Going to the Greenhouse

Our house guest is back, and yesterday I took her for a long walk as the sun was setting. How fun is it to walk a sunset-colored dog in the light of the sunset? Although for the first part of the “walk,” it was actually a “run.” I am still bringing my phone along with me on these excursions, to get credit for all my steps, but now I have a second device to count my steps. As part of a weight-loss research study, I got a FitBit, and it counts steps that my phone can’t, like when I’m getting into the shower. Right now it says I have over 5000 steps, while my phone only says I have 4400. Also, this morning it told me that I had slept for seven hours and twelve minutes. Good to know!

Our university emails us a newsletter every Tuesday and Thursday, and this week there was a story about the Botany greenhouse where I used to work back when I was in school. My colleague read the story and asked if I wanted to see the greenhouse, so today we went there over lunch. I go there now and then to enjoy how little it has changed in the quarter century since I got paid to water the plants, but my colleague had no idea it existed, and she was amazed by it. There are eight greenhouses with different kinds of plants, like one with cycads and ferns and water plants, one with deciduous plants that is a lot cooler than the others, and my favorite, the cactus house. We saw a student in there watering the cacti, and my colleague said it looked like a fun job. He said it was, and I said I used to do it, and it was the best job I ever had. Lots of exercise and sunshine, even in the middle of February! How does it get any better than that?

Famous Hat