Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

My gift in this year's Scintillation Groundhog Day gift exchange is a pair of teal socks, which feel like wool. It came with no signature or note, just the name of the company it's from. I checked with ambyr, and the anonymity was accidental. I will follow up with the gifter to verify that the socks are made of wool.

They feel thick, and thus suited for cold winter days, of which we do still get a few.

In the other direction, I sent my recipient a Sandra Boynton T-shirt and post-it notes. I had them shipped directly from Zazzle, with notes saying "1/2" and "2/2" because the t-shirts and stationery are printed in different places.

I know some people are skipping political posts (which I understand: I have a "lower-stress" filter for days I need to do that), so a couple of notes on the rest of my life:

I'm keeping up with the exercise routine, sometimes by doing one exercise and coming back an hour later to do the next one. "Keeping up" at this point means doing the half-dozen PT-related ones at least twice a week, and adding other things on no particular schedule. My cell phone has an exaggerated idea of how much walking I'm doing, because its steps-to-miles (or kilometers) conversion is for someone who takes longer steps than I do, but I look at the numbers anyhow, on the theory that the actual conversion is consistent enough that if it says I walked twice as much Sunday as Saturday I probably did.

I now have a printed MBTA map in my daypack, which I picked up earlier this afternoon, several months after someone told me that they're available at Park Street. This isn't the first time I've walked past the information booth on the Green Line platform, but it's the first time I noticed and remembered that they might have a map. (In New York City, the printed maps are very easy to come by; in Montreal they are easiest to find at the airport; and in Seattle they don't seem to exist.)

Having realized that I don't own enough non-cotton socks, I just used a $10 promotional gift card from LL Bean to order a pair of fleece socks; I'm willing to spend $6.95 to find out whether these are a good idea, and if they are I'll get a few more. (I recently bought a pair of smartwool socks, which fit okay but are relatively thin, so I'm not sure about buying more.)