Orioles

Today was one of those days that made me believe in just doing things whether you feel like them or not, just because they’re a good idea.

I was unenthused, and tired, but I knew that if I was going to get in my weekly swim, it’d better be today. My local pool is closed on Mondays so I got in my car to head down to the valley and run some errands, then go to an outdoor pool. It was warm enough to think that would be a nice idea.

My “errand” was trying to take care of a scrape that appeared on my car in parking lot. I went to a store where they sell auto parts and accessories to see if a wax would take care of it, and found a nice, personable young woman among a whole bunch of guys, because, you know, it was an auto parts store. She looked at the scrape and didn’t sell me anything, but recommended a body shop down the road. So this first exchange was already pretty nice.

Then I went to this body shop and the guy took photos and say he’d send me an estimate. I wanted to get a second estimate, so after leaving I stopped the car by a picnic table and searched for other shops. The picnic table is by a tiny bit of woods next to a lake and as I was searching, I heard the European Golden Oriole. This is not a super common bird here, and thanks to the Merlin app, it clearly identified the bird (and then I could pick out the song myself, when I’d heard it a few times). It made me so happy! And here I had been, earlier in the day, thinking that I was tired and didn’t want to do anything.

I went for the swim and then jumped in the lake afterwards, and felt even better than before because I always feel lighter after swimming. All was good.

And then I got home and had a nice conversation with my neighbors, and as always, I enter my apartment and there’s Foro. What’s not to love about today!