Morning Walk, on the Morning After...

A nearly perfect full moon was low in the southern sky, bright enough to show colors nearby and to see the mountains to our north clearly.  Most of the stars were washed out by its glow, but in the northeast Orion was visible – for the first time this year (at 3:30 am), all of it was above the horizon. 

The dogs this morning didn't seem to smell anything in particular.  Race was bouncing around at the end of his leash, looking for pine cones to catch.  The three field spaniels were all tugging strongly, each trying to pull me in a different direction.  The vector sum of the force on the least this morning was less than a half-dog (where one dog is the force that an average field spaniel can exert); it was easy to hold them all still.  But when I tried to walk anywhere, the dogs opposing my motion seemed to redouble their efforts, and the vector sum rose to over a dog, maybe close to two dogs.  It made walking challenging!

The morning after what, you ask?  Why, the morning after a (for me) vast expenditure of physical effort.  My mother-in-law (Kate) is coming to visit with us on Friday, as she does on most years.  We have a spare bedroom that she stays in while she's visiting – these days, she's the only one who uses it.  The rest of the time that room is stuffed to the gills with stored things – everything from Christmas decorations to slide rules.  So to get ready for her visit, I have to move all that stuff into our living room, where I pile it all the way to the ceiling in one corner.  Then I set up her bed and generally make the room livable.  So yesterday I did all this moving – I'm guessing about 3,000 pounds of stuff.  And this morning I'm feeling it...