Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

I can’t say that I’ve heard much excitement ahead of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There is some anticipation locally about fireworks being set off from the Golden Gate Bridge, although of course we have our fingers crossed that it won’t be foggy. What I have felt among the people that I know is great excitement around the World Cup, which has certainly occupied many hours of my time recently. Even the Taylor Swift wedding seems to be capturing more column inches.

In any case, I am always glad of a holiday weekend. I anticipate getting several rides in, but this week I have had to acknowledge that I am not running at 100%.

After a week of grey damp windy weather, and starting to feel rather depressed about it, it was encouraging to see the sun coming out on Saturday for the farmers market; in the afternoon it was pretty windy for the roam across the Sunset, but also pleasant 

Sunday’s bike ride was the first sunny one in a while. I went longer than I meant to – I still calibrate for former speed, and my former neighbourhoods, from which it took less time to get out of town. We did our usual family Trader Joe’s visit, a mile each way with Georgie in the buggy, after which I was feeling very sleepy again. 

By the end of the day on Tuesday I had that nagging feeling that I might be getting sick; I could rest for large parts of Wednesday as I prepared my talk – but after giving it and riding home, I also felt off, with a sore throat and a headache.

Using my usual criterion (not feeling well enough to ride to work), I took the day off on Thursday, which helped a lot, though it also threw off my sense of what day it was. Friday definitely felt like Saturday. I had a couple of meetings and did a bunch of sewing, as the time creeps away. 

The talk largely went well; I started by talking about the football – the US having won very convingly right before I left the house – but didn’t feel much response to that, which wrong-footed me for a moment (as did fiddling with my sleeve that seemed to be upside down, and not having the stick under control for a moment).

Once I got into my material, I felt it went okay, though I realised there were a couple more points I had wanted to emphasise which I am not sure I did sufficiently – maybe the recording will sound better than I remember. 

We have already been woken up by fireworks at 1:00am and 3:00am on Friday, and no doubt there will be more anti-social behaviour before it is all over.