june 15/RUN

2.5 miles
austin, mn
60 degrees

written a few days later

Did a quick run in Austin with Scott that ended at The Coffee Place in downtown Austin, across from the SPAM museum. Ran past: the cemetery with Scott’s mom’s grave, the mill pond (I think it’s called the mill pond), the Plantar’s Peanut Mobile parked by a chain-link fence, I-90, and a lot of other things I can’t remember. It was smoky from wildfires in the Boundary Waters and cooler than I expected.

The things I remember most about this morning were not the run, but: the reconstituted eggs (yuck!) at the hotel breakfast buffet, watching bits of a few episodes of Living Single, and the phone call from the doctor telling Scott that his dad was being released from the hospital much earlier than expected. Instant decision: instead of going home, which was our plan, we drove over to Rochester and loaded up a car with a mattress and bed frame, then drove to Scott’s dad’s new assisted living apartment in the twin cities to drop it off. Then drove back to Rochester (60 miles) and loaded the car up again. Mayo Hospital had led us to believe he wouldn’t be released until the following week. I am not a fan of Mayo (and never have been) — they may be good at curing unusual diseases but they suck at caring for actual people. Boo to arrogant doctors. Boo to prioritizing fancy buildings over the needs of community members. Boo to insurance companies that pressure hospitals into releasing patients too soon.

Wordle Challenge

note: I didn’t have time to do the wordle challenge this morning, so these words are from the next day when I didn’t run.

4 tries: flash / waxes / apron / STRAP

a flash of white
the moon grows and shrinks
waxes and wanes
all in an instant
as an apron of clouds
travels across the sky
sometimes the clouds appear as soft cover
and sometimes they seem to conceal and subdue,
each thick layer of vapor a strap
securing the moon to the sky

note: I’d like to replace one of the skies with something else — I’ll think about it some more

revision, 18 june 2023


A flash of white
grows and shrinks
waxes and wanes
all in an instant
as an apron of dark clouds
travels across.

Sometimes the clouds offer soft cover
and sometimes they conceal and subdue
each thick layer of vapor a strap
securing the moon to the sky