but I declined and thanked him.

Little Sandy River - mirror of tranquility

Some interesting things to see along the way...

  

The classes for my new job are up and running.  I’m already heavily involved.  It’s great so far, because I’m less like a teacher and more like a course facilitator whose job is to answer questions, grade papers, and keep things moving in the right direction.  I hit the ground running, but I wish there had been time for me to at least review the course materials for each of these three classes.  My students are writing papers already and I had to grade one last night without really knowing what the required reading contained.  I am very familiar with the topic of the paper, but I won’t be able to judge whether a student is relying on the assigned literature or free-balling it.  Regarding the paper I evaluated last night, hells yeah he was tots free-balling it.  His only reference was Wikipedia.  

Someone and I will attend Someone’s family’s annual beach vacation in June.  It’s not good timing for me, but I will take off work from my primary job and go to the beach with Someone.  I’m sure we will have fun but it’s a hassle to find a quiet place to work with so many people in one house.  My classes will still be going on so it won’t really be a full vacation from work.  Perhaps there never will be a full vacation from work again for me until I can retire from my primary job.  Someone gets so terribly excited about this vacation.  He is already packed and nagging me to start getting ready (even though we aren’t leaving for more than 4 weeks).  Besides, I have to make another trip to Louisiana for work before then…that’s on my mind much more than vacation.  The girls are not going with us; they will stay home and work, animal sit, and house sit.  I am grateful to have them stay behind so I don’t have to arrange for it.

Anyway, it’s very easy to get caught up into the spiral – the plethora of crap that there’s not enough time for – stuff I should do and want to do, stuff I should do and don’t want to do, stuff I have to do, stuff people expect me to do…lots of stuff.  I’m drowning in stuff.  It’s a lot of balls in the air.  I need more hands and eyeballs.