A Weekend Indoors & Out

As I reflected upon the question, "What did we do this past weekend?" my first thought was, "Not much. We were slugs." But then it occurred to me that we actually did a lot.

Friday night we inaugurated our personal copy of the game Wingspan with a couple of plays through. Yes, it's still a complex game with subtle strategy and unbalancing runs of luck, but it's fun once you get the hang of some of the strategy. And it's all about birds.

Our setup for Wingspan, a complex yet addictive game about birds. Birds not included!

Saturday morning and early afternoon we went shopping. I wrote about my haul of shirts, shorts, and shoes already. The funny thing is, I still haven't tried them on. Except for the shoes; I was able to try them on at the store. But already I know that one of the shirts and one of the shorts will be returned... because when I looked in my closet Sunday morning I saw I already own copies of them!

Saturday evening we took it easy around home, playing another game or two of Wingspan and watching some TV.

Sunday we spent a good part of the day outdoors, at Rancho Cañada del Oro ("Gold Canyon Ranch" in Spanish) open space in the mountains south of San Jose. We hiked the High Peaks Loop trail, a trek of about 7 miles with 1,100 ~ 1,200 feet of ascent. We were worried about it being a butt-kicker as we're out of shape from 6 months of spending too much time indoors, but both of us rose to the challenge better than expected. Until I get pictures up— hopefully in the next day or two!— you can see pictures and read detail about the hike from our trek a year ago.

Sunday evening we played Pathfinder (a fantasy roleplaying game) online with friends for a few hours, then played an obligatory game of Birds— I mean, Wingspan— at the dining room table. After that Hawk split off to do a bit of work hanging over her this weekend while I took it easy for the rest of the night.

Getting Back in the Habit at The Habit

Today I took another step along the path of getting back to normal. I reconnected with an old habit. Coincidentally it involved eating lunch at a restaurant named The Habit.

Indoors seating at this restaurant is tight— and I'm not ready yet to dine indoors at restaurants— but they have a well-ventilated outdoor dining area. The tables are spaced reasonably far apart, too, and when I arrived at around 11:15 the patio was empty. (I was prepared to go elsewhere if the patio dining area was packed.)



As I sat down with my food I reflected on how long it's been since I've done this. At work I've been using the phrase "In the long, long ago..." to preface remarks about how the nature of our work has changed since the start of the pandemic and when and how it might go back to being the old way again. Eating lunch at The Habit is not work but it's definitely something from The Long Long Ago. Today was my first visit to this restaurant in almost 15 months... and in The Long Long Ago I used to eat here at least once a week!

I don't think I'll go back to eating here once or twice a week. Some old habits, like eating that big basket of fries with a side of ranch sauce, are better left in the past. I'll try to make this an occasional treat.