I tend to have a very accurate body clock and today, as it usually happens once or twice a week, I find myself stirring minutes before my alarm goes off at 3:38 AM. You might wonder why I wake at such a peculiar time (why not 3:40?), but there is no real good reason except the last time I changed the battery in the clock and reset the alarm I missed the exact number I wanted and didn't feel like hassling with changing it. Why I get up so damn early is another story. The short version is that I was always an early riser and as an undergrad I used to work out and then catch a bus to school at 6:05. Now, I work out during daylight hours and catch the first bus to town at 5:20.

 

I live with a chihuahua named Holly, and she usually sleeps on whichever pillow I am not using, or if it is chilly she will nestle into my armpit. Like most dogs I've known, she basically sleeps 20 hours a day, so getting up early is no big deal for her. We go outside and as she looks around for a place to poop I do some gentle stretching exercises just to come alive. As long as it is not raining, I tend to not bother putting any clothes on to let Holly outside. Sure, anybody could see me, but in several years I've never been seen (or at least I never saw anybody seeing me...). I have to keep an eye on Holly, because I live next to a canal where a few ducks sometimes visit. If they happen to venture into the yard and take a dump of their own, Holly will inevitably find it and joyfully roll around in it. Bathing a dog at a quarter to four in the morning is not too high on my list of favorite pastimes. Today she finds nothing to roll in and so we are back inside in only a few minutes.

 

Before I went to sleep Wednesday night, I patched an innertube from the back wheel of my recumbent bicycle and pressurized it. When we go back inside I check to see if it is holding its pressure, it is. So, after using the toilet myself, I go back into the garage and install the wheel on the bike and decide against going for a quick spin to test it because Holly is getting pretty fired up.

 

Since we've been together (we separate as I travel almost every summer), Holly and I have been walking every day there is good weather. In Hawaii, of course, that is nearly every day. She looks forward to these walks and, despite approaching middle age, still manages to go fairly spastic as soon as she sees me getting near the hook where her leash hangs. I put her collar and leash on and we head out the door and down the driveway in the nearly full moonlight. She's a white dog, so she takes on a sort of silver or bluish cast in the moonlight as she revisits all her favorite weeds and posts as we progress down the driveway that I share with 4 other neighbors. We have two different walking routes, and this morning we take the route that goes over a pedestrian overpass near the YWCA. On the overpass we get a nice view of the lights reflecting off the still water of Kaneohe Bay. Nearing home again, Holly manages to stir up a few of the dogs not lucky enough to be out on walks of their own. They start barking and, at such a still time of day, it seems really loud so I slink home hoping nobody was awakened enough to look outside and see the source of their annoyance.

 

Back at home I start gathering my sack lunch. As usual, I pack an ounce and a half box of raisins, a carrot, an apple and a banana. I'm too lazy to prepare anything, and I'm too cheap to buy a lunch every day. The health benefits of this lunch are only a tertiary defense of why I am in that habit. Since I was going to take my bicycle to work today, I load a pack with a pair of walking shorts and a t-shirt bearing the likeness of John Stuart Mill and a caption consisting of the Mill quote, "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." Sometimes I tell myself that I really need to grow out of the juvenile "statement via t-shirt" phase, but the shirt still makes me snicker and I see several people puzzle over it every time I wear it. I also pack my cycling shoes, socks, gloves and attach my helmet to the waist belt of the pack. Last I put in a long sleeve shirt to wear on the bus (where the air conditioning is famously frigid) and the empty Camelback water bladder that I will later fill for the commute home on the bicycle.

 

 

(excerpt from Daybook1)

 

 

 

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