01: not scraping a pot of freshly-made soup into the trash - It's a hot day and Gretchen isn't in the mood for the turnip soup I made.
02: south and east rail completed in the heat - It's depressing to work on old structures that were built wrong, but once they've been fixed, it makes the work seem worthwhile.
03: antibiotics on the end of a six foot ruler - Unusual circumstances had me giving Neville his evening medicine in an unusual way.
04: standard price of an airport bloody mary - Robots and the people who work with them at the airport.
05: arrival in Split - Not great food or coffee in a beautiful, fairy-tale city.
06: boarding the M.S. Monet - Beginning our cruise from Split, Croatia.
07: Dubrovnik - Another walled city, this time with a swimming option.
08: Kotor - Trying to find an obscure path up the escarpment over the city, we give up and opt to take the cable car instead.
09: The Blue Eye - The dubious tourism industry of Albania.
10: Corfu - A Greek old city, a newer fort, and winning at trivia.
11: ill in Lecce - Being on a guided tour while not being healthy is a special kind of torment.
12: how I play a piano - A parlor trick on a cruise ship.
13: Stromboli - Ending up in the back of a Lipari nightclub by day, viewing constant volcanic eruptions by night.
14: Messina - Outrunning the tourists to Messina's palimpsest of a cathedral.
15: nothing much to see in Pozzallo - They do have a nice beach that is both broad and shallow even if their fort is a stony box.
16: Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Our vegan Mediterranean cruise ends in Malta and we meet up with Gretchen's parents.
17: someone we know in Malta - They were in Oberlin when I was there, then Seattle. Now Malta. Also, we visit Mdina.
18: unexpectedly in Boston - Our non-stop flight from Malta to JFK gets redirected to Logan.
19: no planes to New York - We're forced to rent a car to drive from Boston to New York.
20: facets of a wood frog - Difficult to see even when you know that he is there.
21: not a great chanterelle season - Hiking with the neighbors and eating purple pie with friends.
22: enormous cow femur - A find in the forest just above the steepest part of Dug Hill Road becomes a gag gift for the dogs.
23: a cool July drive - Temperatures fall into the 60s as we drive to the cabin.
24: red leaves on the rocky islands - Thinking about a CSN song while a tiny spider launches himself from my arm.
25: multimeter in need of calibration - It's off by 40% as a Liberty-Bell-like crack appears in my black cherry stool.
26: utility of a paddleboard - It's great for spotting things under water near shore or salvaging rocks.
27: my brother does not eat lettuce - So his diarrhea is unlikely to be caused by cyclospora.
28: flashing before the storm - Somehow the waterproofing ended up being bright pink.
29: sanding pads, booze, steroids, and muscle relaxers - Those are just the consumables that I bought today.
30: a tale of two cursors - How I write when I have a backlog. Also, making a crutch from a fallen tree in the forest.
31: a rare checkup with my doctor - When my doctor learns I am an unemployed software developer, she gets a lot more chatty.