Lightning, Bowling, the Days Pass

In the middle of the night last night there was a big thunderstorm. They always wake me up, even when I am wearing ear-plugs, because I can see the lightning through my eyelids and it is bright enough to wake me up. We have a blind on our bedroom window too. It doesn't matter. Lightning is really bright. Pocket of Bolts doesn't get waked up because, in addition to being a good sleeper, he says he has thick eyelids.

Day 4 of the grueling* new schedule. Still have not succeeded in leaving the house by seven. But I'm starting to wake up pretty naturally at 6. It's getting out of bed that's the trick...

Last night we went bowling with some people who used to be our neighbors, and whom PoB became friends with over the course of last year. I was anxious about going bowling because I haven't done it for a really long time. Also, my hands are pretty weak from tendonitis. And J&C are really PoB's friends; I don't feel like I have that much in common with them. Still, it worked out more or less okay.

Bowling has gotten a lot more expensive since the days when my dad and brother and I used to go in the old student union! I'm not sure I've gotten any better since then either. But I do have a really strong memory of my little bro (before he got taller than me) standing in his tiny shoes with that big ball, every line of his back full of concentration.

I was surprisingly nostalgic when I wasn't too embarrassed by my many gutter balls. I did manage a strike and a couple of spares though. To PoB's lasting shame, I actually beat him the second game. Ha ha ha! I got 100 exactly. You might think that's nothing to brag about, but the first game I barely got half of that. It's all relative.

Anyway, I don't much mind being bad at games. My tendons were tired and a little sore, but bowling doesn't actually seem to make them worse.

Nothing much else to report. Yesterday was so filthy hot that we scuttled from one air-conditioned place to another pretty much. My syllabus is about ready to print out and copy. I'm reading LeCarre's The Taylor of Panama (in the gym) and Neal Stephenson's The System of the World (on the bus commute).

* Okay, "grueling" is relative. Let's just say, grueling for lazy and easily-exhausted me.