My very favorite part of the day is the walk home at night from the lab to the NARL hotel.  I’m usually tired as all get-out, due to various distractions that keep me out of bed, but the sunlight is so perfect I could just walk down that road for hours.

Good thing it is only a five minute walk, or I wouldn’t get any sleep at all. Zombie Jenny is not nearly as good at counting grass as Regular Boring Jenny.

Today Zombie Jenny had a particularly difficult time keeping her mind on the task at hand.  The task at hand was listening to Job call out the lengths of various leaves in the plots, but between callings I was a hundred miles away.

I try always to avoid needless sentiment of the Hallmark-card and inspirational-poster variety, but thinking, as we all know, leads to trouble. The weather today was decidedly pleasant, reinforcing how much I like it here. The town itself is nice, the tundra is nicer, and the community is nicest of all. I could keep masquerading  as a scientist for years, if need be.  (Don’t worry, family, I know they won’t let me.)

Unfortunately, these trains of thought generated the sentiment that popped into my head on one of my favorite walks last week. The sun, as you know, is an ever-present part of the landscape, save for days of fog and cloud cover, and I thought “Isn’t it nice that there are people here from all over the world and we can always see the sun, no matter whose country or home it is shining on?”

This sentiment of goodwill will be cross-stitched on a pillow within the week, though I will have to reword it for brevity’s sake. I’m thinking something nice and vomitous like, “May the sun never set on the heart of Barrow.”

Catchy, eh? I promise I won’t let it happen again.

Time for my walk!