New furry friends

I've been missing pets, but not wanting the commitment, so I'm suddenly a cat foster parent. Things I've learned so far: cats are in short supply and foster cats like people. With the pandemic, lots of people are looking for pets, and each of these was adopted within a week. My job is to keep them healthy, give them a bit of love, and write a great dating profile. The potential adopters see the photos and bio I provide, and then meet the pets by video, when I talk up all their cuddly traits.

In other news, both of these cats snuggled me more in one week than Wesley the cat did in a year. He really was a lovable curmudgeon, who tolerated me until his real family came back for him.

 

Bicycling

Early on in the pandemic, I broke my long-standing rule that bikes should only be used for transportation. I don't have a problem with other people running or biking around for fun, but I prefer to have a destination. However, there were many weeks, especially at the beginning, when there was nowhere you could go, so I just started taking long(ish) bike rides. I can now manage 20-30 miles (30-50km). This isn't very much for a serious cyclist, but it's farther than I've ever managed before. 

The past few weeks have been quite stressful at work. I'm doing all the right things to get through it - lots of sleep, eating well, avoiding news and media. But the best thing has been doing physically exhausting things. So I took a vacation day today and went cycling along the C&O canal, so named because it connected the Chesapeake Bay and the Ohio River. It was beautiful, fairly isolated, and a good respite from work.

My trusty bicycle, a youth bike imported from Germany. (My legs are too short for adult bikes.) If I carry more than 25 kg of groceries,  I would be over the weight limit, but if I carried more than 25 kg of groceries, I'm topple over, so it's not a big limitation. My goal is to have a bike that looks trashy, so that no one will want to steal it. Thus, the classy tupperware strapped on as skirt guards, and the patches of reflective tape. Some day I may even add duct tape to bring it down a notch.

My normal bike path, close to home, follows the tributary system of the Anacostia River. It's a mix of forest, wetland, and river path, but it's usually pretty packed with people since it stretches 20 miles from downtown DC into Maryland.

The C&O. It's about an hour's car drive to get there, and it's gravel rather than pavement. But the views of the river, canal, and Great Falls were spectacular, and I listened to crickets and rushing water instead of traffic. I'