I can’t quite believe that our youngest son is a high school senior, with college on the horizon and just a few more months in our city’s school system.

Sometimes, the transitions in our lives ahead become crystal clear.

Yesterday, I drove more than three hours into New York City to reach the New York Armory to see him run for less than a minute with his high school indoor track relay team at the Nike Indoor Nationals.

It seems absurd when you consider the hours of travel versus the time of running like that, and I could have watched the webcast from the comfort of home, but it was important to me, and to him, that I make the drive, to send him encouragement from the stands, to be there to support him.

In his pink shoes, at the sound of the starting gun, he was flying, going so fast from starting line to the baton handoff with his teammate that he was nearly a blur from the stands, disappearing as I tried to capture the moment on my phone while shouting encouragement.

Everything becomes metaphor at some point, doesn’t it?

Driving back home later that night (he is staying in the city with teammates, to cheer on another crew of runners who will compete today), I was complaining to myself in the car about the long drive (it was raining) but then reminding myself: hold on to these kinds of moments because they won’t be available much longer.

Peace (in the Time Passing),
Kevin

PS — his Speed Medley Relay (SMR) team came in 7th place, out of 30 teams.

It was a decent New England snowstorm for March. It happened mostly overnight from Friday into Saturday, so there was little impact on school or travel. It was fluffy but sort of heavy. So, sticky. There was more than enough to cover mostly everything.

And Rayna, our younger dog, had a blast in the morning, barreling around the backyard after uncovering one of her toys — it’s actually a horse ball, but the handle was long ago ripped/bitten off — and now she is adept at putting her snout inside the hole (where the handle used to be) and tossing the ball into the air, then bopping it off her nose, as she races around.

I was trying to catch her in the act with my phone’s camera, but only got this shot. It’s her eyes, though, that I like most — she’s in her intense play mode here.

Then I decided to go another step further, since I liked that image so much, and put it into an art app called Oilist, and made two different variations, capturing the app’s process along the way. I folded both iterations into this video: Rayna’s Art Show.

Peace (and Dogs),
Kevin

I was out, walking the elder dog, when I saw a dear friend and neighbor walking her dog. She has been in the midst of medical care, and before I could ask how she was doing, she wondered why I was out walking instead of at work, teaching. I told her about my positive test, and my underlying cold-like symptoms, and then she gave me her own update.

As she was walking away, she turned back and told me her freezer was too full with many food deliveries from family and friends, including chicken soup, and that I should take some, and that she would leave it out on her porch, in a cooler. Later, walking the other (younger) dog, I did just that, grabbing a freezer bag of soup, and noticing she left me a bonus, too: a cookie.

Both soup and cookie were delicious, and what a reminder it was that our lives are enriched by family and friends who keep an eye out on, and for, each other.

Peace (in hot mugs),
Kevin

This kind of experiment with AI is now way overdone by too many bloggers, but I figured I’d ask ChatGPT to write me a Slice of Life blog post for today, and see what it came up with.

I asked it:

Write a slice of life blog post about a day sick at home, reading books, walking dogs, and wondering how students in the classroom are doing with a substitute teacher

It replied – in a response it entitled “Sick Day Worries”:

And, well, it’s words capture much of my worries and the slow unfolding of the day at home yesterday with books and dogs, and such, including a cup of tea in the afternon and some soup as snack. We live in strange times. (But, alas, Bot, I won’t be back to school this week at all)

And the image below? That comes from Stable Diffusion, another AI, which I asked to generate a watercolor image of a man walking two dogs on a winter day. It sorta looks like the dogs and I out on a ramble.

Peace (Automated),
Kevin