I guess this blog is just becoming things that I am thinking about, so that’s cool I guess. It kind of makes my blog less of an authority about whatever it is that I want to talk about (dialysis, comedy, other?), but it is my blog after all, and it bares my name, and I think about all sorts of different things, and now I’m just trying to see how many independent clauses I can link together with coordinating conjunctions. I just had the idea to try to go back and use all seven of them in one sentence, but that also seemed like a lot of work, and I am not really in the mood to do that right now.
So anyway, my wife and I went for a hike the other day at one of our (my) favorite spots in Portland (Beaverton actually), Hyland Forest Park. It has no association with the big Forest Park that is within the city limits of Portland proper, but it is a forest, and it is a park. There are trails throughout the park, but wifey and I just like to walk the perimeter to get some exercise. If we walk around one time, it is about a half hour, which is good enough exercise for a wimp like me.
One cool thing for kids (or fun-loving adults like me) about this park is that it has nature play areas, where people can go off-trail and play around with twigs and branches. There are several lean-to shelters built in one of these areas, and there are a few holes that have been dug by previous adventurers.
One time when we were there on a hike, we saw some weird decorated sticks that seemed to be pointing in one direction, and we stumbled across a little girl’s tea party birthday; it was very cute.
The last time we were there, we came across a baby’s pacifier just sitting atop a log, so I snapped the featured image for this article. I thought it was just weird enough to warrant capturing the moment in a photo, and also thought that it was interesting enough to write half of a blog post about.
Weird segue now to talking about black Friday: If you are reading this article, then you probably agree with me that the insanity of black Friday is insane (a weak metaphor to be sure, but I’m tired (maybe not even a metaphor)). But I don’t want to belabor the already tired trope of bagging on black Friday, and instead I want to talk about the good things that I encountered while being out today.
First of all, we did not encounter a lot of traffic on the road. Perhaps a lot of people are traveling for the holiday yesterday, or perhaps all the shoppers are tuckered out from all-night vigils in freezing weather waiting for their favorite stores to open. We also went to the grocery store twice to pick up some random things, and both times, the clerks had no one in line, and were just chatting among themselves when we interrupted them to purchase our wares.
As a side note, even though the stores are crowded on black Friday, I still have had no problem getting on to my favorite online retailers to take advantage of their black Friday deals, so all in all, I think I am becoming a fan of black Friday!